Today marks the one year point of when I first saw the boy that would become my son.  It is a night I'll never forget until I die.  I was home alone and read Licia's blog and there it was.  A picture of a little boy that needed a home.  It was as if my eyes were drawn to his.  My heart ached for this little boy and I knew we had to do something about it.

For you to know a little bit more I'll give you a little back story.  After we had Deacon, Aaron was pretty much done with kids.  He said he was complete and we weren't having anymore.  Me on the other hand, I was not complete.  We would argue and disagree.  I would say that I wasn't complete as a mom and he would say he was complete as a dad.  We went round and round and never got anywhere with it.  It was kinda becoming a problem in our marriage, so I decided to stop talking about it.  I knew that I was not complete, so I decided to shut up and just start praying.  I honestly prayed for God to either change my heart or change his, because someone had to change.

Fast forward a few months and in the summer of 2007 Aaron came to me out of the blue and told me that he thought we should adopt again.  WHAT?  Yes he did!  I didn't even ask any questions because I was so excited.  To my surprise I didn't go off that night and fill out an application for an adoption agency.  For some reason I waited.  I knew that we were finally on the same page now, but now we would just wait for God to show us what to do, and oh how he did.  When I pulled up Licia's blog that night I knew this is where he was leading us.

I called Aaron and told him about it and we decided to move forward on him, begin praying and beg God to open and close doors as he needed.  We would move until we were told to no longer move forward.

I emailed a few people that night and were told that we qualified that we could do it.  That we could try to adopt this little boy into our family and him become our son.  That was the beginning to our journey!

365 days later, here were are.  Madly in love with him and madly in love with a little girl as well.  We view both of these kids as our kids.  When people ask how many kids we have, we say four; two that live with us and two that live in Haiti.  He is my son and she is my daughter.

Tonight I found out that a family exited IBESR after only being there for 2 months.  I will ashamedly admit that my first thought was not happiness.  My first thought was why.  Why them and not us.  Why are we still there after 17 weeks of entering.  Almost double their time. Why?  Why?  Why?  Why do their kids get to come home (probably) before ours.  What is wrong with us?

So, for now we press on.  We still follow the doors that God is opening.  We still love on our kids here and love on our kids there.  We pray steadfast for them.  We fast for them.  We yearn for them.  We long for them.

Thank you Licia for stepping out and writing about children that need a home.  Thank you for allowing us to follow your life journey.  Thank you for loving my kids and thank you for loving us.

Jamie Ivey