our journey of adoption

I've always wanted a multiracial family. As long as I can remember. I just have. After several years of marriage and no children, we made plans while living in Oregon to go to China to find our baby. Things didn't come together as we hoped and a few more years passed... until shortly after we moved to Hawaii, Yasmin asked, "How long have you been married?" (7.5 years at the asking) "Oh, have you met Sally?"

And thus began our journey of adoption. A journey that has changed and expanded and brought healing and joy to our hearts.



We set out to bring a little Chinese baby home... but our sweet Indonesian-Chinese-Egyptian baby came to us. To ALL the hands who helped to guide her home, and especially her birthparents and grandma, Thank you. We love you with all our hearts. We witnessed countless miracles, set in place by a loving Father in Heaven that brought her half-way across the world and into our arms. I'd never felt such joy.

I didn't know my heart could love like this. Naomi Ardyza Kalani. My life would be dark without her.

A year and a half passed and we began to feel an urgent need to find our next daughter. We dusted off our adoption paperwork that had been 90% complete and just sitting for the last 9 months and quickly completed and submitted all the remaining files to activate our profile. We prayed and prayed and prayed. We set everything in place and did everything we could to find this child. I would have vivid dreams at night and remember every detail the next morning. My over-active brain would then carefully analyze and over-analyze every possibility that came... it was driving me crazy. And then one day, the Lord spoke very clearly to my mind. "Let your mind be at peace. You cannot at this time understand everything that has been set in motion for this to take place."

And so I did.

And the miracles began to unfold... again.

When we received our first email from Kalea's birthparents, I felt peace. (No over-analyzing or second-guessing myself... simply peace... ok, and a whole lotta excitement!) Little did I know that the week we were quickly completing our paperwork, our daughter's birthmother was discovering she was pregnant and they were beginning their own journey towards adoption.

Making her debut 3 weeks (and 12 hours) early, Kalea Kaura Lucille. Our Filipino-Caucasian belle. Her eyes are filled with light - she is like a bright star in a foggy world.





The bond that I have with my girls is spirit to spirit. Although I did not give birth to them I feel like they have always been a part of me. We were meant to be together - to be a family. Forever.

Looking back, if I could rewind 12 years and start over again... I wouldn't change a thing. Not the timing, the heartache, or anything else about the way our family has been brought together. It is a complete miracle to me. And surely the most transforming miracle in my life.