Jeremiah 1:5

Hello there family and friends. Once again we have discovered how to get into our blog and want to catch up on posting "again."  Ronnie wrote the post below a long time ago but we never got around to publishing it here on the blog.  I think its a good place to start. 



Here is something that Becky and I have been meaning to share for some time now. For some it will be an awe inspiring revelation, for some others it may just be another coincidence.

The unborn baby spends around 38 weeks in utero. The average length of pregnancy is about 40 weeks.  Remember the due date is an estimate. Most babies don't arrive exactly on their due date, the majority arrive somewhere between three weeks before or two weeks after.

Some time after we had returned from China with Hope we were sitting around talking about the wait. We now knew Hope's birthday and were wondering what we were doing when Hope was born. I said that it would be amazing if we found out that she was born at about the same time that we first decided to adopt a little girl. I asked Becky if maybe she was born on the Sunday the lady who had worked in the orphanage in China had visited our church. The Missionary had said,

 "if you have room in your home and your heart, please consider adopting from China." That was when Becky whispered in my ear and said, "we have room don't we"? (I never could resist Becky whispering in my ear.)

Becky immediately remembered that it wasn't close to Dec.12, 2004 when the folks from China had visited, it was back in the Spring of 2004 she thought. I remembered that we had written a check for a donation to their work on that Sunday and I set out to find the duplicate. In a few minutes I had located it and found that the date was Mar.21, 2004. I puzzled over that for a couple of minutes thinking how that date might relate to Hope's birth day. Then I started counting and the light turned on. It was 267 days from the time that the Lord planted a desire in our hearts to adopt a daughter from China to the day that Huai Dong Tan aka Hope Marie was born. 267 divided by 7 equals 38.14 weeks.

This just confirmed what we already knew... she was meant to be our daughter.

"Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart.." Jeremiah 1:5 NIV