our adoption story

“The place God calls us to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.” –Fredrick Beuchner

KAYCEE: Kellen and I have been married for nearly eight years. Marriage is certainly no walk in the park; rather it is the greatest, most frightening, most significant, most muddy, and most beautiful adventure two people could ever take. And as we choose to truly commit to one another daily, our love grows deeper, and it is from this pair of virtues (dedication and affection) that our desire for a family comes. So in the summer of 2012, after five years of marriage and no pregnancy, we decided that was God’s way of telling us that we should adopt.

KELLEN: Adoption was never a plan B for us. We see it as a Biblical mandate to care for the orphan, and our role in that calling is to take the orphan into our home as our own.

KAYCEE: The idea of adoption has always intrigued and inspired me. We are constantly taking teenagers into our lives and often we become parent figures for the ones who don’t have a sense of place. It is a longing of ours to put the family-less in families and we feel like God has prepared us for parenthood along the way. Also, in 2007, I spent about three weeks in South Africa where much of that time was working in an orphanage. I still remember the beautiful faces of the children there and pray for them on a regular basis. I knew then that I would adopt one day. Adoption just makes complete sense because we have been adopted into God’s family!

KELLEN: Although we were excited about the thought, the process of adoption was what kept us from jumping right in. We knew people that had adopted, we read stories about other’s journeys and honestly feared the task of raising so much money and waiting such a long time to have our child. We loved that adoption happened, but didn’t really think we could handle it.

KAYCEE: In the late summer of 2011 we moved to Louisville, Kentucky to attend Southern Seminary. Little did we know that the dean of the theological school there was a huge advocate of adoption, having adopted two boys from Eastern Europe. Southern hosted numerous adoption conferences and many of the churches in the city had large communities of adoptive families. Something that seemed so daunting to us suddenly was very normal and approachable. In the fall of 2011 we went to see one of our favorite artists play and the whole concert was a fundraiser for adopting families. I was on the brink of tears the whole time. Near the end of the production they showed this beautiful video of the children that were waiting to join their forever families and I couldn’t hold it back anymore. I was a blubbering mess (to the discomfort of the friends that were with us). I just wanted those children. I wanted our child.

KELLEN: We didn’t know how to move forward, though, and just felt this weight for a little while. We prayed and asked how God wanted us to proceed and just kind of waited. Then in the winter of 2012 we were in a membership meeting at church and discovered the wife of the couple at our table was a social worker for a local adoption agency. We spent the majority of our time pelting her with questions. She was patient with us, and more than willing to help us. Her office specialized in the Ethiopian program and so that was her point of reference. So many families in Lousiville had adopted from Ethiopia successfully, and many while in seminary and working part-time jobs. After much prayer and many, many more questions, we decided to start the process and believed that it was God’s will for us to adopt from Ethiopia.

KAYCEE: It’s been three years since we began the unending pile of paperwork that still has not ended. We started the journey full of excitement and anticipation and then around the summer of 2013, with our name still very high on the list, we began to get super discouraged. We knew that it would happen one day, that day just seemed so far away. Life continued to go on and we had to go on with it and daily trust that God’s timing is perfect. Then, in the fall of 2013 we found out we were pregnant! It was a huge, staggering surprise. I didn’t even know how to process what I thought was impossible. But it was such an exciting time. As our Africa-babe grew in our hearts, his brother grew in my belly!

KELLEN: Many people would ask us when they found out we were having a baby, “Are you still adopting?” which I totally get. But, again, adoption was never a plan B. It was always what we wanted, but because of the financial hurdles, I do wonder if we would have pursued adoption had we gotten pregnant immediately. I hope we would have…but perhaps not. Either way, God blessed us with two children and we cannot wait to have them both.

KAYCEE: So that brings us to today. The time is coming and is coming soon that we will be matched with our Africa-babe. Upon accepting this referral, we have to have around $15,000. This does not include all we’ve already paid! Then six months from that time, we will travel to Ethiopia twice. Once to meet our baby, and settle a lot of legal issues and then go back a few months later (the agony of these months, I can only imagine!) to bring our baby home (the joy of this day, I can only dream). Three years waiting seems like nothing compared to the excitement of getting our baby soon!

KELLEN: We’ve saved and received a generous donation to cover about half of what is needed to bring him home. But our time is running out as well as our finances.

KELLEN & KC: Please, please, we ask you (we beg you!) to consider donating to our fund to bring Abe’s brother home. To bring our son home. Pray that God will provide. We trust he will! By donating to our cause, you can be a participant in the place where the world’s deep hunger and our deep gladness meet. THANK YOU. THANK YOU!

To donate to our fundraiser, please click HERE!