Davina's story

After we adopted Yuly in 2007, we assumed we were done for awhile.  Our home was full of laughter.  We had plenty to keep us busy.

During our journey to Yuly, we learned a lot about God's heart for adoption.  We were amazed at the amount of scripture that addressed the fatherless.  We understood at a new level what it meant to be adopted into God's family.  And we knew we would adopt again someday.

Our thinking was to adopt again when Riza was in high school.  Until then, we contented ourselves with bringing other girls into our home as God brought them into our path--a foster child that came and spent one weekend a month with us, a single young lady who was far away from her family.

But God was about to show us that He had other plans for us.  Several key events happened...

• We read "Crazy Love" by Francis Chan.  We pondered what God wanted us to do for Him.
• Our church had a month long emphasis on India, and specifically about ministry to women caught in sex-trafficking.  Although we knew in a general way about this issue, we had no idea the depth and scope of it.
• We became friends with a beautiful young Chinese-American woman who really piqued our interest in China.
• And then the last thing...another family that adopted from Colombia (four children!) posted about adopting an aging-out teenager from China.  Suddenly we became aware of a need that we had never known.

So, we prayed.  And talked.  And considered.  We went to see a social worker that could (and eventually would) do our home study.  She spent over an hour with us.  We kept asking her if she thought this was a good idea.  We kept asking her if we were crazy.  And she assured us that we were ;)  Well, she said, that we had to be a little crazy to adopt, but she assured us that we were the right kind of crazy.  And so our journey to Hope began.

This process has been very different than Yuly's.  For one thing, we were faced with the overwhelming realization that there were many children who are waiting.  How would we find our daughter?  How would we know her?

When we first saw Hope's picture, Todd and I both agreed that we would like to request information.  Ironically, though, the only information that we requested was her date of birth.  That's because as a family we agreed that the one requirement we had for our new family member was for her to NOT have a May birthday.  Already May is filled with Yuly's, Audrey's and my mom's birthdays, Mother's Day, dance recitals, guitar recitals and the end of school.

When we got the answer from our agency, we discovered that Hope's birthday is in May, I accepted that she was not our daughter.  But thanks to Todd's persistence,  we didn't forget about her.  A week later we requested her whole file.  We read her story.  We fasted and prayed.  And God showed us, despite her May birthday, we had found our daughter.