Luke and I had wanted to adopt for a long time, even before we were married, that was something that had been on both our hearts for a while. However, it was over 5 years into our marriage before we were in an adequate financial and living situation to be able to adopt. We were originally looking at domestic adoptions and had not really considered international, until a good friend suggested that we consider special needs adoptions overseas. I (Ashley) am blind and our friend thought that this would put us in a unique position to be of help to a child who was blind. We took his advice and began looking at agencies.
We found Children’s Hope International and they were so helpful and began to work with us quickly, but we were having trouble finding a country that would work with us, either because of my blindness or our income was considered too low. We were told about the new program in Bulgaria and that they might be willing to consider us; they would contact us within 6 weeks to let us know if we could start the process with Bulgaria. We received a call the next day! They told us that their counterpart in Bulgaria had sent an email about a little blind girl in one of their orphanages. Her name was Lexy. They figured that’s who we wanted to adopt. Needless to say, we saw God’s hand in this immediately and quickly began the application process.
All the staff we worked with were so kind and helpful. When it came time for our first trip to meet her, we were very well informed about what to expect and felt prepared to go. Everyone was always willing to take questions and we never felt like we were being a burden when we would call with questions, which sometimes was quite often. I would strongly encourage anyone considering an international adoption to look into working with Children’s Hope International; we were certainly glad that we did. Lexy is our blessing from Bulgaria.
from Ashley, Luke and Lexy Wayne
