Looking Back: Meeting Aaro for the 1st Time!

Continued from Facebook and Instagram...

We were told of two hospitalizations that Aaro had after they happened.

It was March 2019, and we had been matched with our son for about 6 weeks…Two weeks in a row, back to back I dealt each blow of difficult news, feeling helpless and hopeless to do anything for my son who was staying night after night ill in a hospital. I was a mess and couldn’t stand to be so far away from him and unable to do anything for him. And to top it all off, as we were patiently awaiting an answer regarding our request to come visit him in April, his orphanage had told us no. We felt the weight of that disturbing news set in- we weren’t going to be allowed to visit Aaro when we were going to be in the very same country as him in just a couple of weeks? It felt like too much. How could they deny us when we would be that close?

We couldn’t understand why when we had felt so strongly that God was going to allow it, that they wouldn’t.

But God was not finished.

Our caseworker at Lifeline emailed us late on a Thursday afternoon, asking if we could talk. We were on edge at that point with any communication from her, just nervous about the prospect of getting any additional hard news. I knew my heart couldn't take any more bad news...

However, what we didn’t expect to receive was the GOOD NEWS that his orphanage was making an exception for us! They were showing us mercy because of our son’s two hospitalizations, and giving us permission to visit him after all!!! We were dumbfounded. We knew exactly where this grace and mercy was coming from- even if the workers there had no idea that the Spirit of the living God was the One who has shifted their hearts! And we know that our agency, Lifeline had a hand in it, too, advocating for our family and asking them to make an exception for us, too!!

The very next Monday, I got a phone call from our case worker sharing some completely unexpected additional good news- we had received our “No Objections Certificate” (NOC) from India...and we hadn’t even applied yet. 🤯 It was the most bizarre, extra miracle on top of our situation that could’ve possibly happened, for you see- this was the documentation and step in our adoption process that the orphanage was wanting us to have in order to come visit Aaro! This part of the process had notoriously been taking families several months to pass, and somehow with no effort at all or even being “ready”- the Lord granted us this step like it was nothing.

It felt so good to have permission to visit him and to have the extra peace of mind that we had the proper clearance to do so. God knew, and He made a way.

So, with the sweetest anticipation in our hearts and a happy glow on our faces, we set off at the end of March for a fantastic 10-day mission trip in Delhi with our team from the church, and then as they departed home on a Sunday morning, Steven and I stuck around for special 2-day adventure to our son’s city of Pune.

And for the first time publicly, we’re sharing some of our favorite photos and videos of the special meeting that we got to experience with Aaro on April 8th and 9th at his orphanage.