My dear friend’s sister is in the process of adopting this precious little girl, Aaliyah and I want to share more of their story and give you an opportunity to give to their adoption fund.
You can read more of Donita’s story here on my friend, Shawnda’s blog. But here is an excerpt of Donita’s testimony of how God led her to bring Aaliyah into their family.
“In 2005 God led us to start a new church, Crossroads, in an effort to reach a younger generation in a more casual, contemporary atmosphere.
After giving birth to three boys, I believed our biological family was complete. We have always said, “if someone wanted to give us a little girl, we would certainly take her, but we are finished having babies.” While we have always been open to the idea of adoption and have known and supported many adoptive families, we have never felt led to pursue adoption ourselves, although we have said, “if there was a child who needed a home, we would be willing to provide a home.” We even had this conversation as recently as last summer!
Two years ago, our youth did a visitation project to invite kids to VBS, and our oldest son, David, knocked on the door of Lois Montgomery, a great grandmother who had just moved to town with her four year old great granddaughter. Lois and Aaliyah began attending Crossroads, and although they visited other churches for a while, they always felt led to return to Crossroads and have been faithful attenders at Crossroads for a little over a year. In February, Lois approached us with a dilemma. She was concerned about what would happen to Aaliyah when she was no longer able to care for her. Aaliyah’s mother and grandmother had abandoned her shortly after she was born and Lois knew there was no one in her family who would love and take the responsibility for Aaliyah. She also wanted Aaliyah to be raised by a mother and father in a Christian home and have siblings. She told us that she had been praying about it for quite some time, and that she continually felt led to us, and asked us to pray about adopting Aaliyah. After praying about it and discussing it as a couple and as a family, my husband and I felt that our decision had already been made many years ago, when we first said “we would be willing”. We came up with many excuses about why we couldn’t, but they were all selfishly motivated. As adopted children of our Heavenly Father, He was giving us the opportunity to show His love to a little girl and her great grandmother through earthly adoption, and we knew that He had placed them in our lives for this very reason.
Because we had made no previous plans for adoption, we had not financially prepared for the cost which would be involved. There are attorney’s fees and home study fees, but our biggest expense has been converting our garage into bedrooms so that we have room to add a little girl to a house full of teenage boys. We know God has always known this was in His plan and has prepared for it, even though we didn’t.
Aaliyah is currently living with her great grandmother until her room is complete. The target move in date is June 1st, the day after school is out. We are excited about God bringing a girl to the Byrom family and how He will write this new chapter in our lives.”
I LOVE this story, how it sort of happened to them. I love how they are being so faithful to what could seem inconvenient for them and their family. Look at the widget in the sidebar and be a part of this amazing story. Any amount will help bring Aaliyah home.
