Carrilynn Willam
11/11/2013
"My little guy drew a pic of a plane under 'this year I hope to...' Little does he know he will be adopted in a few months!" (8/28/2013)
Hi! I'm beginning this blog, a little on the late side, but here goes...
My name is Carri, and first and foremost, I am a forgiven sinner, a Saint-in-Training, and a dearly beloved child of the Most High God. I have had the supreme blessing of being married to a completely great man for about 14 years. The extremely short version of who we are as a family and how we got here goes something like this: at our wedding, I was escorted up the aisle by my 3-year-old son, who is now an amazing and gifted 17-year-old. After a couple of years of infertility, we decided that our family would grow through adoption, and began the process to bring our second child home into our family, a joyful daughter who came to us from Haiti, and is now 11 years old. During her adoption process, we met her vivacious biological sister, and had the privilege of bringing her home a year later - she is now 13.
Somewhere in the middle of bringing our two daughters home, we had the wonderful surprise of discovering that we were expecting a baby. Ten days after our second daughter came home, our bouncing baby boy was born - and we were a family of 6, having grown from a family with 1 child to 4 children in 13 month's time. Our "surprise" is now a passionate and loving 9-year-old Shortly after that, we moved our newly expanded family from Wisconsin to the Central Valley of California, which we absolutely LOVE.
During my time in Haiti (I took 6 separate trips during our adoption processes), the Lord moved in my heart to show me that our adoption of our daughters was about more than our desire for more children - it was part of His Call on our lives - "to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners" (Isaiah 61:1). God allowed us to see such astonishing amounts of suffering and despair in His little children, and placed an enormous burden in our hearts during that time, and as a result, He has helped us be willing to answer "Yes!" each time that He has stirred our hearts with a compassion for another child.
After our move to California, we once again felt that stirring, and this time, we felt that our child was waiting for us in the California Foster Care system. Within a short time, we welcomed a precious new daughter into our home, who is now a gleefully "fancy" 8-year-old. We had another "surprise" a few months after our newest edition, and found out that she had a younger biological sister, who was also in Foster Care. A few months later, our youngest child joined our family, to be doted on as the much-loved "baby" in a family of 8. She is now an highly spirited 6-year-old.
For a while, we really felt like our family was complete; raising 6 children, ages 1-11 felt pretty much like a full-time plus job. Fast-forward 3 1/2 very full years, and while checking my email, my heart literally stopped, because when we weren't looking or planning, God was preparing for us to bring another precious child home to our family.
This adoption would be unlike any of our previous adoptions, because during all of the past several years, God had been bringing us to this point, and asking us to take a HUGE leap of faith, jump out of our comfort zones, and do many of the things that we had always said we wouldn't do - all at the same time. Our new daughter was much older than any child we had ever adopted (10), had a much greater Special Need that we felt we could handle with our very full family (Spina Bifida, with several complications), and was in a country that we did not qualify to adopt from (in fact, we missed their qualifications in several points), China. Yet, God had so moved our hearts, that we absolutely knew we had to move forward, and allow Him to open or close doors, as He Willed.
Long story short, last summer we brought home our seventh child, a strong and brave, kind-hearted, and resilient girl who is now almost 12, and has taught each of us much about life. So, now, finally to the title of this blog... as each of our girls have joined our family, we have been amazed at the connection that our biological pairs have to each other, despite having been separated at very young ages (3 months old in one case; and in the other case, never having lived together at all). The arrival of the sister who shared their heritage, their past, their looks, and their hearts was a healing balm to their battered hearts, and was humbling and beautiful.
We felt strongly that even though in a Chinese adoption the chances of identifying a biological sibling are infinitesimal, we hoped that we might at some time be able to add one more child to our family, a sibling who would share a special bond with our newest daughter. While in China meeting our new daughter, I was blessed with the opportunity, very briefly, to visit the home where she had been living, and the children with whom she had shared her life. One little boy in particular, I remembered from having viewed on the computer, and our children at home had all fallen instantly in love with, and of all of the children who we brought presents to, he hugged me and said, "Thank you Mommy". Of course, I knew then that he was meant for us. Not only will he share memories, culture, and heritage with our daughter, but he also has Spina Bifida, and therefore understands the daily challenges that our daughter faces, and will be able to relate to her in a special way. Another special blessing is that our dear son, our "surprise" baby, has requested a little brother for three siblings in a row :-), and after a very long wait, he will soon have a buddy to play Hot Wheels & Nerf Guns with. Eight months after returning home from China, we announced that we would soon be a family of ten, and began working on our dossier.
It looks like I will be traveling to China within the month, and prayerfully, Josiah and I will be home in time to celebrate Christmas as a complete family. I hope to be able to use this blog to update friends and family on our status as our travel dates move closer, and will have the goal of updating a few times while in China. Also, I am including an Amazon link on this page. If you are planning to shop at Amazon for any of your Christmas purchases, and can click from the link on this page, we will receive a small percentage of your purchase, which will go directly to help with our adoption expenses. We have trimmed our budget down extensively, sold vacation days and loads of homeschool curriculum during the past 2 years, but the cost of completing two adoptions from China in 1 1/2 year's time is approximately $65,000, so we're coming up more than a bit short. We will need close to $10,000, just for our travel expenses, before the end of the month, so, if you do plan to shop on Amazon, and can click through this blog (I know it's a bit of a hassle, so we really appreciate the extra effort), that would be wonderful, as every little bit really does help. Thanks for reading!!
Visiting Pagoda Forest, west of the Shaolin temple in the Henan province (1/24/2014)
Rode the train with Josiah, it was fun. (1/25/2014)
No limit, Josiah, on 10/2/2021, his birthday
Josiah with his 6 sisters and brothers; next to him is Janayah, adopted from the same group home for special needs children in Jiao Zuo, Henan (Christmas, 2021)
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