When we first met Kevin, he looked like this…(he’s on the right, and that’s my mom in the middle)

And we loved him.

A year and a half later he was removed from the orphanage. Then he repented and asked for grace, which the leaders gave him. It’s a long story (emotional on my part) but some of my thoughts can be seen here. I don’t know that I will ever publically share the full story because a) It’s not mine to share and b) I don’t know if I could do it justice, but to sum up our involvement, I will just say that Tate, Theo and myself flew from Seoul, Korea to Seattle, and my parents, Mark’s parents and Nana came together to watch the boys so I could fly down to Managua to take Kevin to the new center on the other side of the country.

Here’s us in Puerto Cabezas when I dropped him off there…

And six months later we rejoiced as he made the best decision of his life…

During this time, we called Kevin weekly. We felt it was important to be actively involved in his life, so we made that commitment to him and his house parents. That December he graduated from Primary School.

Then, for very good reasons, he went to live with his mom again. We continued to be in contact with him and prayed daily for wisdom regarding how to proceed with him.

When we moved here we were still unsure of how our relationship would look. For the first six months we saw him twice a week, on Sundays and when we did our worldview study. We continued to visit with his mom and siblings. We went to his school parent meetings (because we were asked to, not because we forced our way). Around mid December we asked Kevin if he wanted to spend time with us at Christmas. He did, and his mom did as well. So, he came to visit after Christmas and stayed. We’ve seen his mom often and she is very happy with the arrangement. As is he. And we are overjoyed.

So, there you have it. A brief story on how Kevin came to be a part of our family.