Full Cirlce

"A journey of a 1, 000 miles begins with a single step"

Our story starts a few chapters back and moves forward.

This remains to be one of my favorite quotes.  It was almost 2.5 years ago that we felt a stirring in our hearts to bring another child into our family.  Our daughter, Emily whom we adopted from China was 4 years old and life was good.  

Only the Lord would know the chain of events that would soon follow.  

My hearts desire was for a baby girl.  I knew that my clock was ticking and that this would be the last baby in the Davis household.  Funny how you think you know what is best.  It makes me think of the verse 

"In his heart a man plans his course, but the Lord determines his steps" 

Shortly after starting our journey I suffered a severe herniated disc in my lower back and nerve damage to my foot and ankle.  I spent the next 1.5 years in recovery.  As we waited our hearts grew weary.  One day as I was viewing the waiting children at our agency, I saw two sweet sisters staring back at me.  I called my husband, we prayed and we felt the Lord calling us to them.  At first I struggled as I let go of what were my plans for a baby.  It didn't take long though and they were melting my heart.  Our family was so excited about having two sisters join our family.  We accepted their referral and said YES!!  Later that week literally, my husband was unexpectedly laid off from his job.  Talk about panic.  Thankfully his passion for photography became a business.  We feel blessed that we had the love and support of family and friends.  Then one day we received a phone call from our agency that "our" daughters birth momma had come back to be with them at the orphanage.  She is living there with them because she is terminally ill.  We continued to pray and hope they would be a part of our family.  We revamped two rooms in our home in preparation for them.  Shortly after our agency suggested we go back on the wait list "just to be safe".  We reluctantly agreed.  Every other month for the next 9 months we received updates and pictures of the girls and their momma.  Seeing the sisters together smiling and hugging always makes my heart feel joy.  Seeing them kissing their momma on the cheek and hugging her gives me that same joy.  I think deep down I knew that she wasn't going to relinquish her rights, but it hurt too much to admit that. If and when she passes away the girls will be with their Uncle in Ethiopia who will then put them up for adoption again.  We have no idea when or if this will happen.  I suppose our comfort is in knowing that we will make a little side trip to meet them in person when we travel to Ethiopia.  It will be so good to actually hug them and meet them.  

Once again our course was to change.  We have come full circle, literally. 

It is with GREAT joy  that we announce we have a daughter!!!  An adorable 3 month old baby girl.  She is precious and we are so happy.  We cannot stop staring at her. We are anxious and eager to meet her and love her up.  We hope to have a court date sometime in December and make our first trip.  We will have one more trip for Embassy after that.  We are thankful for the families that are travelling or have traveled because we have acquired quite a few pictures of our sweetie.  We give thanks to the Lord as we embark on the home stretch of our journey to our beloved.  

Our paperwork has expired once again and we are scrambling to update it.  We are working on raising the last of our agency fees and travel expenses.  The last of our agency fees totals $2, 257.  We thank each person who is coming along side in prayer, financial giving and love.  Each of you are a blessing to us and we thank you for being a part of bringing our family together. 

In His Love,
Rick, Connie and Emily