So about a year ago, God connected us with another incredible friend. Our agent told us to contact K because she was a genius at fundraising and she would be able to give us ideas to raise money for our adoption. K and I made a connection right away, and it felt like we had been friends forever. K is quite an amazing person--She is a former Miss South Carolina beauty queen and has also competed in the Miss America pageant. Speaking of amazing, K also competed on the reality TV show The Amazing Race--season 7--which happens to be my favorite season of all time! She and her teammate made it to the final episode, and they were one of two teams that I really wanted to win! How crazy is that! If someone would have told me that a random contestant on that show would come into my life years later and become a dear friend, I would have been so surprised! Anyway, the most amazing news of all is that K and her family are adopting a daughter who happens to be in the SAME orphanage as our two children! I almost cried when I found out! At that point, we were one year into the process and did not know of anyone else who had or was adopting from our orphanage (except our agent over a decade ago). Despite the support of our local friends (whose children were ALL together in the same orphanage), we felt a bit isolated in this part of the adoption until we met K. What a sweet connection! K and I have talked LOTS on the phone over the past year, but in July, we finally met each other in person! Her family was passing through from the beach headed back to their home in TN, so they stopped and stayed for the night. All of the Columbus friends knew K from our online support group, so she got to meet them in person as well. We had a picnic at the park which was loads of fun. K was also reunited with Jenny, who happened to be a childhood friend who had also connected her with our agent! Tanwar, an lnd!an soldier taking classes at Benning, joined us as well. For dessert, we had cupcakes and ice cream to celebrate Smita's 9th birthday. After the picnic, we crashed G's house and hung out in her playroom until 2 am. G had just brought home her little daughter from lnd!a and wasn't able to leave her house, so we came to her! I love these ladies so much!
The next day, K and her family came to church with us, then to the Taj Mahal for lnd!an buffet! YUM!
Another highlight of their visit was that her husband and Jeff got to spend time together and they hit it off! They are keeping in touch by writing each other on email, too. I'm so excited that Jeff has a new friend...these adoptive dads need someone to confide in, too.
We had been hoping that it would work out for us to travel with the Parkisons. As soon as their case would stagnate, ours would move forward...but then theirs would move and ours would stagnate. It is very clearly looking like they will travel before us as our case has not progressed in five weeks. As disappointed as we are that we won't be going with them, we are thrilled that they will finally be united with their daughter. We are praying that they will be able to meet our two children and deliver gifts to them for us! Other than being there ourselves, I can't think of a more exciting thing to happen!
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