Miracles in the Making

Wow, January has been quite the month for our little family. Something is in the works here at the Bonner home, something BIG. I don't really know where to begin, I guess I'll just start where it all began, 2 1/2 years ago.

Kaelyn's birth/life has changed hearts, two of the biggest changes happened in the hearts of her mommy and daddy. When we first found out about Kaelyn's situation we were scared, we didn't feel like we were equipped to raise a child with special needs. Neither Wayne nor I had very much experience at all with anyone with any kind of special need. After 2 1/2 years with our little miracle, we feel very different about our abilities as parents. She has shown us the way all along, and taught us that we can do anything with faith in and the help of our Savior Jesus Christ.

Not long after bringing Kaelyn home from the NICU we learned about Reeces Rainbow, a non-profit organization that advocates and helps raise funds for children with Down syndrome and other special needs in parts of the world that are living in orphanages and eventually sent to mental institutions where they sit in cribs/beds all day, with very little interaction with other people. A blog friend of ours was working to adopt a little girl from Russia. From the very beginning I knew in my heart that we would bring one of those dear children home to be a part of our family. I just had faith that I would know when the time was right.

Just after Christmas I saw this special on the ABC World News tonight with Diane Sawyer. I highly recommend you watch the beautiful videos. The minute I watched these videos, my heart started to tell me something, something I didn't think I was ready to hear. Over the next week I would wake up each day wondering if I would feel the same way, if it was really time to find our other little girl. Each day it was re-affirmed through promptings of the Spirit, that yes it is time. Every question I could come up with, every reason that "logically" it doesn't quite make sense was answered with a way it would work out, or why it was right.

I was afraid to talk to Wayne about it, what if said no, what if he didn't agree? Yes, at first he was a little shocked that when I mentioned it to him a few days earlier, that I meant right now, not sometime in the distant future. But he listened, and he opened his heart, and not long after he was on board.

So yes there is a lot more to this story, and there is time to tell, but the short of it is, we are adopting a little girl from Eastern Europe with Down syndrome. We need to be really careful about how much information we put on the blog about her, so until we figure all that out we will be as discrete as possible.

Meet VICTORIA

(That is the name she was listed as on Reece's Rainbow, we don't know her real name)

We would like to invite you to follow along on this exciting journey at her blog, rescuingvictoria.blogspot.com

We will undoubtably need the prayers and encouragement of you, our friends, to help this all happen. It is not an easy task, but we feel we are up to it. We truly believe she is our little girl, meant to be a part of our family forever, and we are going to do everything in our power to get her here.