Finding Mercy
Two stories of loss woven into one redeeming story of restorative hope and love.
​Our Story
We were married in the fall of 2001 and were expecting our first child in 2003. Our son died at 7 months gestation from unknown causes, just days after learning something was wrong with Laura. A month later, on our 2nd anniversary, Laura's diagnosis was confirmed to be a life threatening bone marrow disease called Aplastic Anemia. She was given 6-8 months to live without treatment. Drug treatment failed and the only alternative was to have an unrelaed bone marrow tranplant in 2004 being given a 60% chance for a 2 year post transplant survival. Although the next several years were characterized by many ups and downs as Laura recovered and struggled to adapt to the various side effects from treatment, we are thankful to God that He spared her life!
One of those side effects has been infertility. So we looked at various options for adopting. With Dave's background in Russian language we felt maybe that would help with a Russian speaking orphan. We had the privilege of hosting two orphan siblings from Ukraine in 2012 through a hosting program with Project 143. Our hearts bonded with those children and after much prayer, we decided to adopt them. Their adoption became challenging as they had an older sister that would also need to be adopted and we didn't have enough income on paper to be approved for 3 children. Dave had already started a part-time job to supplement his missionary income, but he began working extra and long hours to boost our income so we could bring those 3 children home. We were a couple months away from demonstrating 6 months of increased income when another couple met "our" kids. They had already submitted their dossier for another child and were easily able to add the additional three. We were heartbroken and saddened at not being able to adopt these kids. When the next hosting opportunity for Christms 2013 came around we decided to wait as we were still clinging to the hope that we might still adopt them as their adoption hadn't been finalized. We did however volunteer to be backup host parents to be hosts for children that needed a place to finished their stay. That's when Igor crossed our path.
As many of you know, after our failed adoption God surprised us by asking us to be part of His redemption story for a young Ukrainian man. Igor was abandoned at birth and has been waiting his whole young life for a family. With time running out for him to be adoptable (age 16), God called a broken couple to learn of the horrors so many "aging out" orphans face and asked if we were willing. We couldn't imagine the how or the why. We knew adopting an older teen orphan would be beyond challenging and we asked God for Him to mercifully confirm His will and He did! Within 24 hours we saw God amazingly provide the almost $1000 needed to file immigration paperwork for Igor, overnighted it, and it was stamped on the very last day Igor was considered adoptable! That clear confirmation has encouraged us over the last year as one thing after another seemed to cause a mishap of some kind in completing our dossier for submission to the Ukrainian government. Thankfully, after several "almost" submissions, our dossier was finally submitted on April 30th and just this morning we learned our appointment with the Ukrainian State Department of Adoptions is scheduled for June 24th!
So here we are again, asking for the prayers and support of our extended family to assist us in rescuing this one orphan boy from a dark and desperate life and one without family.
