Our Story As a young man, Kenneth began dreaming about adoption. In those years, he thought that it would be so “cool” to adopt an adolescent boy. For years he fostered that dream. We have discussed it many times, and even came close to pursuing that dream. We obtained papers from a local adoption agency and began filling them out several years ago. I, however, kept getting cold feet. Lauren, also, had severe reservations when we first began discussing adoption with the family in the year 2000. Long story made a little shorter, Kenneth and I had many “animated discussions” about the topic, and he finally gave up and tried to forget about the dream altogether. This was in 2004. Then the ball was in my court. God began working on my heart. I was never opposed to the idea of adoption in general, but I had problems with the idea of bringing a child into our home that was older than Lauren and Matthew. (I also had worries about where the money would come from. Adoption is very expensive.) Kenneth and I came to the compromise that we would consider a younger child. Then, last September, I went on a day trip with some other educators for a workshop. One of the men on the trip just happened to be the husband of the woman who is in charge of adoptions through our local Department of Family and Children’s Services, and the father of two adopted children. He and I had a long talk on the way back to Thomasville that day. God placed me on that van that day, with Mr. Alan Cleveland, so that He could touch my heart. He did just that. As a result of our conversation, I knew that one day my family would grow through adoption. Upon returning to Thomasville, I immediately called a friend who was going through the adoption process, and asked her to pray for me. God was knocking on my heart, and I could no longer ignore Him. I then found Kenneth and told him that I did not know how or when, but that I knew (at last) that adoption was in our future. The next step was research. I began surfing the web for information about adoption, talking with friends who have adopted, and praying about it. Kenneth had been surfing the web for years, so some of the info that I found was not new. We now needed to figure out what kind of adoption we wanted to pursue (Domestic or foreign? Healthy child, or child with special needs? Age? If foreign, what country? Etc, etc.) , and which agency to use. I requested info from several different agencies about several different adoption programs, and soon began to receive lots of information through snail-mail, and email as well. As we sifted through this information, our choices began to narrow. We now knew that we wanted an infant or young toddler, and we wanted to go international. But Kenneth was leaning toward a boy from Russia, and I wanted a girl from China. One day I received an email from an adoption agency (a quite large one that services families from all over the country) about an informational seminar that they were holding in Savannah, Georgia. It was a 4-hour seminar being held on a Saturday morning, and Savannah is not that far from us, so Kenneth and I decided to go. We’d make a “date” out of it. This was in the spring of 2005. We arrived at the church where the seminar was being held in plenty of time. There were eight or ten other families present as well, but we got the prize for driving the farthest! As the seminar progressed, there were many slides shown of many adopted children. When a Chinese girl was on the screen, I would nudge Kenneth and comment on how beautiful she was. When a blonde-haired, blue-eyed boy was on the screen, he would nudge me and grin. The couple who conducted the seminar began to talk about the different adoption choices that are available, but talked mostly about China because they were adoptive parents of a beautiful Chinese daughter. At some point, the numbers were discussed. I don’t remember what they were, but the number of baby girls abandoned in China is staggering. And of all these sweet babies that are just left on street corners all over the country, only 2% of them get adopted into forever families (according to the information available in spring 2005.) Kenneth says that when he heard these statistics, his heart was “re-wired.” As we left the church he looked at me, and said, “We’re going to China.” End of searching. After the seminar we went to River Street in Savannah, as we have done many times. We love Savannah, and love to shop and enjoy restaurants on River Street. We talked about the morning, and even decided that we would name our daughter Savannah, in honor of the day our path was made straight and our hearts were finally headed in the same direction – the day God revealed his plan for our lives in a clear and unmistakable way. As we strolled, we peeked into several of the restaurants that we had frequented in the past, and decided to try a new one. We kept walking and looking at menus. We looked at one that we thought we might enjoy, passed it up, and went on down the block. Then we changed our minds and went back to the previous one. As we walked into the place, I looked to my left. Sitting at a table just inside the door was a family – two young parents, a couple which appeared to be the grandparents, and a beautiful little Chinese baby! That sight was pure joy for me. It was as if God had sent us into that place just to give us complete confirmation that we were hearing Him clearly. At the time of this writing, it is April, 2006. A lot has happened in the past couple of years. As of now, we are almost finished with the “paper chase” to bring our Savannah home. We are approved by our home study writer and by our agency to adopt our daughter. Now we are waiting for the day when we can travel to China and bring her home! Lauren and Matthew are both so excited. They can hardly wait to have a baby of their own. As for Kenneth and me – well, that goes without saying. For those of you who actually read this to the end, I’m impressed! It was long and perhaps boring for some of you. Like Mary, I wanted to “ponder these things and keep them in my heart” (and computer!). Thanks for reading it to the bitter end, and please keep us in your prayers. She’s not home yet – we still have a long way to go!                   This page hosted by