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When God had finally broken through most of the walls that I had put up, I prayed, "God, if this is really what we need to do, then you need to get this past Dinah, because I don't think she's going to go for it." One night just before going to bed, I did the old Gideon fleece thing with Dinah. After talking about Fu's situation and his likely return to China, I started raising the idea of adoption. We climbed in bed, and she looked intently at me and said, "You know there's no way we can let that little boy go back to China, don't you?"

That was the green light. God had also captured Dinah's heart. God was speaking to us about living more boldly in the Spirit—taking a chance that is not a chance with God, but by earthly thought and reasoning, it's taking a chance.

I wish I could put a finger on what it is about Fu that makes you like him. It's more than the underdog syndrome. When he first started going to school, we were afraid students would hammer on him because of his appearance. Instead, he became one of the most popular kids. He has a self-confidence that is hard to explain.

Every adoption changes a family's dynamic, but especially so with a special-needs child. So at first, we offered to keep Fu as a foster child to try it out. This testing period helped us realize we could be adequate caregivers for Fu, and eventually we adopted him. He very much has become a part of the family and has made it what it is today. Dinah has a son from her first marriage named Jade, who was living with us. Jade became Fu's great big brother. God really blended the families from our first marriages.

Post-surgery, Fu can hear better than many people. Surgeons attached a titanium post to his skull. Fu's external ears never developed, but his inner ear is basically pristine. The doctors set up a bone-anchored conduction hearing aid. He snaps it on his head, and it transmits the sound waves through the skull bone to his inner ear. The surgeons also repaired his cleft palate.

For the misformed cheekbones, doctors tried a surgical procedure to hold his eyelids up. But it caused him a lot of discomfort, plus it's a stopgap measure. When Fu's in his late teens or early 20s, surgeons will go in and make him new cheekbones. Doctors are saying by the time he's 25, he'll have a near-normal appearance.

The Dallas Morning News, where I work, featured my photos of Fu Yang in a special essay. A woman from Australia saw the feature online, and she realized that she had volunteered at Fu's orphanage in China long before we had ever met Fu. She told us about Fu at the orphanage and the terrible treatment he received. God had his eye on Fu Yang a long time ago.

After Fu moved in, we stumbled upon a Jesus-affirming Methodist church with a deaf ministry—Lovers Lane United Methodist Church in Dallas. One leader is fluent in American Sign Language, which is great for Fu, a wiz at sign language.

One thing we found out is that children like Fu have a hard time thinking abstractly. But the Lord is working on Fu's heart. At our Sunday school class, Fu asks the hard questions. One time, Pastor Tom was talking about sins and forgiveness. Fu asked, "If you steal, can you be forgiven?" This question, we knew, had a history.

We had heard that at the orphanage, Fu would steal food from the market and bring it back to the other orphans because they only ate one meal a day. Like Robin Hood, he made sure even the weaker, non-aggressive kids would get a share. He'd portion it out for them.

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February 2008, Vol. 52, No. 2