I’ve been asked what we are going to do with Alethia’s blog since our overseas process has been completed and she is now home with us.  It seems kind of sad to just stop writing altogether, but I want her story to begin to merge with the rest of our family.  She isn’t living her own story anymore!  She is a Via:)

Josh and I plan on making a blog book of this journey for her, kind of like a baby book since we have one of those for each of our other children.  I would also love to put an update of her on here during special occasions like birthdays, but we’ll just have to see how it goes.

But in the mean time…

I have written and re-written this post a half-dozen times and can’t seem to put into words exactly what I want to express to you.

We basically just want to say thank you.  We just can’t say it enough!

Thank you for caring about our family.  For loving us in the most practical ways.  Many of you sacrificed greatly for us to be able to bring Alethia home.  You sacrificed your time, helping us pull off 3 yard sales, fundraising parties and watching our kids to run around getting piles of paperwork complete.  You sacrificed your finances (some of you over and over again), donating to our adoption.  And those are all things that happened before we even left for Uganda.

Then, you followed us to Uganda.  You couldn’t be there with us but you read our story.  You prayed for us.  You shared our burdens.  You cried with us.  You laughed with us.  You remembered us when we were gone for so long.  You shared our story with your friends and family to help speed our process along, gaining more prayer warriors along the way.  You contacted congressmen, senators, and countless other avenues and resources that we just didn’t have at our own fingertips to help bring our little girl home.  You have supported us in every area and in every way.  You cleaned my house before I flew in with the kids, you offered to watch the kids so I could catch my breathe while Josh was still in Uganda with Alethia.  You stocked our refrigerator and got groceries for us.  You knocked money off of our rent and made yourselves available in so many other ways, offering your friendship and encouragement at the drop of a hat.

I keep thinking of the letters that Paul wrote to the churches that he started, as he continuously thanked God for their perseverance and dedication to God and for their on-going support of him.  That is how we feel and how we want to express our gratitude to you and God.  The Lord placed each one of you in our lives for that time and orchestrated the events to unfold in his perfect plan, using all of us to paint a beautiful picture of what Christ’s church should look like and be.

So, from the bottom of our hearts:

“I thank my God in all my remembrance of you, always in every prayer of mine for you all making my prayer with joy, because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now.  And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.  It is right for me to feel this way about you all, because I hold you in my heart, for you are all partakers with me of grace…”

Philippians 1:3-7

 It was finally time to leave.

…as a family of six, making our exit into forever!
 We know that we are very fortunate to have gotten our happy ending, but we pray that we would be giving God the glory no matter what His outcome would have been, because he continues to give us “strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow”.

To God Be The Glory!

***More To Come***

…she collapsed into my arms and held on tight, as if she was afraid I would disappear from her again.

She was here…and she remembered!!!!!

By that time our other kids were running around the corner to meet us, shouting “Daddy” and “Alethia”!

It was all I could do to hold my ground.  It was just so surreal!  Having my whole family all together was way more joyous that I had ever imagined.

I couldn’t stop kissing her as I slowly realized that my grip on her was just as tight as hers was on me:)

She was here.  I could breathe again…

Now it was time to introduce her to the world:)  This was the little one they had been praying so hard for.  God had given us our miracle!

***More To Come***

 But all of a sudden I heard murmuring as everyone began focusing their cameras toward the escalators. Josh and Alethia were coming!
 And then I saw them…

***All photos by Kelly Via Photography***

Let the countdown to forever begin!

So, to answer your question…come one, come all!  We’re going to show RDU how to party.

We won’t be sticking around for long and we won’t be accepting any invitations for dinner and we will be going home alone as a family as I’m sure Alethia will be totally exhausted and over-stimulated (not to mention her antsy siblings who will want to swarm her as she walks around in her new environment), but we would LOVE to share this celebration with those of you who have prayed her home with us!

So, bring on the friends, and family…both familiar and new!  Let’s celebrate the homecoming that the Lord has been so gracious to bless us with!

Josh and Alethia will be flying into RDU on Wednesday afternoon at 1:27pm on United Airlines.  They will have already gone through customs so we’ll be meeting them upstairs by the checkout counters near the escalators that lead down to the baggage claim.

I’ll post any delays if they occur.

Oh, and just a reminder…I get to see this beautiful little face in ONE DAY!