"O, Lord, You are my God; I will exalt You; I will praise Your name, for You have done wonderful things, plans formed of old, faithful and sure." Isaiah 25:1
It is with praise to Him who set the world in motion that we humbly introduce the newest Lindquist. She is a beautiful soon to be 2 year old who God has joined to us in this remarkable way. We want to thank Him for providing a wonderful, caring "grandma" for her while she waits for us to arrive. God is sovereign over all things and brings families together in such amazingly wonderful ways.
We knew that there was a possibility that we could see her cute little face at the end of June, but nothing is ever a sure thing. So, we waited by the computer, casually glancing at our email inbox throughout the evening. Ok. It was anything but casual!! I must have checked every two minutes to find all kinds of junk mail, which I promptly deleted. As we waited, we prayed. I'd like to say that I was the picture of serene calm and peace, but that would be a lie! :) Finally, around 9:30 pm, I saw the subject line we were praying for. Everything else faded away as we poured over her pictures and file. Since she was a part of China's shared list, we needed to act quickly to lock her file. After doing that, we continued to read about our amazing baby girl. She was born July 12, 2009 in Nanning, China. She has had the privilege of being a part of Half the Sky Foundation's "grandma" program from two days old. God answered our prayers for her protection and provision even before we knew her name! We are so grateful to Him for this. Well, everyone at home crowded around the computer to look at their new sister and we took a minute to pray right then. Mari was not at home, but we sent the pictures to her phone and she too was quickly in love with the newest Lindquist.
So, what's her name? She will be Elsa Mei Yue Lindquist when she is officially adopted. Our wonderful friend, Grace, helped us with the Chinese middle name. Since Elsa's big sister Annika's middle name is Mei Eng (beautiful grace), we wanted to keep with that format for her as well. Mei Yue means beautiful joy. Our prayer is that "the joy of the Lord is your strength" (Nehemiah 8:10) will be made manifest in her life from early on.
When will we travel? We don't know. We begin another round of paperwork and waiting now that we have formally asked to adopt Elsa. The typical wait time for families once they have received their PA (pre-approval), is about 4-5 months. The wonderful news is, God is in control of this too!! We will have opportunities to send her a photo album of her family and gifts which will begin to prepare her for our arrival. It will be fun to send her things and let her know we love her and can't wait to get there.
As we wait, we will shop (love that!), prepare the girls' room to accommodate two, make her fleece blanket (a family tradition), and do some more shopping! Seriously, we will continue to lift this entire process up to the One who has so graciously allowed us the opportunity to adopt again. What a complete blessing and privilege. God will show Himself mighty and be glorified in this. For that we are truly excited.
