Adoption Friends & Why?

Dear Victoria,

This is a picture of you when you were younger. It is the first picture I saw of you on Reece's Rainbow. The picture that touched my heart and prompted me to ask about you. When I first showed this picture to your daddy his response was, "Wow, she looks like Kaelyn". He was right, you look a lot like your younger sister.

Last night we were able to meet some other families that are also adopting little girls from your country through Reece's Rainbow. We had a great time sharing our experiences and what led us to do this. Two of the families already have experience in adopting internationally, so they had some great advice and experience to share with us. We all look forward to the day we have our girls home and we can have a play date with you all!

The Grove Family are adopting two little girls with Down syndrome and the Fillmore family adopted Anya last year and are now going back to adopt little Hazel. They are both very inspiring families and wonderful examples of going forward with faith.

Sister Grove shared something that I really resonated with, as to how to explain to someone WHY we would do this. Why we would go through so much work and expense to bring you home. We are fully aware that this will not be an easy process, and that your country is one of the hardest and most expensive places to adopt children from. I probably won't say it as beautifully as she did, but I will try my best.

"Imagine someone taking one of your children and sending them an orphanage halfway across the world and they were next in line to be institutionalized. What would stop you from going and getting them and bringing them back home as quickly as possible? Money? Paperwork? Fear? What others might think? Long flights? Going to an unfamiliar foreign land? Leaving your other children while traveling? No, none of those reasons would stop you, that is your child we are talking about. All the reasons for not doing this seem very insignificant when you look at it this way, right?

Victoria, that is how we feel about you. You are OUR daughter, you were born halfway around the world and we are coming to get you, because that is what any parent would do for their child. You belong in our family and our love for you grows each day.

In the last couple days we have been able to get documentation from our insurance agent that proves you will be covered in our health insurance plan, ordered Daddy a new passport and contacted a few people that are willing to help us out with some fundraising ideas we have. **A call out to anyone reading this that would be willing to share of their talents to help us by donating something for an auction/raffle of some sort. There are a lot of crafty/talented people reading this, we just know it :) **

Every day we are getting closer to you and we will not stop until you are home.

Love Mommy

P.S. Your little sister Kaelyn has been trying so hard to write you a message this morning, so I promised I would let her when I was done, so here you go.

Kaelyn says, " mnn inn6bnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn cv" (Pretty sure that means, "I love you" :)