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I need to tell you a story. It’s the story of our Adoption Journey and the story is still being written. It began 5 ½ years ago when Casting Crowns went on tour with Steven Curtis Chapman. Every night Steven would sing “Love Takes You In” and would show a video of little Shaohannah’s adoption (She was the 1st little girl the Chapmans adopted from China.) Well, about 6 shows into the tour I passed Mark backstage and he said “Have you seen Shaohannah’s video?” I told him that I had not. I wondered what that meant. He asked me again the next night and the next, so I decided that I should probably stop and do that. I did and that was the moment our journey began. Since then God has been showing us his perspective on caring for orphans from James 1:27, “Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.” He has opened our eyes to the plight of millions of orphans around the world.



I must admit that when God first began speaking to us about adoption that I was afraid. I had 2 big questions. First, I was concerned about adding another precious child to the craziness of the Hall Family. I wanted to know if it was fair to this sweet orphan. My second question was, there are millions of orphans in the world. How can us adopting one little orphan make a difference? God answered these questions in His timing 2 yrs later. Nevertheless, Mark and I agreed that we would follow and trust as the Lord directed. So we prayed for God’s guidance and timing.



In March 2007 we felt like God said that it was time for the Hall Family to add another little one to the craziness. Even though it seemed radical, God gave us a peace that it was what He intended for our family and it was time to take the next step. Next we began the long and involved paperwork process for International Adoption. We wanted to adopt a little girl from China. Our Dossier was “logged in” on July 30th, 2007. (Its an adoption term. My vocabulary has grown significantly.) And then we began the next phase. . .Waiting! Waiting, waiting, waiting, and more waiting. Later that year, I received the answer to my 2nd question. I attended the Shaohannah’s Hope Conference and we celebrated 1000 orphans that had been placed in Forever Families since the day that Steven and MaryBeth had been faithful and obedient with adopting One little orphan girl. That was the answer I needed to hear. We are praying that our act of obedience might inspire others to consider the plight of orphans around the world and be motivated to help in some way.



In May 2009, I was thinking about our little orphan and how she is in a place where it seems she has nothing, no one and her future seems hopeless. God impressed this verse on my heart, “For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you HOPE and a Future.” Jeremiah 29:11. He whispered to me that her name is to be HOPE and she has a future!



In August of last year, Mark and I felt that God was leading us to change our focus to find a child in the Waiting Child program. The children in this program have special needs. Sometimes they have major health concerns that require surgery, and sometimes they have quite minor issues. Now we knew we would name her Hope and we were just trusting God to match us with the little girl that He had planned for our family.



I am happy to say that on January 26 of this year we found Our HOPE and we are going to be a part of Her Future! She is 2 ½ yrs old and she is beautiful. She had to have some serious surgeries due to birth defects, but her surgeries were finished long ago and she is a precious healthy little girl waiting on a forever family. We have been waiting on our RA (Referral Acceptance-more adoption lingo) to make it official so that we could share this awesome news with you!



Earlier this week we received our official RA from CCAA(China Center for Adoption Affairs) with the bright red stamp. The form asked us if we would agree to make Hope a part of our family. Of course the answer was a resounding “YES!” Our family is so excited! Now we wait to find out when we can go and get her, only now the waiting is easier because we’ve seen her face and we know the time is close. Please pray with us that we are able to travel to China in May when the tour is over and Mark can go with us to get her. And please pray for our little China Girl named Hope.



{I apologize for the Epic blog entry. I hope you will understand.}



Until the Whole World Hears!

Melanie Hall



p.s. I’ll send a picture of her with my next blog.