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DARIANASOFIAMIANA

“I will never leave you nor forsake you.”
Hebrews 13:5

God Always Makes A Way!

My story did not really begin in my birth country, but in America, months before I was born!

After several years of marriage, a young couple made plans to start their family. After eight years of waiting and praying and trying to conceive, they realized God must have another plan. As they began to ask Him for guidance, their answer came rather suddenly. A short time later, they watched with the rest of the world as the Romanian people rose up and fought to overthrow their evil communist dictator in December 1989. Soon after, stories of abandoned orphans flooded the news. The wife’s heart was drawn to the plight of the orphaned children left languishing in Romanian orphanages and hospitals halfway around the world. But her husband’s heart was not open. After much thought about the deep longing God had placed in her heart, she waited and prayed. Miraculously her husband’s heart eventually softened, and God confirmed that indeed adoption had been His plan all along! So they began the adoption process. Through a friend, God led them to All God’s Children International, which at the time was just a family and their 19-year-old daughter helping American couples adopt.

That young couple who could not conceive, and at first did not even agree about starting their family through adoption, are my parents!

My Romanian Birth

As my adoptive parents rushed to complete a home study and the other necessary paperwork required to adopt a child, another family living an ocean away in a tiny village in Romania was preparing for the birth of their sixth child. On May 11, 1991, my 23-year-old birth mother brought me into this world, just as she had my five other siblings. She called me Mihaela. My birth family lived in a little one-room house in Focsani, a small village just north of Bucharest. They shared their tiny home with many uncles, aunts, grandparents, and cousins. After my birth, my birth parents were overwhelmed with the responsibility of providing for another child. Romania was in turmoil, still straining to break the chains that remained of the communist regime. Food was scarce, tanks still rattled through the villages, and the future remained unknown. They made the decision to travel ten days south to the only place they knew would keep me safe and be able to provide for their tiny infant daughter properly; it was the only hospital they could get to. It was there they placed me in the arms of a waiting nurse and said goodbye. Maybe they had hopes that someday I would come back and find them, because amazingly they left their names, the names of my siblings, and the birth dates of all my family members. Even more amazing is the fact that the hospital kept those records, and gave them to my new family when they came to take me home!

My American Family

Meanwhile, as all of these events were taking place in Romania, the parents God had chosen for me were frantically trying to finish paperwork and pack just in case they received a call from AGCI. They did receive a call in April about the referral of a little boy, but they knew he wasn’t the child God had waiting for them, because God had given my father-to-be the name “Miana” for a little girl! So they had to tell AGCI the little boy must be meant for another family. Later that month they received another call, and this time the referral was for a little girl only three weeks old who was waiting for a family. My parents on separate phones, on opposite ends of the house, said “YES” in unison! More paperwork was needed and they rushed to obtain seals and notaries on documents that now identified their daughter by name. However, man’s plan does not always fit God’s plan for our lives. But in the end, as His plan unfolds, so is His purpose revealed!

Standing in Faith

The night before my parents were scheduled to fly to Romania, they received a call from Ron Beazely, the president of AGCI, who was tearful as he explained that Heather had just called saying that the Romanian government had decided not to issue any more adoption decrees. Hannah, the Beazely’s daughter, had come home only four months earlier, so Ron knew what my parents were going through. They shared with Ron that despite this negative news, they knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that God still wanted them to go. And instead of discouraging them, Ron encouraged them to follow God’s call just as his own family had. Promising their prayers, he said he would let Heather know my parents were leaving as planned and would be in Romania in less than 24 hours.

The Dream

That night my mom had a dream; she saw the Lord holding a baby and walking toward her. He said, “This is your daughter. Now go and tell what I have done.” The next morning as my parents boarded their waiting plane, they said they felt God’s presence going before them. The verse Ephesians 3:20 was in a letter written by my aunt to be read on the plane. It said this, “Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us.” This verse became the theme for my adoption. It did not matter that the Romanian government was not issuing adoption decrees. All that mattered was that God had told them to go, and He was in control of it all!

My Miraculous Moment Unfolds!

