Congratulations Jason, Kam, Kennedy, Sydney & Joel!

Jason, Kam, Kennedy, Sydney & Joel

“Jason and I married in 1996 and in 2000, the Lord blessed us with our first daughter, Kennedy. She was the light of our lives and we were completely in love with her! In December of 2002, we were given the best Christmas gift...our second daughter, Sydney, was delivered 6 weeks early due to complications and though she struggled with her breathing a bit, she was beautiful and healthy. We were plugging along, doing great as a family of four and still, I wondered if someday we would have a son. Since I was a little girl, I wanted to adopt and we often teased that our little boy may be out there somewhere...that we could go ‘snatch him up and bring him home!’ But it never went farther than passing conversations and wishful thinking as the finances were never there to consider it seriously. But God had planted something in our hearts. And while it was a slow progression, it was still there.”
After hearing several sermons that kept pointing them to adoption, Kam goes on to say,
“I finally surrendered one afternoon, ‘Okay Lord! I hear You!’ I talked to Jase and asked him if we could pray seriously for one year about adopting a son. He was very open to the idea and we began to pray...
We knew that God was leading us to a little boy with special needs. Our girls were perfectly healthy and we felt that while we had limits {we're not heros}, there were countless mild to moderate needs that we could handle. In June of 2008, we selected our adoption agency. We also sent away for our HUGE packet to begin our home study and by the last week of June, had actually settled on a little boy that we were really interested in. He was 18 months old and lived in an orphanage in Bangkok, Thailand. He was beautiful and had the darkest hair you've ever seen to go along with the deepest brown eyes. I was in love already. His special needs were premature birth {we've dealt with this before}, with lung issues due to his prematurity {hello! that was us too!} as well as resolved gastrointestinal issues {corrected perforated bowel}. We felt God's leading to move forward and began the long road to Thailand for our son, Joel.
We were in the thick of paperchasing and beginning our homestudy when we learned of Adoption Discovery during the summer of '08. Oh how I wish we had known of these wonderful people sooner! It would have went a long way to not only educate us about the process, but would have alleviated so many of our concerns and questions. But God was in the details and we got on board with AD to become leaders. Even during the training, Jase and I would look at each other and laugh about how we could have benefited from the concise and clear information they were sharing. Not to mention, we have come to know the wonderful team at AD and so appreciate their ministry to families.
Our process had bumps along the way but looking back, was such a blessing. The Lord brought our son home just 16 months after we began our adoption. While it felt like an eternity, compared to so many others, it was short lived. We traveled to Thailand in late September of  2009. It was like a dream. Joel came in the room and went straight to his daddy. It was one of the most precious moments of my life. I just don't know if I'll ever get over it. I remember every detail of that moment...the look in his eyes, the scent of his beautiful hair and how my heart raced as he walked in the room to us. Our son, who had been loved by us for so long, was finally in the same room. Breathing the same air. It was overwhelming.
It's now been 10 months since that wonderful day. We finalized our adoption in May of this year. Joel is amazing. He is so affectionate and funny, happy and healthy. It's like he has  always been here and recently, like he has finally exhaled. Taken a deep breath and relaxed. He's home...and he knows it. We still pinch ourselves that this little boy is ours. That he is our son. That, like God, who adopted us into His family and set His love upon us before we ever knew Him, Joel has been grafted into our family beautifully. It's a clear picture of the Scriptures and we are blessed that we have witnessed it firsthand.” 
"God sets the lonely in families..."
Psalm 68:6