Introducing...

"I may infuse within you a dream that seems far beyond your reach.  You know that in yourself you cannot achieve such a goal.  Thus begins your journey of profound reliance on Me."  --Jesus Calling

The phone call came unexpectedly on an idle Tuesday morning. I was standing over the stove, sautéing chopped onions and diced tomatoes, when I realized I'd left my cell phone in my car after returning home from Costco about an hour earlier. As I brought my phone back inside, I saw that I'd missed a call from Tiffany, our case manager at our adoption agency. She hadn't left a message, and my heart started beating faster.

This is it, I thought.  She's calling to tell us she's found our son.

There was no other reason I could think of for her phone call, and because it was the beginning of the month, I knew that more children had just been uploaded to the Chinese orphan databank. As I cradled my phone in my hand, it started ringing.  It was Tiffany again.  I was terrified to answer it.

I've rehearsed what this phone call would be like a million times over. I have always imagined joyous screams and laughter...not my current reaction, which was the sudden urge to say, "No, I'm not ready for this!" and hang up on her. I made it through "Hello" and she said the words I was both elated and terrified to hear: "I think I found a referral for your family!"

I walked the phone back to Chris, who was providentially home from work and sitting at his desk. I put Tiffany on speaker and we listened as she started telling us about the boy who might be our son. As we were on the phone with her, she emailed us his entire file. We opened up the attachments. We saw the photos. We were instantly captivated.

As we gazed at his adorable face, my fear dwindled down and my heart raced wildly with excitement. Oh my goodness, this was happening, this was really happening! He might be ours. I felt it in my bones. This was our boy, our Ren, our beautiful boy. I desperately hoped this was him.

The following days were a race to collect information, fill out and notarize more documents, seek our social worker's approval, and get feedback from an international adoption pediatrician. Our potential son's file was on lock for our family, but we had to gather all of this information before we could come back with an official "yes" for our agency. And after 48 hours of paper chasing, phone conferences, long discussions, a lot of prayer, and gazing at this precious boy's face a thousand times...we have said...

YES!!!

So, we would like to introduce you to the newest and arguably cutest member of the Kurz clan:

Warren Robert Kurz, aka "Ren"

Born on 21 November 2010

We started this process just over a year ago. It's crazy to think that Ren was just one month old when we mailed off our official adoption application to AGCI. The waiting has been extremely difficult and we know it will get harder, as we most likely won't travel to get him for another 4-6 months, but we are overflowing with joy to know who he is, where he is, and to start the final stage of our journey toward him.

Last weekend, Chris and I both sat down separately to write a 2011 Kurz family newsletter to send out to our friends and family. We each attempted to recap what last year looked like for our family, and we both abandoned our attempts--it just didn't feel right--and for good reason, as this life changing news was about to hit us the following day. And, as always, God knew exactly what He was doing and when the perfect time would be for it. This entire journey has been a constant reminder of the truth expressed in Psalm 31:14-15, which I happened to read the morning we received the news:

But as for me, I trust in You, O Lord;

I say "You are my God,"

My times are in Your hand.

To God be all the praise and glory. He is a Father to the fatherless, our healer, our redeemer. We are continually amazed at His love for us, at His constant work on our behalf, at His incredible and constant presence in our lives, even when we can't always see or feel it.

We want to thank all of you for following us along on this journey, for your prayers and support, and we ask that you continue to lift us up in prayer as we are going to need it in the months to come.

I will close with a quote from a book, The Quotidian Mysteries, that I finished reading a few weeks ago. It eloquently captures some of the places our hearts and minds have treaded over the past year:

"We are asked to make all that we have been taught and trained to do--as nurses, educators, theologians, poets, doctors, secretaries, accountants or what-have-you--available to God. Especially when human need is at its greatest, and we know ourselves to be incapable of meeting that need on our own, we are asked to find our strength in Jesus Christ. And we are asked to make our most serious and intimate commitments with very little idea of how long they will last, or what will be required of us."  --Kathleen Norris