Broken.

I am heartbroken. Devastated. Aching from the very depths of my soul. This morning we withdrew our commitment to Gage. In the 11th hour of his need, we are walking away. Leaving him to face an unimaginable fate if another family is not able to step forward NOW to bring him home because we could not follow through with our commitment. I feel wretched. Evil. Cruel. Selfish. I have failed this precious child, whom I love deeply, in his greatest hour of need and am leaving him to a fate worse than death. . . .the institution.

Why?

Because we cannot get there fast enough. In addition to encountering delays with our homestudy update (our state child abuse clearances are currently taking 3-4 months), it has become very apparent to us over the past few weeks that our children (specifically our girls) are not ready for both of us to leave them for a prolonged (and undetermined) length of time. When we made our initial commitment, the girls were adjusting beautifully and seemed to be quickly overcoming many of the hurts that they had experienced living in orphanages for 7 and 8 years. We felt certain that, by the time we were ready to submit our dossier for Gage, they would be well enough adjusted that we could leave them for a few weeks without major consequence. That changed when I traveled to Bulgaria and brought Alexis home. Old behaviors and insecurities began to resurface and, while we are slowly working through those issues and insecurities, we know that the girls need time to heal and fully adjust to our family as it is now before we introduce any more change.

Many people advised us to wait until Alexis was home before making our initial commitment. We understood the wisdom in that counsel, but also felt an urgency from the Spirit to move forward with our commitment. Now, 4 months later and with Gage literally out of time, we feel the same urgency to "step aside." It could be months before we are able move forward to bring him home and he does not have months. He needs a family to rescue him NOW.

This has been the most agonizing decision we have ever made and we have spent countless hours in prayer and deep discussion, trying to find a way to meet the needs of our children at home while still being able to follow through with our commitment to Gage. But in the end, we knew that we needed to love Gage enough to let him go and to give him the chance to find his forever family NOW.

I wish I could give him back the 4 months that he lost while he was on hold for our family. I wish that I had loved him enough 4 months ago, to follow the counsel of those who advised us to wait. At the same time, I cannot deny the power and urgency with which the Spirit spoke to our hearts to move forward. While I do not claim to know or understand the Lord's purposes in this situation, I pray that the purpose of our commitment may simply have been to hold him at the baby house until his forever family was ready to rescue him and I am pleading with our Heavenly Father to send that family NOW so that our precious boy never has to set foot in an institution.

We may not be able to move forward quickly enough to bring Gage home, but we will not leave him without a voice. We will advocate for our amazing boy until he is HOME with his forever family and, in an effort to ensure that finances are not a barrier to bringing him home, we will be launching a fundraiser in the next few days in the hope of raising enough money to provide him with a FULL grant (he currently has $9000 in his grant fund which covers his entire facilitation fee).

We will also continue to move forward with our homestudy update. We have received a firm witness that our family is not yet complete. While we are praying that Gage is home with his family LONG before we are able to move forward again, if he is still available when that time comes, we will continue to work to bring him home.

Please, please help us be a voice for our precious boy! He is literally out of time and he does not deserve to spend another day in an orphanage without the love of a mommy and daddy! Please raise your voices along with us to help us find a family for him NOW!