The idea behind the journey

Welcome. I am Bethany and my husband is Abe. We are creating this blog to share with you about our journey. Journeys begin with a decision. Sometimes you can't see the paths that led you to a specific decision.

Really, I don't know how it all came together. I do know I have many friends who were adopted. Some friends of my parents had two adopted children from China. A roommate from college, as well as several good friends were also adopted. As a young woman I thought that it was something that I wanted to do.

I spoke to my fiancee about it in college. He thought about it and prayed about it.  The more he thought about it the more he liked the idea. We were married after finishing college. Then we went to  Graduate school. After graduation, Abe got a job as a youth pastor in St. Croix, USVI. We have been here for three years so far. After about a year living on the island I started thinking about adoption again. I signed up for Adoption newsletters, started reading articles and listening to podcasts about adoption. My advice is if you want to start caring more about orphans and adoption, start reading about it. It changes you somehow, when you start seeing their faces and hearing their stories. Not everyone can or should adopt a child, but anyone can help orphans.

This year we celebrated our five year anniversary. We started talking about growing our family. Why not start this year? Whether or not the Lord decides to bless us with a biological child in the future, the blessing of raising children is open right now. There there are an estimated 153 million orphans in the world. Could one or two of those children be ours? Maybe it will be a five year old little boy from eastern Europe with eight fingers instead of ten. Maybe it will be a four and a half year old little girl with dark curly hair and her two year old sister. 

Adoption is a long journey and it will not end when our child comes home. It will be a lifetime of learning about our child,  the struggles they experienced as an orphan, the struggles they will experience as an adopted child, and the regular struggles of growing up in our world. With faith and hope, we have already taken the first steps. Will you come with us on this journey? Whether you can join us for just a little while or a lifetime, we appreciate the company.

Love,
Abe and Bethany Kennedy