Keeping Up With The Kimseys

So, can anyone tell me the theme of these verses...?

Father to the fatherless, defender of widows — this is God, whose dwelling is holy. God places the lonely in families.

Psalms 68:5-6

Learn to do good. Seek justice. Help the oppressed. Defend the cause of orphans. Fight for the rights of widows.

Isaiah 1:17

Pure and genuine religion in the sight of God the Father means caring for orphans and widows in their distress and refusing to let the world corrupt you.

James 1:27

I tell you the truth, when you did it to one of the least of these my brothers and sisters, you were doing it to me!

Matthew 25:40

Defend the cause of the weak and the fatherless; maintain the rights of the poor and oppressed. Rescue the weak and needy; deliver them from the land of the wicked. Psalm 82:3-4

He defends the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and loves the foreigner residing among you, giving them food and clothing. Deuteronomy 10:18

If you haven't figured it out... Clay and I are ADOPTING... from Uganda!

We are just in the beginning stages at this point. Our formal application was accepted a few weeks ago, and now we will begin the multi-step process that should take around a year to a year and a half to complete. Our hope is to bring our baby home before the end of next year. There aren't any guarantees in regards to the time frame, but 12 to 18 months is our agency's current estimation.

How did we get to this point?... The biggest factor that caused us to look into adoption is that our time working with the fertility clinic that helped us get pregnant with Miller and Charlie is over. Clay and I were extremely blessed to have the opportunity to try one more procedure with them. We had frozen embryos that were left over from the IVF cycle that gave us the boys. A month or so ago, we tried to use those embryos, but unfortunately it did not work, and none were able to be salvaged for another attempt. This was disappointing, but if we have learned anything from this experience it is that God is at work at all times and he opens and closes doors for us, and we eagerly trust Him in that!

Shortly thereafter we started looking into adoption. We have not given up the hope that we can have our own children again one day, but adoption was something that we believed we'd consider at some point no matter what. It appears that the doors have opened for us to do it now. We started by considering domestic adoption, but after reading further about the unimaginable number of orphans around the world and the conditions in which they live, we opted to look internationally.

Uganda sort of chose itself for us. There are plenty of places to adopt from, but many factors such as age requirements for adoptive parents, travel time, wait times to be referred a child, and costs helped make Uganda the right choice for us. Even more importantly, it is a terribly depressing situation for orphans in that country. It is one of the poorest countries in the world, AIDS has been a huge epidemic there, and millions of children have no parents.

We are extremely excited about this. We feel blessed just to have the chance to be parents again, and even more so to a child who is at risk in so many ways. It is most definitely going to come with challenges, and there are absolutely no guarantees that it will be a happy ending when its all said and done. Adoption has its obstacles no matter what the variety, but having a foreign child of a different race will surely make things more complex. Regardless of all that, we are excited to get this baby and love it the best way we know how and to show him or her Jesus. It is our hope and desire that He will be glorified through this.

We hope yall will be praying for us during this process and please don't ever stop... This is obviously a lifelong type of decision and we want y'all to be a part of it with us!