Meet Mikaela

We have been thinking about adoption for quite some time now. Before we were even married, in fact. Both of us have hearts for adoption—especially when special-needs children are involved—and we felt strongly that God's plan for our family would include adoption. We just didn't think that it would happen this soon into our marriage. He has blessed us with two children in our first two-and-a-half years together, but He doesn't appear to be finished adding to our household at this point. For the past eight months or so, we have been convinced that God was leading us to adopt in the very near future. So, we have been praying hard over that time, trying to keep our hearts open to His prompting. We have considered a number of children whom we have learned of, and just yesterday we saw a girl who melted our hearts unlike any other has. She is five months old, just eighteen days older than our biological daughter, Gabriela. She has Down syndrome and a heart murmur, and she is living in an Eastern European orphanage where the children are often underfed and lack the care that they need. After praying about her for several hours, we became convinced that she is indeed our daughter and that God is leading us to pursue her adoption. And so, we are beginning the work for her adoption in earnest. There is a good deal of paperwork yet to do, and a lot of funds need to be raised before we can bring home our daughter, whom we are calling Mikaela Colleen. Mikaela is the feminine form of the Hebrew name Michael, and Colleen is Greg's mom's middle name. Together, her name means "Who is like God, little girl?" That means that our first two daughters (perhaps our only two, but we're not closing any doors here) are named for the only two angels named in Scripture and each have on of their grandmothers' middle names. We did not plan for this to be the case; we only realized that interesting fact after choosing a name for this baby girl.

Our prayer right now is that everything that needs to be done to complete her adoption will happen quickly and smoothly. We want very much to get her out of her orphanage as soon as possible, but there are a number of hurdles in our way. Perhaps the largest of those (at least from our perspective) is the cost of the adoption. From what we know, it will cost somewhere in the neighborhood of $26,000 to complete Mikaela's adoption. Thankfully, the very little bit that we have is enough to begin the process, and we are having to trust the Lord with the rest. He has led us here, and we are confident that He is going to provide all that is needed to bring our daughter home, though we don't know precisely how He is going to do it. We ask anyone who reads this please to pray with us and for Mikaela, that we will be able to complete her adoption and bring her home by her first birthday, which is in August. The best-case scenario has us traveling to bring her home in April, which would be amazing. That means, of course, that we would have to have raised all of our funds by that time. If you or anyone you know would like to help us in that way, please click here to find out how to donate. (There is a fund for Mikaela that has been set up through The Shepherd's Crook Ministries. Just be sure to designate your donation as being for Mikaela Godwin.) We will do our best to update this blog as we continue down this road to adoption. Oh, and we will post a picture of her as soon as we have verified that we are allowed to do so.