When my parents arrived in Bucharest, as promised Heather was there to pick them up, and took them to a little apartment where they would stay for the next three weeks. The next day was the court date. A Romanian translator accompanied Heather into the courtroom, as my parents sat waiting in the hall. They emerged a short time later, both stunned and amazed at what had transpired behind those courtroom doors. The previous judge who was not issuing adoption decrees had gone on vacation and a female judge ruled in his place. She granted my parents the adoption petition in a few short minutes. Heather took them immediately to the hospital where I was. My parents say I was in a room with other babies, swaddled like “our Savior” and covered with mosquito bites. My Dad says I looked up at them as if to say, “Where have you been?” I have video of my mom holding me as they walked out of the hospital. I cry every time I watch it. My parents named me Miana, after Mia Oglice, a Romanian Precept leader who connected my family to AGCI and Heather, and my mom whose name is Joanna. But what means so much to me is they kept my given Romanian name in my legal name, which is Miana Lee Mihaela!

God Made a Way
The next three weeks were spent getting to know me! However, when those three weeks ended, so did my dad’s vacation time. He had gone alone to the airport in Bucharest to buy one ticket home. My aunt was to fly to Romania to stay with my mom in the next 24 hours. Once again, God had a different plan, and as usual, a better one! As my dad approached the ticket desk, the clerk said, “Your wife said to purchase three tickets.” He grabbed her arm and said, “What?!”

God had once again made a way—made a miracle really! After countless prayers, and people working on my behalf in both America and Romania, as my dad prepared to leave without us, my mom had received a call confirming that I had been granted a humanitarian parole. This special status would allow me to leave Romania immediately, rather than stay and perhaps endure months of endless red tape and waiting. My dad purchased three tickets that day to America, and rushed to get me a German traveling visa so I could change planes in Germany and board the Pan Am flight home.

Hope and a Home!

On June 15, 1991, my parents boarded a small rickety plane with other American couples. As the plane took flight, they tell me everyone cheered and cried with joy! Two were now three and together we were on our way home! When we arrived a day later, we were greeted by hundreds of people. News crews taped our homecoming and family members were there to meet me for the first time! My homecoming was not just about me entering the family, but it was also a testimony of the miraculous moments that God intervened to give me a family, a wonderful home, and an amazing new country to call my own! He did shatter gates of bronze. He did break through bars of iron. All so His name alone would be glorified. My parents do not praise men for the gift of my humanitarian parole; they continue to give all the glory and honor to God! “God Will Make A Way” is a special song to me. It is the theme song for my life. I guess I would call it my Signature Song! My personal signature of hope is “God will make a way… even when there seems to be no way.”

So This is My Story

A story orchestrated by God every step of the way. My adoption took place because God made a way when there was no way. He kept His promise to never leave me or forsake me. He knew someday I would write my own signature of hope story, recounting His miraculous intervention surrounding my birth and adoption. I feel His Hope deep in my heart every day. I hear the sounds of His hope each time I reach to play my violin, and I feel the joy of His hope every time I sit to write words that proclaim His wondrous love! Each time I leave my mark, my personal signature on a document, a poem, a story, or song, I stop to remember, God gave me my signature, my name. He gave me my family and He gave me more than I could have ever asked or even begin to think was possible. I was just a little baby, one out of millions of needy children, yet He knew who I was and He watched over me as He promised. “My Signature Of Hope” represents all He has done in my life and all He will continue to do in the future.

His Signature

We all need to remember our lives reveal His signature, for all to see, yesterday, today, and forever, revealing His heart to those who so desperately need to feel His care and love. Hope still lives in every orphan heart despite their hopeless circumstances. He wants to write His signature of hope in each of their lives, just like He did mine. What He asks is that more families move out in faith, like my parents did almost 21 years ago, and have the courage to put aside their own plans to follow His. Hope becomes faith when we dare to walk where God leads. Faith continues to open doors of bronze and still cuts through the strongest bars of iron. My life and the lives of so many needy little ones are living proof of God’s care for His orphaned children. He is speaking to you now through each of our signature stories. Leaving a personal message to all who may sit a moment to read these words. These are the words I believe God wants me to leave with you this day…

Hold onto hope! Walk confidently in faith “He will make a way” and personally lead you where He wants you to go. He will miraculously reveal His plan, and show you everything He wants you to do. Remember, with “OUR GOD” nothing is impossible! Just Follow His Plan!

- Miana Huneycutt