My First Blog!

Yes, it is a miracle! The person you least expect to be blogging is now a blogger. I do not check emails. I do not do facebook. I do not twitter. Why would I all of a sudden start blogging? My heart has been full for such a long time with so much emotion about this process that we started 2 1/2 years ago. It just seemed like the right time to let people know what we have been going through and to keep updates on the progress...slow as they may be!

The web address I chose is "holding on to asha," meaning hope in Hindi. From the beginning, instead of calling the child that will join our family "the child that will join our family," we have used a nickname--Asha. We initially requested a girl, so the name Asha was appropriate, as it is a popular name for Indian girls. We also have felt for many years a strong call from God to adopt. We believe that despite many obstacles, God will bring a child into our family through adoption. We have hope that He will accomplish His plan! As discouraging as it can be at times, we know we can trust Him and hope in Him. When we did some work to our home, we had Ellie write her name in the mortar with the date. In that same mortar reads, "Hope." I know that there will be another child in our family some day, and that name set in concrete along side Ellie's is a sign that we are confident of this. The child that joins our family (hereby known as "Asha"--until we know if it is a boy) has every bit as much permanency as Ellie in our hearts and in our home--even our mortar! So here we go...the story of bringing home Asha.