A Little Background Information

We just announced to our SS class yesterday about our plans. We had been waiting a little while (like until our I-600 A got approved or at least once our home study was completed), but we decided we didn't want to wait any longer to share the exciting news.

So, we got some of the inevitable questions: How did you decide? Why did you pick Colombia? The simplest answer is: through a lot of prayer. But, here is a very brief overview of the process.

I (Kimberly) talked about adoption even in high school (as an eventuality, of course, not for while I was in high school). After Todd and I got married, the adoption thing didn't ever take shape. We had two girls. Things were good.

Fast forward nine years. Suddenly we have three girls and a nine-year gap between two of them. We came to the conclusion that one of the many reasons that God brought Riza into our lives was so that we would consider adoption--to fill the gap between the 2nd and 3rd daughters. We believe God has prepared a daughter for us, but we wouldn't have thought to look for her if it weren't for Riza. (there are a lot of side stories I would love to share--how God confronted me with adoption every where I turned. It was pretty cool--and intense!)

Even after we decided, there was almost a year of investigating adoption agencies and countries from which to choose. The question that plagued me the most was the question of the country. Colombia wasn't even in the running. We finally felt that it was time to act--to step out on faith, and choose a country. The very week that we had decided to mail in our initial application, we got information (which later turned out to be false) that the country we had chosen had suddenly closed its doors to adoption. I cried. We had finally decided to step, and apparently it was in the wrong direction. I was glad of God's correction, but I was confused. So I dragged out all of the information again. This time through, it seemed as if the information on Colombia had blinking lights all around it. So, we made our application and away we went...

Since that time, we have received on-going confirmation that we made the right decision. Sometimes we have been confronted with information that makes us step back and re-evaluate, but we sense that we are where God wants us to be. We will continue on this path, one step at a time, until God shows us to take another path.

So, that's the story. Thank you for journeying through this adventure with us!