Our adoption story began before we got married. We always knew we were going to adopt and soon after we were married, God led us to start our family first through adoption. We were interested in adopting from Haiti, but were told about this pesky law about age and marriage, which disqualified us from adopting from Haiti. We thought it was a closed door...for the time. 
We then prayed for the Lord to lead us. And He did. 
To Ukraine. We were approved for 2 children and were offered a sibling set of 4. 
The government there told us to go home change our
 homestudy and then come back in a month and pick them up. The day that we were going to send our new docs to Ukraine, we were told the children were given to another family. We were grieving that loss and so uncertain about what God was doing. 
We knew we were supposed to go to Ukraine and changing our docs to 4 kids was not a problem, but here we were paperwork ready for 4 children with empty arms. 
(Not to mention our Sunday school class had raised the majority of the money for us to go to Ukraine. We had lost $10,000 of other people's money in that failed adoption. That was a heavy burden for my heart)

After much prayer and mourning, a friend asked if we ever would look at Haiti again. We said YES! and she encouraged us to look into programs again since laws change so frequently there. We found Linda and FHG and were thrilled about the possibility of growing our family. First, we fell in love with Ada (Merline). We chose her off the 
photo listing and KNEW she was our daughter. When
 Linda told us a family had her on hold, I
 thought my baby was going to the wrong family. Not even a day later, I got an email saying the family
 did not have a peace about her and needed to pray more
 about her knowing she may not be available. What
 peace filled my heart as we joyfully accepted her. 
Then Linda emailed us about a newborn baby girl that
 was not even on the photolisting and asked if we
 would pray about her. We did and she was ours. So our
 true bundle of joy, Evelyn (Cassandra) joined our
 family.
We thought we were done. As we had come full circle:
back to Haiti with 2 little girls. Two weeks went by and I got another email. Linda said
 that a little girl came into the orphanage from another orphanage that had closed down. 
Linda told me that she had prayed for this little one year old and our
 names were on her heart. We had
two already and adding Nica (Michaina) would mean
 three babies under 3 years, but we prayed about it. 
For three days we prayed, individually and together and every time we prayed, all we heard was “she's your
 daughter, she's your daughter, she's your daughter!” When we told our Sunday School class about the girls,
 they said “we will go with you wherever the Lord takes
you.” On Super Bowl Sunday, they had a party for us and in one night, the Lord provided $18,000 through
 them!!!! I am still in awe of the way God's people
 move when He calls them! In December of 2006 we were notified of our release from IBESR and excitedly look forward to our daughters homecoming in the next few months!

Sean and Cate Johnson