The Miracle of Family

I have been so excited in recent weeks to follow the adoption journey of one very special little girl I met in China, MengYan. She was housemate and best friend to my little Niu Niu girl, so naturally, we saw a lot of her on our trip. Meng quickly won us over with her sweetness and gentle spirit and we always looked forward to seeing her shyly peer around the corner when we entered Samaritan's House and then come closer and closer until pretty soon she was curled up in our lap. During our time in China, we heard that precious little Meng had been matched and would be leaving to join her forever family soon. All we could think about was how lucky her future family was to be getting such an adorable, cuddly girl! Imagine how thrilled I was to "meet" her mom via the web soon after arriving home from our trip and discovering the amazing family G*d had picked out for little Meng! The burden of my heart ever since returning from China has been that G*d would raise up incredible Chr1st1an families to open their homes to each one of these kids that I gave so much of my heart to in China, and "meeting" Meng's family online gave me a beautiful glimpse of how G*d is answering my prayers, one child at a time! He is so good and His lovingkindness for these kids blows me away. Please continue praying that all of Meng's friends at PHF, and other needy orphans across the road, would be able to experience the same miracle of being adopted into families where they will be loved and treasured and taught about J*sus! Adoption is a glorious, breathtakingly beautiful miracle, as Meng's story illustrates so well. In July, when I met this little girl, she was Emily MengYan, an orphan in China. In September, by the grace of our wonderful G*d, she became Emily MengYan McKinney, a beloved daughter, sister, and friend. In an instant, her world completely and radically changed because eight people in America stepped out and said, "you belong to us." Suddenly this precious little girl belonged to someone and had hope and a future. Seeing the joy on the McKinneys' faces, especially MengYan's, in the past few weeks is beyond incredible to me. I just cannot say thank you to G*d enough for his care of this little girl that I came to love so much!
The Samaritan's House kids (photo taken Winter '09). MengYan is pictured in the back with a pink sweater and headband. Hop on over to the McKinney's blog to see this little girl now...
www.emilymengyanmckinney.blogspot.com

"But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God's own possession, so that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light; for once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy"
-1 Peter 2:9-10 (emphases mine)