The Norman Family

I'm Emily, my husband is Phil. We have a daughter, Sarah, turning 5 in March and a son, Davis, who turned 3 in December. We live in Salem, VA. I will try to give you the short version so you don't have to read a novel.

God put adoption and more specifically Guatemala on my heart the first week of July 2006. However, he did not put it on my husband's. We still researched agencies & adoption, settled on AGCI b/c it was the only one we had peace with. We really liked that they were an orphan care ministry as well and had ways to get involved aside from adoption. August 2006 we began sponsoring a precious 10yr old girl at Hannah's Hope. In October of 2006 we both felt God leading us to serve on a mission trip there. We wanted to learn more about the country, culture, and serve the people. So we signed up with AGCI's Global Orphan Project and were set to go the first week of July 2007, exactly one year from God laying this country on my heart. This was our first mission trip and first time we had left our children for more than two nights.

Once we landed in Guatemala, we went straight to Hannah's Hope. We were so excited to meet the little girl that we sponsored, now 11. When we walked in Casa 3 and Ashley introduced us, she came over to us, I got down on my knees in front of her said hello, how are you, and told her she was beautiful in Spanish. We hugged and my heart was gone completely. This little girl that we had prayed for- that God would send her a forever family, sent cards/stickers to, was now holding my hand and showing us her room. I could go on and on about the time we had with her that week, but let me stop here. That night in the hotel, my husband and I knew that God had brought us to Guatemala for this little girl. After meeting her my husband's heart opened to adoption. We both felt like God was saying, this is your daughter. We spent the week not only working with the kids at Hannah's Hope, but also serving in other orphanages and La Limonada. We went to serve and did, but came back with the peace to adopt and more love for the country, culture, and people. When you go, it steals your heart.

After a life changing week in Guatemala we came home and started our home study 9 days later. Our issue is complicated b/c her abandonment isn't cleared yet. We knew when we were there in July that she was close & took a leap of faith to start the process. Unfortunately, it didn't clear by Dec. 31, 2007. Our dossier went to AGCI at the beginning of Nov. and we received our FDL in Dec. She knows that we are her sponsors, she does not know that we have been trying to adopt her. They weren't going to tell her until we accepted her referral, so that she wouldn't be disappointed if it didn't work out. God has given us what we believe as confirmation that we made the right choice to wait. We love this little girl that God started knitting in our heart in Aug. of 2006. She turned 12 in January. We miss her so much, but we were blessed just this week with some new pictures of her and found out that she had received our Valentine card and was very excited. So we wait and know that she is worth it. We have a blog that you are welcome to read. www.philnorman.com