Getting Started

Our adoption journey started about a year and a half ago when The Lord began placing adoption on Keith's heart. As Keith talked about this to me, I had absolutely no interest or desire to adopt (Josh was only 6 months old and adoption was the farthest thing from my mind at that time!). Over the next year I read a book called "Saving Levi" about a 6-week old baby that had been burned over most of his body and left for dead in a field in China. God started to give me a heart for the orphans of the world. We decided to support an orphan ministry and become a prayer partner for a 6-year old little girl in Cambodia that lives in an orphanage there. Then, in March our church had a large donation drive for For His Glory, a ministry that runs an orphanage in Haiti. I heard some women in my Bible study talking about the "dirt biscuits" that children in Haiti are fed to stave off hunger because they can not afford food... this broke my heart. So, I went home and checked out For His Glory's website. Shortly after that a picture came to us of a friend holding an abandoned baby in Tunisia. I really felt the Lord prompting me that He was calling us to do something... so, I mentioned to Keith, "I think we are supposed to adopt one or two little girls from Haiti." With this, we set up a meeting with Linda from For His Glory to discuss adoption. I was a little apprehensive - but we really felt like the Lord was leading us to this, so we decided to pursue it despite our fears.

In June we traveled to the orphanage in Haiti and met two precious little girls that we are working to adopt, Aliyah (Ludmia at the orphanage) and Christéla (Baby Hope). Since we've been home we've started our home study, almost completed our dossier (just waiting on two letters at this point... and the home study to be complete), looked into grants and fundraising options, selected an agency (Celebrate Children International), looked into adoption training, and spent a lot of time praying for our girls whom we've given our hearts to but are so far away. Now that we've met them, we long to bring them home!