Leap Of Faith

The Collins Family in May 2007
Perfect & Complete...well almost.

I have started this blog so I can journal our experiences as we take a Leap of Faith towards the miracle of adoption. I want to share with our family, friends and our child how he/she became a part of our family.

We have already been tremendously blessed with two beautiful biological daughters, and at one time thought our family may be complete. This was until April of 2007 when God began to put on my heart the desire to adopt. I was drawn to Dateline and Oprah shows about children living in poverty stricken countries. I began having dreams about our family not yet being complete. Every time I turned around, I was meeting families who had already built their family though adoption or who were in the process. Not able to sleep one night, I got online and requested adoption packets from several different agencies. After sending off for these packets, I fell asleep instantly and had the best night sleep that I had had in over a month.

Over the course of the next week, the adoption packets began to arrive in the mail. They were all filled with many pictures of children, the agency history, the countries that they worked with and their criteria, and most of them sent a DVD with family adoption stories. Wes was working nights during this time so when the girls went to bed, I began looking through the packets. My heart ached for all of the children without families and yet I found joy in every happy ending story. I knew that God had put adoption on my heart and I was ready to take this Leap Of Faith and follow his calling. Now for the tough part...getting Wes on board.

At first Wes was shocked that adoption was even something that I wanted to consider. Why would we want to adopt when we were able to have children of our own? How could I possibly be thinking about adding on to our family when we had two little ones under the age of 2 1/2? Then when I got to the part about how much international adoption costs it was pretty much an immediate NO. Of course, finding the financial means was a huge concern of mine as well. I knew that Wes wasn't going to be easily persuaded, but asked him to take some time, think about it, and pray about it. Within a week he gave me the okay, "Let's Do It!" Wes has been so helpful with all of the paperwork. He got all our papers notorized, rearranged his work schedule so that he could make all medical exams and homestudy appointments, and I have to admit he got all of his needed reference letters back first.

So why have we chosen adoption? Wes and I have come to the realization that this is what God wants for our family. We feel that we have more love to share with another child and that God has called us to notice and feel the needs of others through the miracle of adoption. As Christians, we are reminded of God’s love for orphans. Adoption is one means of caring for these orphans. Adoption is a gift of love on everyone’s part with the child’s best interest of security, belonging, and happiness for the future at heart. We will always have a special place in our hearts for the birthmother and birthfather of our child as they truly made the ultimate sacrifice of love. We pray for their health often. We know that there are a lot of unknowns in the adoption process, but also know that God is with us every step of the way. God has already blessed us as a family in so many ways. We feel that if we didn’t follow this calling from God we would be missing out on another one of his blessings. We are unconditionally committed to sharing love with our child and including them into our forever family. And so here were are, taking this Leap Of Faith.

We would appreciate any prayers as we embark on this adventure. We wait expectantly for all that He has for us along this journey and we would like to welcome you to come along for the ride! Feel free to visit and share comments to our postings.