Isabelle Faith Mei

In 2003 my family adopted my little sister from Guangzhou, China. It all started when my older sister Natalie and I listened to Steven Curtis Chapman, a Christian music artist, give his family's testimony about their adoptions. His older daughter was their family adoption advocate, so Natalie and I decided to be ours. We downloaded information on different agencies and presented the facts to my parents. After both my mom and dad prayed, talked and thought a lot about it we decided to pursue an adoption from China. We gathered the paperwork, signed papers, sent it to China, and waited... and waited... and waited.
In the meantime two weeks after we sent the paperwork in, mom found out that she was expecting... WOW! This was amazing but very overwhelming. What was God thinking, two babies at one time. Our semi-small family of six was now rapidly increasing! Now we were preparing for two new additions and things were changing.
Skip ahead a few months and we are still waiting on our referral for my Chinese sister when we heard about the outbreak of SARS. China's doors closed and adoptions where put on hold. We had no clue how long this closure was for, but we diligently prayed that my sister, whoever she may be would be safe and well taken care of until we could come and pick her up.
Here at home time moved on and my baby sister Abigail was born, February 13, 2003. God blessed us with the happiest baby ever.
Finally in July of '03 we received the call that we were going to China!!! It one of the most exciting days ever! We began our travel preparations, and on September 11, 2003 all seven members of the VanWetten Family traveled to China. When we arrived in China we were required to sight see for 3 days, then we flew to Guangzhou and got Isabelle. She was beautiful!!!

The rest is history...

She is six now and on her way to becoming a wonderful young lady. She is in kindergarten and learning to read and write. Besides school, she is involved in gymnastic and ballet. Her smile shows how her life has been renewed through the love of a family. It is amazing to see the transformation that can take hold of a small person when Love becomes their source.

My family learned so much through this adoption and our hearts were opened to truly acting out the work of God. We all wondered, "What is next"...???