The Journey

Our story began in January 2004. Some dear friends of ours, Stephanie and Paul, had just come home with their darling daughter, Molly (adopted from the Hunan province of China). We left her 1st birthday party and Charlie put his arm around me and said "we need to do this." Well, he didn't have to say that twice. I WAS READY!!!

The next few weeks were spent with us looking at different adoption agencies on the internet. I went a little crazy....thorough resarch I called it...and requested information packets from 48 different agencies. At that point, we were looking at adoption from Azerbaijan or Russia. India wasn't even on the radar at that time. As the packets began to come in, I was obsessed with reading every word and looking at all of the information they sent us. Charlie would look as I showed him things, but he preferred to wait until we had all of them in and then go through them.

On Easter Sunday 2004, we sat down at our kitchen table and poured through the packets. We narrowed it down to 20. Then we narrowed it down to 15 and then finally to 8. We knew there was a workshop coming up in Stillwater, OK for one of the agencies we had in our final 8. We sent in our registration material. At the same time, we registered for the Dillon International workshop that was being held in Tulsa on June 12, 2004.

We attended workshops for American World and Children's Hope International. India had popped up on the radar, but we still thought we were going to Russia.

We had already told our family and friends by this time. Everyone was so excited for us.

Finally, June 12th came around. We really thought Russia was the place for us, but we wanted to attend the Dillon workshop since they are literally only 5 miles from our house, they have an incredible reputation, they (Jerry & Denise Dillon) attend our church, and we had already paid our tuition fee for the workshop. As we sat through the workshop, and our thoughts kept coming back to India. We left the workshop that afternoon very confused. We didn't talk a whole lot on the way home, but we were both thinking and feeling the same way we later discovered.

Later in the evening, we finally verbalized what we were feeling. We both felt very, very drawn to India and led to Dillon International. So, we decided we would think about it some more and ask God for direction. As the week progressed, things just kept coming in our path that made us both feel that God had a plan for us and that plan was in India.

On Father's Day (June 20, 2004), we filled out our application to adopt a son from India through Dillon International (www.dillonadopt.com).

That's the beginning of our bumpy and miraculous ride. I'll post our time lines and more information about this incredible experience. Stay tuned.