Thank you for being my guest adoption blogger this week!!

God placed adoption on my heart at an early age.  In high school, I knew that one day I wanted to adopt. I had not only a love for children, but also a love for adoption.  I just thought it was a beautiful picture of what the Heavenly Father does for us, and I loved the idea of helping and loving a child who did not have a family.  When Jayson and I started dating, adoption was one of the things we discussed.

I was so very thankful that he thought adoption was great as well and did not have any concerns about growing our family this way one day in the future.  Once we were married, we were eager to start our family.  The Lord blessed us with two biological boys, but adoption was still on our hearts.  When our youngest son was just about 14 months, we decided it was time to move forward to adopt.  We met a family who adopted a little girl from Taiwan.  We did a little research and found an agency right in our home state of Florida that worked in Taiwan.  We qualified, made some calls, and decided to go ahead and get waiting (since it would take about 2 years to complete the process.)  The waiting was VERY hard.  Even though we knew going into it that we would have to wait, I was just very unsettled and not content waiting.  There were children all over the world that needed families RIGHT NOW.  I was ready to have a baby (and hopefully a girl) RIGHT NOW.  It just didn’t seem right to wait on a long waiting list when children were waiting.  So, we had waited over a year with not much movement in the Taiwan program and the need just didn’t seem to be very big there.  We started looking into other countries where there was a greater need.  Our friend’s friend had just adopted from Uganda and was trying to place some of the children she met while there with forever families.  After getting in touch, we soon learned that God was directing us to Uganda.  There were children waiting for homes.  We would not have to sit on a waiting list.  We got to work on updating our home study and gathering all the information that would be needed for our dossier.  We were hoping for a baby girl.  After two boys, my heart was longing for a daughter.  But we were told that we needed to be open to either gender, and we agreed that as much as we were praying and hoping for a daughter, it wasn’t about us.  It was about a child in need of a family, and we decided that if God wanted us to have another son then that would be just fine with us.

When our paperwork was complete and we were just waiting on our I171h approval, we were matched with our precious DAUGHTER!  We couldn’t believe that we were going to be the parents of a little baby girl. Seeing her face for the first time over the computer was amazing and thankfully we only had to wait a few months before we were able to travel to Uganda and meet our newest addition.  We were in love with her right away, and we also fell in love with Uganda.  The culture, the beauty, the lifestyle, the friends, the food-we LOVED it all and miss it now.  We are already anxious to return, whether it be for Missions trips, vacations, or hopefully another adoption journey.  We have been home with our little girl for over 5 months now, and we are enjoying every minute of parenting her.  She has grown so much and is doing so well.  She is walking (almost running) everywhere!  She loves to eat!  She loves playing with her big brothers.  She loves to be cuddled.  She does not like to have her hair done, but I am still trying.  She is our daughter and we love her so much.  We cannot imagine life without her.  She has brought us so much joy, and we our honored that we get to be her parents.  We will forever be grateful to those that helped us in this process, and our lives will never be the same.  Uganda will forever be a part of our lives.  We love this beautiful country that gave us our beautiful daughter.  We love how God directed us, all the way across the world in the U.S., to our daughter in Uganda.  It is truly a miracle.

Current Update:  Kai has now been home over 10 months and is doing so well.  She has grown a ton and is so happy and active. She loves running around the house and playing with her big brothers.  In September, I was so blessed to be able to return to Uganda.  I went with Sixty Feet on an amazing missions trip and made many new friends and spent time with some of the sweetest children ever.  I would encourage everyone to check out this amazing organization and consider going on a future missions trip.  You will forever be changed and it would be so meaningful to the staff in Uganda and the children residing in remand centers there.  I also was able to visit the orphanage where our daughter once was and able to show the amazing ladies that care for the children there how much she has grown through a picture book.  We are excited to begin the process of adopting our next child from Uganda.  Our home study is scheduled for December 12 and we look forward to seeing how God works to bring us our the next Harvey.  We can’t wait to return to Uganda in 2012!  Please feel free to follow our journey here.