1995, Shenyang China

The year was 1995 and Brett and I were about to celebrate our one year anniversary. We were in Shenyang, China on a prayer journey. We were praying for the people of China and God spoke to us. "Your daughter is out there." At that point, we knew we were to adopt from China. We weren't yet old enough. We were 5 years away from the required age of 30 in order to adopt from China. By the time we were eligible, we were pregnant with our first child, so, we put it on the back burner and went on with our lives always carrying this thought of a daughter in China.

Fast forward to August 2006. We now had three boys, the youngest of whom was about to turn 2. I, Beth, started counting four children when we were ready to go home from church. In my mind, there was a fourth child missing. I thought it was God's way of letting me know there was a fourth child coming. I thought "we're going to have a surprise pregnancy". Then a new family joined our church and sat in front of us. They filed in with three biological sons with the youngest being a Chinese daughter. God spoke to me and said "that's what your family will look like".

I (Beth) spoke to Brett and brought up the idea of adopting a daughter from China. He didn't even have to think about it and said and enthusiastic "yes!". His heart has always been toward adoption because it's our Father's heart too. So, in September, we started looking into adoption agencies.

The thing we now know is that at the very time God was speaking to our hearts that now was the time to adopt, Amanda was being conceived. He knew that there was a little girl whom to no fault of her own, was going to be abandoned. She would need a family that would encourage the gifts that God had placed inside of her. And He was choosing us to be that family. So began a three year journey to adopt Amanda Grace XueRu Benson.