How our journey began....

Our journey to adopt Micah has been filled with God's gentle prodding, his amazing mercy and special touches of miracles along the way....

It was June 29th of 2009 when my dear friend and neighbor Tracy Mihnovich sent me an email; "Children need homes". It was pictures taken by Kelly Putty of waiting children at Ethiopia's Hannah's Hope Orphanage. I had seen hundreds of pictures of orphans from around the world. All beautiful, all needing a forever family to love them. My heart would break as I'd whisper a prayer for each one of them, but this time the heartache didn't stop. I kept going back to a certain picture of a little 6 year old boy who was all by himself. As I read my kids his story my voice broke and I couldn't stop my tears. I looked up and Mckenzie, my 9 year old daughter had tears rolling down her cheek. Matthew, my 12 year old ran over to see what triggered us....what he saw was his future little brother. "Let's go get him, mom, give him a home. He can have my top bunk!"

It wasn't that easy, because although I had the desire to adopt, my husband was not on the adoption bandwagon. We had the "boy" and the "girl". You know, one for each hand, not outnumbered, somewhat easy to handle in public and you didn't have to take a loan out to take the kids to dinner and a movie.

Don't get me wrong, Mark is a man of character, integrity, and probably one of the most God fearing men I know; but like so many amazing fathers, he was looking at the finances that come with another child. He just didn't want to talk about it.

What changed my husband's mind? Well, I didn't nag him or use subliminal messaging, I prayed that if adoption was God's will for our family, God would change his heart. After all, I didn't grow up saying I was going to adopt. God gradually changed my heart. I wasn't wanting to adopt to have another child, I loved my family the way it was. I wanted to adopt to save a life and be obedient to the call of James 1:27. Over four years I had a strong desire to adopt, but God's timing is perfect and he used my husband for a major unforeseen blessing he had for our family.....but I'll save that for my next blog.