About Us ...

 Who we are ...

I am not always sure who we are, but I definitely know who we are not ...

We are not perfect.  We are not normal by most standards. We don't have it all together.  We are not a poster family for organization or planning ahead.  We don't always like each other.  Life in our family is not always blissful or full of laughter.  

That said ... we love each other deeply!  We laugh whenever possible. We make lots of mistakes, and are exceedingly thankful for forgiveness and second chances.  We often just "wing it." And we are soooo incredibly blessed.  Our hearts desire is to live for Christ and glorify Him.  

Regarding our decision to adopt ...

Our family, which included three biological children, at the time ranging in age from eight to almost four, officially began the journey of adoption in February 2011.  We weren’t embarking on the adoption journey to simply build our family; we were acting because for us, caring for orphans means welcoming them into our family forever. It means using the gifts, strengths, and wisdom that God has given us to parent more children, especially children from hard places.  We have always loved children, always felt that one day we would open our home to children in need; we just hadn’t realized how and to what extent - God has made that clear and we are thrilled to be used by Him in such an amazing way.

After exploring options, we felt led to adopt from Ethiopia.  Since that time our hearts have been forever changed.  In August 2012 we accepted the referral for our son Zone from Ethiopia. He came home forever in March 2013 at almost five years old. We returned to Ethiopia again in July 2014 to complete the adoption of our daughter, Shambo, and our son, Kemal. At ages eight and five, they came home with us forever in August 2014. In the first year home with Shambo and Kemal, we were certain that God was done growing our family. We definitely felt an increased passion for older children and siblings, and we predicted ourselves opening our hearts and family to foster children in the future. Imagine our surprise when God nudged us to adoption, again, earlier this year. When we learned about four siblings in Colombia, South America we began advocating for their forever family. As a large sibling group, ranging in age from 10 to 5, the Colombian authorities were preparing to split the siblings up in order to place them in forever families. Yet, we knew siblings are better together in almost all situations; so we advocated. And we prayed. We asked ourselves, “What about us?” And that’s when we took the first step to #expandingourhomebyeightfeet.

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