Posted in Musings

Ten years ago I met a young missionary woman and her adopted baby at a garage sale. We immediately hit it off and had a good time there at the sale. She was with her baby daughter and I was with Joshua who was 3 at the time.  We swapped “adoption in Ecuador” stories and she shared with me that the sister of her daughter’s birth mother was pregnant and planning on an abortion.  Guy and I had just returned from several months in the States and had decided that if Joshua was to have any siblings we needed to get busy. Lots of people had approached us about situations they knew of but we never felt a nudge from God to pursue anything...until I met Jill. She mentioned that they were pretty sure that she was going to have a girl and that is just what we wanted. Jill then became our go-between as we approached the situation. The young woman decided to let us adopt her baby rather than go through the abortion.

For several months we prayed and sought God’s will in the matter. We felt God’s leadership and the closer it came to the birth the stronger we felt about this being God’s will. We began to supply the young woman with food as she had lost her job and had no income. We wanted to work out some legal documents ahead of time but this never worked out.

We thought the baby was to be born in December around Christmas. We even had a special Christmas related name picked out. We were so excited about having a little girl. At this point in time, however, we knew we would accept whatever she had regardless of gender. Christmas came and went and we waited with anticipation. We got the call from the doctor that was attending the young woman on January 12, 1996. We left Joshua with the neighbors and rushed over to the clinic where she was to give birth. We checked her in and waited. We didn’t have long to wait. She was giving birth by Caesarean and it only took 30 minutes before the doctor came out to tell us to come in and meet our daughter.

It was so exciting to be the first to hold her and love on her. Guy held her first and whispered her name to her. We wanted her to be the first to hear her name. We hadn’t told anyone what we had decided on (since it was after Christmas we didn’t go with the Christmas name). Our daughter was the first to know that she was given the name Anna Victoria.  We gave her “Anna” after Anna in the New Testament. Anna was a woman who gave her life to serve God in the Temple and is, we believe, a woman of great prayer. We gave her “Victoria” because we wanted her to have victory in life. Our blessing to her through her name is “victory through prayer.” We had no idea at the time just how truly named she is!

The day after her birth we took her home. She was born on Saturday and we stayed home from church on Sunday to just spend time together as a new family. It was a very special day for all of us and the videos and pictures taken are very special.


Then the rain started (just like it always does in the movie when something bad is about to happen). It was the rainy season and it began to pour. That evening we got a phone call from Jill who was crying and said that the young woman who had given birth to Anna had changed her mind. She wanted her baby back. I couldn’t believe it. We had no legal standing so we had no choice but to let her come and take her away. Joshua, who was 4 at the time, was asleep and we debated about what to do. Should we wake him or not? He was so thrilled and happy to be a big brother. We decided to wake him up so that he would be able to say goodbye instead of waking to find her gone.

I will never forget that night. It still brings tears to my eyes when I write about it or talk to people about it. We were so devastated. Word got around our missionary family there in Guayaquil. We told everyone that we just wanted to be alone and so they stayed away. When Hilda Miller, a missionary friend in Quito, heard about it she called one of our mission family here and told them to come over regardless of what we said. She said we needed someone there no matter what we said or thought. And she was right.

There was little sleep that night as we slept together as a family. The following days were spent being unable to do anything but sit and cry. The heart pain was almost unbearable. We did not understand. We were so sure that this was God’s will for us. We then made a decision. Our decision was to pray to God and leave it in His hands for 6 weeks. We would not call or seek out any one else’s help. We would let God do whatever it took to get her back and we would wait on him. I have never prayed so hard. Many people covenanted to pray with us and would come to the house to pray.

After 6 weeks of intense prayer we accepted that it was God’s will that she not be a part of our family. One Friday Guy went up to Teleamigo, a telephone counseling ministry he was working with, and encountered Lilita, She is a small elderly woman who to this day continues to pray for our family. She asked Guy about the situation and Guy told her that we had given it 6 weeks and that we had accepted that she was not to be a part of our family. Lilita gasped, wagged her finger at Guy and rebuked him for his lack of faith.  She said we should not give up praying.  And she was right. That very evening we received a call to come pick up Anna Victoria back to our family. We had certainly gotten victory through prayer!  That was our first major prayer victory in Anna’s life.