Our Story:
My children and I went through a few months when we loved to talk about adopting.  We we loved the thought of doing what God asks us to do over and over in the bible.  He asks us to take care of the orphans,poor, oppressed and elderly. We would think of the fun we would have with a new child in the house. We prayed that my husband (their dad) would one day have the same dreams as us.  The thought had left our heads after some time went by, but the prayers we prayed had not left God’s ears.

Meanwhile, that year I had gotten a girl in my class that was deaf.  It had forced my to re-learn/remember the sign language I had learned in college.  I had taken an interest in the deaf culture that I had not had before.  My children started to learn sign language and it was a constant conversation in our house.

One fall night in 2016 I had woke up in the middle of the night.  I went to open my bible app and read but decided to get on Facebook instead.   As I scrolled down through my feed, I saw this picture of this beautiful brown haired girl that looked very similar to my children.  I read more about who she is and why her picture was in the internet.  I found out her name was Oksana and was living in an orphanage in Ukraine.  Her picture was taken so she could be hosted in our home as a reverse mission trip type thing for the summer.  I was so excited, how could we NOT do this?? How could we not show an orphan God’s love, spoil with our hugs and teach her who Jesus is.  But, one thing….I had to get my husband to go along with it.  Well, the next morning I showed him a picture of Oksana and he immediately said yes.  I guess God had already been working on his heart.  After I filled out an hosting application someone called me to talk to us about what hosting was and how it worked.  This is when we were told Oksana was deaf.  God had choreographed all these changes on our lives so we were already learning sign language to be ready for her arrival.

That summer Oksana arrived early June.  She was so quiet and sweet but so very broken.  Our hearts broke with hers and we heard her life story and she cried and did not know how to trust us.  Over the next 11 weeks she grew stronger and began to trust us.  We watched God’s hand over her and us.   We were able to get glasses, dental work and we expensive hearing aids donated to us to help her.  It was amazing to see our community come together to help Oksana have the basic needs everyone else takes for granted.  

Oksana was able to attend church on Sunday’s and a week long VBS program.  She heard all about Jesus and was beginning to get some hope in her life and a sparkle in her eye.  Our church family translated all the lessons and took a very close liking to her.  She made an impact on all of us. Everywhere we went people would say how much she looked like us and even ask if she was my oldest daughters twin.  We really felt like she was supposed to be part of our family.

Oksana went home that summer after 11 weeks with us. It was hard to see her go, everyone was sad and we were left with the elephant in the room.  Would we add to our family?  We had lengthy conversations with our whole family and set up support systems all around us.  We were ready, we would bring home this beautiful girl to be part of our family. We have hosted her a total of 3 times (21 weeks) since we laid eyes on her.  We are so excited to bring her home and love her.