NARRATOR: Shelly White vividly remembers the first time

she laid eyes on the eighteen-month-old Chinese

orphan named Mya.

The little girl was featured on Show Hope orphan care

website in March 2013.

I was showing everyone her picture,

and I was thinking gosh, this girl is so precious

and she needs a home, and I just longed to help her.

NARRATOR: But Mya needed more than a home.

It said she had stage 4 cancer, and she needed healing

in a forever home.

So we prayed for that.

NARRATOR: At the time, adoption wasn't on the radar for Shelly

or her husband, Hal.

They already had four children of their own,

and were having a rough time financially.

Which is a lot.

I'd always kind of thought adoption

was maybe for people who couldn't have children,

you know, maybe weren't blessed with a big family

like God had already blessed us.

NARRATOR: But Shelly couldn't get Mya off her mind.

I think I had this deep love for her right away.

It was something I had never experienced.

NARRATOR: So they prayed about it every day,

and soon sensed God leading them to adopt little Mya.

A week into the process, they learned there was a problem.

We got a call from the agency saying

that they had some bad news for us, that she was unadoptable.

What do you mean, she's not adoptable?

So they explained that it would take seven

to nine months at quickest, and they didn't

feel she would live that long.

NARRATOR: The Chinese agency told them

their only option was to bring Mya to the US

for better treatment as her medical guardians.

That's when they met Dr. Stephen Wright of Kosair Children's

Hospital in Louisville, Kentucky.

First thing I thought was yeah, we just

need to get her over here.

Let's do it.

NARRATOR: Dr. Wright, the hospital,

and several other doctors agreed to donate their services.

Still, there were no guarantees.

We wanted them to be sure up front that they

knew it was going to be a long and sometimes arduous

course that Mya might have to go through.

NARRATOR: Mya arrived in the US on May 7, 2013.

She spent most of the next 10 months

in the hospital undergoing aggressive chemotherapy

to shrink the large abdominal tumor.

The hardest part was when she was in so much pain.

She was in unbearable pain.

She would cry and scream and sweat multiple times a day.

It was awful.

Every time I felt really, really hopeless

or really, really down, there would be something

at exactly the right time.

I would get a text from a friend that says, I'm praying for you.

NARRATOR: But the tumor did not respond,

and two days after Christmas 2013,

doctors had to stop the treatments.

It was really, really hard.

I mean, it was devastating.

They said that there was nothing further they could do,

and that she had less than a year to live.

NARRATOR: Doctors decided to remove the tumor

to make little Mya more comfortable.

We were told, we'll take this out,

and the cancer will likely come back.

But at least she'll have some good pain-free time.

NARRATOR: Mya's primary surgeon, Dr. Mary Fallat,

explained that they had to remove other organs affected

by the tumor.

This was the sort of thing where you're going for broke.

And we knew that the tumor was just in the pelvis

and not in the lungs or the brain or anywhere else,

and this is otherwise a normal child.

And so what this required was removing

the bladder, the uterus, the vagina, and the rectum.

And I really just had to change my thinking

that my hope couldn't be in her healing,

my hope just had to be that God had us all in his hands

and it was gonna be OK no matter what happened.

Throughout this journey, I think the one thing,

you know, you obviously know that we're not in control.

God is in control, and God has a plan.

NARRATOR: That plan exceeded all expectations.

Mya not only lived another year, she

remained cancer-free, making her once again adoptable.

In April 2015, Mya officially became

a part of the White family.

SHELLY WHITE: Oh, it was really neat.

I got to see where she lived, and I

got to see where she was found.

NARRATOR: Mya's been cancer-free for more than two years now,

and is doing great.

Her doctors are hopeful for many more.

There's always complications that can occur,

so I think-- I'd like to think we had a home run here.

NARRATOR: As for her new family, they've

all learned to trust God no matter

how bleak things may look.

You know, I first considered it an act of obedience to God.

But what I didn't know is how much

that obedience would bless me, and the joy that I

would get from that obedience.

I'll tell you, the family is an unbelievable example

of Christian love, a really challenge to the rest of us

to step up to the plate.

SHELLY WHITE: It's just deepened our faith.

Sometimes you kind of get sidetracked

by grades and sports, and you want

them to be a lot of things.

But now it's just really, none of it matters.

I just want to raise her to be a girl that

knows God and that trusts Him.

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