Why we are doing this

I realized that we haven't been able to share our entire story about how God has directed our path to adopt Maria and decided to post it here. For now, I'll give the shortened version, since it's past midnight...

This is the story (that I read on the Reece's Rainbow website) that changed everything for us:

Maria

Date of Birth: September 17, 2007

Gender: Female

Eyes: Brown

Hair: Brown

Nature: Cheerful, helpful, social

This muffin has a caregiver who loves her dearly.  When they learned of the possibility of finding a family for her, they were so happy and offered the following info about her:  "Maria is very friendly and in her group she helps the caregiver to give the food to children, like they give her cookies, for instance, and tell her to please pass out to everybody and she does it. If she has one cookie she would divide it into pieces to give to all the people around."

 Maria was born from a socially strong family; both parents were highly educated, not too young, they were in registered marriage. The parents were just not able to overcome the fact of the appearance of a child with Down syndrome. Maria has also had heart problems, and she has had a surgery, which has solved them. Now she is functioning well.   Also she has had problems with intestinal tract and she has had the surgery, which was also successful.

This broke my heart and brought me to tears. My first reaction? Anger. My next reaction? Pain. And next? Compassion. She can be part of our family! Did I say that? Well, I did, but I think it came from the heart of God and not me. And thus began our adoption adventure...

GOD'S HEART:ADOPTION
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xrPGyzvI_nU&feature=player_embedded