Altynai's Legacy Adoption Fund- Helping the Kyrgyz 65: The Littlejohn's are waiting for Tilek

Hello everyone! I am awaiting my weekly update from Lifesong for Orphans so I hope to post an update on donations in the next 24 hours! Keep your fingers crossed that the fund is growing.

While we wait, I want you to meet another precious little boy from Kyrygyzstan. Tilek lives in the same orphanage that Altynai lived in and he has an amazing family waiting for him.

Again, my husband Eric and I had more trials in our future. We struggled with what the doctors call “unexplained infertility” and over the course of five years we underwent 3 IUI's, 4 IVF's and 1 frozen embryo cycle with no success. We still longed to be parents and decided that we would try to achieve having a family through adoption. We considered both domestic and international adoption and ended up deciding to adopt internationally after a friend of ours told us of her wonderful experience adopting her son from Guatemala. She and her husband adopted a beautiful boy and he was such a joy to her family. I have always loved learning about other cultures and back in 1993 I was privileged to go on a short term missions trip to India where I really got to see first hand how blessed we are in the United States. I saw a culture that was so different than mine and learned how people are all the same on the inside, the only difference being the circumstance they were living in. It was something that I had been taught growing up but that year I was able to experience it first hand and I loved it.

Eric and I began to look at countries that had adoption programs and we decided that we would adopt from Kazakhstan. Shortly after our application for adoption was sent in, we learned that Kyrgyzstan had a program that was open with children from 3 months and up in need of families. That certainly perked our interest because we wanted to adopt a child as young as possible. We wanted to be able to experience parenting at every stage of our child's life so we switched countries and continued to work on gathering all of our documents needed for our dossier. Our adoption process began in August of 2007. Shortly after our dossier was completed and sent to our agency, we got a phone call on April 9, 2008 that we had been matched with a baby boy who was 3 ½ months old. I was at work when I got the call and I called Eric to tell him the news. We were thrilled, scared, excited and hopeful all at the same time. When we got home from work, pictures were waiting for us on our computer of the beautiful baby boy who would capture our hearts and soon be our son in a matter of months. I believe seeing the picture of our son for the first time was like when a couple first sees their child through ultrasound. Our desire was granted on that day. There is a living person that you can see that you instantly form a bond with and you will do anything for that person. Your life changes forever.

Shortly after we said “yes” to adopting Tilek, we learned that court dates that would determine travel dates were taking a longer time to be given. And, in February 2009 the Kyrgyzstan government placed a moratorium on adoptions including the pending cases like ours who just needed a day in court to be completed. We learned that we were in a group of 65 families stuck in the same situation and every one of us became fearful, because we did not know when these dear children we committed to could join our families. There have been so many hills and valleys we have been on and now, over 3 ½ years since we saw our son's beautiful face, we still wait for him to join us.

Eric and I knew that we would keep waiting for Tilek but we also knew that we wanted more than one child. So, in February of 2010 while I was home, due to the company I worked for being shut down because of a huge snowstorm, I began looking at the special needs children our agency was trying to place from China. I was drawn in a way I cannot explain to a little boy who was 1 year old with a bilateral cleft lip and palate. I couldn't wait for Eric to come home so I could show him the little video clip and pictures of this child who's eyes just drew me in. I wanted to be his mama. We were a little nervous about doing a concurrent adoption but God provided all our financial needs and in February of 2011 we were able to travel to China and adopt our son Logan. He is such a joy with an infectious smile. His personality is just so precious and everyone who meets him loves him too. Logan looks at Tilek's pictures in our house and says his name. I tell him that those pictures are of his brother. There is an empty place in our hearts that will not be filled until Tilek joins our family. We have no idea what God's plan is to bring him home to us but we have not wavered one second in our decision to adopt him. We just received news last week that the Government of Kyrgyzstan will be having us start from scratch on our adoptions and that they will “re-match” us families with the children we were matched with over 3 ½ years ago. So much can change and there is so much uncertainty. We are trusting God to provide our needs daily as we miss Tilek and fear for his health, development and safety. We will continue to trust Him to provide for our financial needs when we get the news that we can go meet Tilek and bring him home to us. We trust that Tilek will bond to us and that we will bond to him as we've bonded with Logan. We pray Tilek will feel like he belongs when he joins our family. Nothing is in our control and we will continue to fight for our son, one day at a time.