Why India?

I wish I had a quarter for every time that question has been posed to Jack or I. Now that I'm documenting our journey, I guess I can address it here as well. I must admit, there was -- and IS -- a part of me that wants to answer "Why not India?" and just leave it at that. However, I won't leave it at that. There is a short answer and a long answer to that query, but don't worry, I'll try to find a happy medium.

When we first contemplated international adoption, Guatemala was high on our list (short flight from the US, short stay in country when picking up our child, popular  and well-established program with several agencies we liked, knowing other families in our community with children from there, etc.) So it made sense in our eyes to pursue an adoption from such a convenient country, and in 2006 we quietly began investigating a few different avenues towards a Guatemalan adoption plan. But we kept reaching closed doors or dead ends. Hmmm... this second adoption thing wasn't happening as smoothly as the first. What's up with that?

Well, the answers finally started peeking out of their hiding places oh around April 12th, 2007. (Does that date ring a bell?) Let me admit here publicly that Rupankar's eyes were not the first little eyes we let ourselves dream about. There had been others during that year of investigating the world of international adoption. But thankfully (I can say that now) we were never allowed to journey too far down those other paths and our hearts were thus protected. So Guatemala was at the top of our list, but there were other countries we thought might be "it" as well. (Our list of countries came about basically by finding out which country requirements were feasible or doable in our instance -- sort of the same reasons Guatemala sounded like a good plan.)

Ok, I said this was going to be a happy medium answer, right? Ok, let's get to it. Stop distracting me and making me get all wordy. SO...back to April 12th. India could just have well been Africa, or China, or Russia, or even Catawba County. It's not the where that is important to us. This is what's important: Once God brought this beautiful Indian boy named Rupankar into our line of sight, we prayed just like we had done previously. "Father, plainly show us Your will. Open or shut the doors as You see fit." Now 8 1/2 months have gone by since then and our Father is still ushering us through open doors... doors leading to the beautiful land of India.