Joy!

HE IS HOME!!!!

What a wonderful day.

Of course, the suspense has been killing me the last couple of days. Yesterday the social worker told me that they hadn’t had electricity for over a day and thus the letter hadn’t been typed.

This morning I called her about 8 times without her ever answering. Finally, I sent her a text message with an impassioned plea to please try to get us the letter today, because Gil was going to start work again on Monday. She sent a text message back, “It’s already been signed.”

Uhhh….were you going to tell me?

So off we went! Picked up the letter, drove across town to the orphanage, and picked up our baby!

The details:

His name is Josiah Christian George Medina.

Josiah: the name Gil and I had picked out for our first son since…probably before we were married

Christian: his orphanage name

George: my grandfather’s name. We added this name just today, because we found out that the very moment we were picking up Josiah from the orphanage, my 84 year old grandfather slipped into eternity. We knew it was coming–he has been in a coma for a month now, but the irony of his death at the exact time Josiah entered our family is something we will always remember. Joy in the midst of sadness.

Josiah’s birthday is November 1, 2007. He is almost 10 months old.

You may remember that there were 5 available baby boys at the orphanage to choose from. Gil and I were both inexplicably drawn to this little guy. God put him on our hearts. We also think it is really special that his orphanage name was Christian, and Grace’s orphanage name was Christa.

He has a very different disposition from Grace, who from day one was everybody’s best friend. Grace has always been very easy-going, friendly, happy, and full of songs and dances. Josiah is very solemn. During two of the three visits we made to him in the last month, he cried without stopping the entire time! So we figured this would be a different kind of adjustment than we had with Grace. But he did pretty well today, considering all the changes in his little life.

He has giant dark eyes that take everything in. All day today, he has been watching us. When one of us leaves the room, he cranes his head to follow where we are going. He is very serious, but also very alert and expressive with those huge eyes of his. We’ve gotten some almost smiles out of him, especially during bath time.

He seems small for his age (but maybe that’s just because I’m comparing him to Grace!) but seems developmentally on target; he is crawling and pulling up and “talking.” (Sigh…unfortunately, no immobile period for me!)

Grace is doing great–a little more emotional than usual, but is very eager to show Josiah everything and teach him everything she knows. Since Josiah he is already 10 months old, it won’t take him very long to become a playmate for her!

I praise God for what He taught me while making us wait these extra weeks. Josiah is all the more precious to us now, and my Sovereign God is all the more trustworthy! I praise Him for how He is creating my family.

I am blessed indeed.