"Our Journey" Part 2: Getting Started

By Khylee

International or a domestic adoption?

How old of a child?

Boy or girl?

One child, or a sibling group?

If international, what country?

What agency is reputable?

How do we know when to start?

These are just a few of the questions that we have wrestled with.   And…I know these are just a few of the ones that many of you want us to answer. 

Honduras, 2004

In January of this year, I began to feel a pull towards the Central America country Honduras. It was one of the countries listed on several of the agencies I had been researching and the Lord would bring Honduras up when I was watching the news, reading an article, talking with friends, watching gangland-that’s right Adam is a big fan of the show, I watch from behind the covers. It was also a country that holds precious memories for me. In 2004, during my freshmen year in college I had the opportunity to travel there for a mission trip to work with boys at an orphanage/school.  It was only 6 days but it was a life-changing six days as those boys showed me love and held me when I cried and I didn't want to come home.

…but then my heart would say things like “the wait is too long, 2-4 years is ridiculous to wait for a child”, “you aren’t guaranteed a baby and a toddler will come with too many issues.”  So, I began to research a little more on Ethiopia and domestic private adoptions because the wait isn’t as long, and you can get a referral for a child that is under a year old, problem solved, right? 

Wrong.

What a selfish, selfish human being I am.  I am embarrassed to even admit I thought that, but that was the state of my heart.   I was only attracted to Ethiopia and private adoption, so MY needs would be met, so that I could become a mother on my terms.   

In May of 2011, Adam and I took a vacation to Mexico.  Every night we would go down to a street called 5^th avenue that was filled with all sorts of touristy things to buy, places to eat, and live music. Among all the “stuff” though, we saw young children without shoes picking up cans, digging through the trash to find things they could make money off of, and selling bracelets.  One night, Adam looked at me and said “Khylee-I think we need to adopt from Honduras, I don’t care how long the wait is.” 

And I knew in that moment- I knew that Adam was right, I knew that the Lord had our children in that country, I knew I needed to wait, to wait as long as it took, and to open my heart to a wider age range.    The Lord had already intimately connected my heart to this country and he spoke through Adam to help wake me up to the boundaries and rules I was setting up for how this adoption-thing was supposed to go. 


It wasn’t a coincidence that I had learned to speak Spanish in college or that I already traveled to Honduras once in college on a mission trip and fell in love with a group of orphaned boys.  The Lord had purposefully placed in my heart a love for this community of people.

Mi mono "my monkey" was my nick name for this little guy.  

So we both came home from our vacation, with a firm grasp that it was time- Time to begin this new, exciting, scary, unpredictable journey… 


(For Part One of our story: "Why we are adopting" click here)