This summer Kelly ran across the picture of a beautiful young girl in China that needed a home. Now, before you start thinking that I need to start filtering Kelly’s email account, understand that some of the volunteer work she does sends pictures of children in need to her email account all day long. She sees hundreds of pictures (that very well could be a slight exaggeration) of children needing a home and they don’t pull at her heart strings. But sometimes a picture can change your world! It has for us six times up until now and this picture, picture number seven, was no different.

Kelly and I spent the obligatory week dancing around the issue, asking for more information but also ensuring our adoption agency that if someone else should step up we would be happy to let the idea go. But over time (a time frame that seems to continue to get shorter) we came to the realization that God put this little girl in front of us for a reason and that is something we have decided not to ignore.

So we started again down the bitter-sweet path of adopting a child from China. While we (and by “we” I mean “Kelly”) have a good handle on how the process moves forward, it is still filled with highs and lows, excitement and frustration as things progress at the usual anemic pace. From the start we filed all our paperwork and submitted our home study for two children. After a successful adoption of three girls last year, an experience that has been more rewarding that we would have ever imagined and something that certainly was not nearly as daunting as we originally feared, we felt it prudent to be prepared to adopt two children if God were to move in that direction.

And move He did. Not long into the process we came across the video of the smiling face of a little boy. The joy and happiness in the video made us instantly think of Caleb, who has been with us since 2010. We thought and prayed, but I think on some level we both realized early on that he was already one of ours. So we moved forward and included him in our newest adoption journey.

So here are the newest additions to our family: Ashely & Charlie!

They are not without challenges, but they are beautiful children and we are overjoyed that God has called them to be a part of our home. Ashely just turned twelve this summer and Charlie is ten. I will update this blog as we move forward. We expect to travel to China sometime in the first half of 2015. Please be in prayer with us for all the aspects that are a part of this endeavor and that God would prepare their hearts and the hearts of our family for the change that is coming. This is never an easy transition for anyone, but God is always so faithful and He orchestrates things so perfectly.

Stay tuned! Things should move as slow as molasses for the next little while!

Cameron