Two weeks later an email passed through the yahoo group about TanTan. The man who wrote it, Gary Cooney, talked about working as a volunteer in China's Tianjin orphanage the previous summer on behalf of an organization called China Care, and falling in love with a particular child. He wrote about how TanTan had been diagnosed with Cerebral Palsy but that he saw nothing wrong with the child and hated the thought of TanTan living out his life in the orphanage. He said that TanTan is the one he'd go back for. We remember thinking, "Then why don't you go back for him?" He talked of TanTan's laugh, of his thrill in going on walks outside and how every leaf amazed him. Something about Gary's description of TanTan's personality matched up with Cindy's prayers for an unknown son we thought was a year or more away. When she had prayed for a son, she'd pictured him bringing laughter and joy into our family. We decided to name our new son Beck before we even knew him. It is a Scandinavian name meaning "flowing brook". And that is how Cindy saw him...flowing into our family and making it more beautiful just like a brook does to the landscape.

I called Gary that night and found out that he is a college student from Ireland who is going to Harvard. No wonder he didn't just adopt TanTan. Gary told me that the child's name is actually TianTang, which means heaven. Gary himself had nicknamed him TanTan. The next day we called the agency in MN that held his paperwork. Two days later we officially agreed to adopt TanTan.

The next twist proves that God has a sense of humor. Three hours after notifying the agency that we would take TanTan, we found out that Cindy had become pregnant on that trip to Nashville. Almost simultaneously, a friend saw me looking at a picture of TanTan and asked me if I was planning to adopt him; I said yes. She then told me that God had lain on her heart to give me some money to help with an adoption. It was a sizeable amount and a confirmation to us that we should indeed proceed.

We waited a couple days to tell the agency that we were pregnant. They then had a meeting to discuss whether they would allow us to follow through with the adoption. An hour later they called back and said,"We think that if TanTan has a chance of having a family, it is yours."

So we zipped along with the mountain of paperwork and with financial help from many of our friends, including China Care and the Lydia Fund, we went to China in September and returned home with him on Sep. 25th. We've named him Beck TianTang Stephens; we'll still call him TanTan, perhaps just "Tan" as he gets older. On Oct. 18th, Cindy will give birth to a boy by C-section, Jett Hudson Stephens.

This is the beginning of an amazing journey with TanTan. Thanks to God for His grace and goodness. As an interesing side note to the story, for those who don't know, we adopted a 14 month old Chinese girl two years ago. During the adoption process, we became unexpectedly pregnant. (See a pattern here?) Our two girls, Dove and Promise Joy, have birthdays three days apart. They both will turn four this November.