Well, we're off to Ukraine tomorrow! Here is a little background for those of you who just got bits and pieces of our adoption story so far...


About 3 years ago, Mike was overwhelmed with compassion for the plight of young teenage girls in eastern block countries who were trafficked into prostitution. The majority of the girls were orphans who had either exited institutions at age 16 or ran away at an even younger age. They were promised waitressing jobs at resorts in other countries only to find out it was prostitution. There are even organizations in that region which rescue and rehabilitate these girls from this heinous crime.


We soon realized that Mike's compassion compelled our whole family to minister to orphans and to find ways of getting children into homes before they fell prey to that devastation. After a year of searching and planning and connecting with various people who were very eager to help, all the doors we thought were opening closed. The whole time we felt we were being led by God, so when we received silence, it was a crisis of faith for us. Was it our own imaginings? Our own ambitions? Needs? We did a lot of searching and waiting in prayer and received a lot of silence. We chose to wait on the LORD.



About six months later (last August) we were contacted by one of our contacts saying there were 10 orphans in the US on a host program who were in need of homes and asking if we or anyone we knew could travel to meet them and consider adopting. Unfortunately, we already had plans for a family gathering in Los Altos, CA and began to decline the offer, when we were then told to our amazement that the orphans would be staying in Los Altos, CA! We knew that this door was now wide open. Since that time we have selected and lost several children, but the ups and downs have only served to cause us to trust God's leading alone as we now prepare to find the children we know God has already chosen to be part of our family.