He is CHOSEN. 

Monday, May 8th - It started out like any other day.  Adam and I just had a conversation the night before about how it would be terrible to be "Monday" out of all the days of the week and how Monday gets a bad wrap. 

Little did we know this Monday would be different. 

I got home from running Eliot to school and decided it was time.  Time to CLEAN Anders room.  If I could of rented a bulldozer, it would of made this way easier.  This task also takes a lot of patience.  He is 3....almost 4, but still has a hard time focusing on the task at hand.  There were many times I thought about giving up and finding something else to do, but we pressed on and finished in record time for Anders.  We made space for his little brother to keep clothes and toys.  Someday.   

And then my phone rang and on my caller ID surfaced the Bethany Global Office number. She asked me what I was doing and I had said that I just got done cleaning "the boys" room and how it only took 2 hours.  She told me that was probably a good thing since they had a little boy that they thought would be a great fit for our family!

Disbelief for a moment and then a surge of excitement!

 I waited 30 minutes until Adam got home for lunch.  It was a long 30 minutes.  So, we sat down together and opened up his file and there he was.  A brown eyed, dark haired boy with big, squishy cheeks.   So, this is who we have been praying for.  Happy Mother's Day to me.  I couldn't of asked for more.

We fell in love with this face instantly!

As you all know, we are in the China Special Needs Adoption Program. 

Our son has congenital glaucoma in his left eye.   There is a possibility he will be blind in that eye. 

This took us back to when our first born, Eliot was 9 months old and we were told she was born blind in her left eye.  We won't lie and say we didn't immediately feel sorry for ourselves.  I, especially was mad about it all and didn't understand why God allowed this. We started to educate ourselves on how to parent a partially blind child (and what all came with it.)  It was scary for a time-being, but became second nature before we knew it.  This was all manageable.

We look back and see that God wasn't punishing us, but was preparing us for the future.  He knew our son's story before he was born and knew we needed to be his family.  All a part of God's plan. 

Remember, at the very beginning of our adoption process we invited you all to be a part of OUR STORY.  More proof that He writes pretty amazing stories for our lives.

We welcome with joyous hearts,

Theo Li Minglong Kaemingk

He is loved.  He is wanted.  He is CHOSEN.

Our sweet little Theo!  You are loved!

We chose Theo for his name as it means, "God Given".  We couldn't agree more!  We kept his Chinese given name as his middle name so we can keep his Chinese roots. 

We hope to travel in August to China.  We still have $7,000 we need to raise in order to cover the final costs.  It is important to our family to be paid in full when we go get Theo because we know he will need eye-surgery when we return home.   We continue to have faith that the finances will be taken care of.  

We invite you to our final fundraiser!  Please share this with friends and families! All proceeds go towards our Lifesong Matching Grant.  $3000 will be matched! 

Join us for dinner, dessert table, Eliot's artwork for sale, auction and a slideshow or our journey!  Hosted by our dear friends, the Roth Family!

Dinner and Auction Fundraiser

Sunday, June 26th

5:30pm Dinner  7:00pm Auction

Stagestop Receptions

Exit 48

Thanks again for your prayers for our family and for our son, Theo.  We can't wait to get our hands on him and get him HOME!!!

On behalf of our family, thank you for sharing in our JOY!

Hayley
Mommy of FOUR!