Ok....so, we think we are "experts" now on everything there is to know about children from orphanages...right? WRONG. But, we didn't know that at the time when we decided to host a beautiful 7 year old girl from Ukraine.

My husband and I decided that there was no greater gift that we could give to each other than to bring an orphan to our home for 3 weeks for Christmas. We went through a hosting program that was incredible. Our entire family, neighbors, community, everyone got involved in bringing this little girl to our home for Christmas. We were completely shocked at the outpour of support.

We saw a glimpse of a picture of this little girl before she arrived to our airport. Oh my word....our hearts melted. Everytime I looked at her picture, tears would well up. I could not imagine her having to live in an orphanage. It hurt. We were determined that we were going to show her the world when she got to our house.

"Be careful to not overwhelm the children", "Don't give them too many presents", "Don't bring too many people around them the first few days" "All of this will overwhelm them". This is what our Host Organization told us. Well, it wasn't like we didn't believe them. But, we just thought that well maybe that they didn't REALLY know what they were talking about :).

We met some incredible people before the children got here. To this day, we are very close to Michelle and Dan from Charlotte, NC and Angie and John from Salisbury, NC. This does not even touch the people that we became close to from the online adoption community. It was like this whole new world came to us.

The day came for our host child to arrive at the Raleigh/Durham airport. Just imagine Christmas songs playing in your head, our girls were dressed in their Christmas outfits, I even thought that we were the best Norman Rockwell picture out there. I went so far as to think.... "What if she is the ONE?".

There was a whisper in my ear that I really couldn't hear. It had been told to me before, but, I suppose I haven't been listening...... " A man makes a plan in his heart, but, God directs his path" Proverbs 16:9

Sometimes we just want to direct our own path...doesn't God get that? :)