How it all began pt1

I will be posting some pictures of our daughter-to-be, Maria soon. Theres so much I would love to tell you about her but for now this will have to do. She is 9 years old and she has been in an orphanage since she was 2 but before we get to far down the road we need to back up and tell the story of how this all began for us.
I met Maria on a mission trip to an orphanage in Panama City in January of 2006 the orphanage is called Casa de hogar. There are probably 30 kids there at any given time and my goal was to get as much Dentistry done on these kids and the students at the adjacent Bible College as I could. Maria had Cleft lip and palate which had recently been operated on and she was and still is in need of Speech Therapy, not to mention significant dental rehabilitation when she gets to the states. Due to her speech difficulty Maria was very shy and rarely spoke aloud. I understand this has changed somewhat over the past year which has been great news.
So what happened that made us consider adopting? After our third natural child (our third little princess) my wife and I decided not to bring anymore children into the world...if God willed us to have another he would let us know. And that is what happened in Panama. When I met Maria and heard her story and realized that she had no one to love her as a daughter and no one to love as a mother or father, my heart was literally crushed, God was laying this on my heart and I knew 100% that I would try to do what I could to give her a home. Now just how could I bring this subject up to my wife? Hey Honey....here's some artwork from Panama and some clothes and shoes oh and lets adopt this sweet little girl I met.....Actually all it took was just telling her that there was a little girl that needed a home and her heart was melted. All that was the easy part.....little did we know that adoptions in Latin American countries (except maybe Guatemala) are anything but easy. More to come soon.