Khloey Ann Misgana Aragon

John 14:18 I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.  

Life is not only a journey, its a story...God's story, and every one has a part.... This is the story of an African orphan, born in a field, abandoned, starved, and part of a frightening statistic.  According to UNICEF there are 160 million orphans world wide.  There are an estimated 7 million orphans in Ethiopia; this is one of the highest numbers in any region world wide.  Children are orphaned for many different reason's, the main cause of abandonment is disease.  HIV/AIDS is a global crisis, with devastating statistics. Almost 20 million children in 3 regions of Africa will be abandoned this year due to loosing one or both of their parents to this disease.  When Adam and I started our adoption journey we were asked on several occasion's why we were not adopting from America.  Our answer was simple, our daughter was not in America, she was in Africa, and we knew beyond a shadow of a doubt she needed to be rescued from the above statistics. 

Adoption is a scary word, that brings many mixed emotions, and I promise we experienced each one of them.  Can we love a child that was not "biologically" ours?  Will people stare at our family when we are in public?  Will we know how to raise a black child?  How will we do her hair?  Will she resent us for taking her from Africa?  Will she resent us for being white?  These were all risks we were willing to take....we knew the little girl God had placed in our heart would be worth any heartache, confusion, or frustrations adoption would bring.  So we decided to start the adoption process in October of 2008.   Adam and I prayed for several years before we started the adoption process….we could not deny any longer that our family was not complete.

All God's Children International is the adoption agency we chose.  We had heard of them in the past and after much research and prayer we knew they would be the best option for our family.  I could write a blog just on them alone.  They were amazing every step of the way.  AGCI was the vessel we are forever grateful for.  They were with every step of the way, literally from filling out our paper work to introducing us to our daughter.  I can not praise them enough.  They are changing this world one orphan at a time.

Adoption is a lengthy, emotional, exhausting, exciting process.  Each agency, state and country have different criteria.  Our process start to finish was 18 months....At the time I would have said it was the longest 18 months of our lives.  But in all honesty it was just the blink of an eye and she was in our arms. I remember the day we finally received the phone call that would forever change our lives.  March 4, 2010.  My phone was ringing I looked at the screen and it said "All God's Children"...I knew it was going to be our case worker.  I fought back the tears as I answered, I heard her say "Brandi I have a little girl to tell you about"....I went running down the stairs screaming (Adam thought someone died)....I went running into his office and put the phone on speaker.  We listened as she told us about this little girl....we waited what seemed to be a lifetime to receive an email of her picture....(it took about 5 minutes).....the second we saw her picture we both looked at each other, and we knew she was our daughter. Her birth name was Misgana Timeret. We would later change her name to Khloey Ann Misgana Aragon.   Adam and I have decided to keep most of her profile, family profile, health record and what happened to her birth family private.  That is something we have shared with our children and when Khloey asks questions and is ready we will share every detail with her.  From that moment on we started preparing to bring home a one year old little girl.  Memorial weekend 2010 is the weekend we traveled to pick her up.  Our focus was Khloey, but at the same time we were leaving America for the first time and traveling to Africa.  We knew we would experience great sadness with what we would encounter in a 3rd world country.  We did have great moments of sadness, but we also had great moments of joy and peace.  We were a day away from holding our daughter. 

May 31, 2010 is our "Gotcha Day"...this is the day we had been praying for, dreaming about and anxiously awaiting.  I remember that morning; we were prepped as much as we could be.  The director of the agency told is how stubborn Misgana was and how attached she was to her nanny. This made us very nervous.  They thought it would be best if we allowed the other families that were with us to be introduced first…So Adam and I sat back and watched other families hold their children in their arms for the first time, each introduction as beautiful as you could imagine….I had the same hope for our introduction….Khloey had other plans…..Our introduction was chaos to say the least.  The nanny carried her down the stairs to us, the baby was SCREAMING like I had never heard a child scream before, the nanny tried to hand her to me and Khloey was not having it.  She was throwing a fit, arching her back and throwing her arms and legs.  I remember thinking to myself “nevermind”….but after a quick prayer I knew she was just scared.  So we walked with the nanny out to a swing set and I sat in the swing.  The nanny calmly handed her to me, and I held her for the first time.  It was like time stood still as her big brown eyes looked up at me.   I felt our hearts connect for the first time, and I knew she trusted me at that moment.  The orphanage offered to keep her there for a few more days and let us visit her.   We quickly decided no, we wanted to take her that moment to the hotel and start the delicate attachment process.  Khloey attached to me within the first 24 hours….it took her about 6 months to attach to Adam.  Adam did not push her, we knew in time she would trust and love him as her father.  I can not believe it has been one year.  Khloey has adapted, bonded and attached to our family beautifully.  She is loved so very much, she fits right into the chaos of our family. 

Here are some questions that we have encountered either from our children or other people:

1)      Mommy is that lotion how she will turn white?

2)      How much did she cost?

3)      Why did you have to go to Africa to get her? There are children in America that need families.

4)      Is it hard to love her because you did not give birth to her?

5)      Mommy how will Khloey know she is adopted?

6)      How can a white family raise a black child?

7)      What happened to her parents?

8)      Did her parents die of Aids?

9)      Do you love her like your real children?

10)   Is she your real daughter?

Hahahahahaha if you know Adam and I at all you can imagine the sarcastic answers to all of theses questionsJ

Truth is some of these questions are very serious and honest questions.  Adoption is a very serious decision not to be taken lightly.  I do not have all of the answers; however we are open to sharing our story, physically, emotionally and financially.  But not just to curious people.  We are open to sharing our story with people that genuinely care and pray for orphans of the world.  The biggest question we get right now is will we adopt again….The answer is we don’t put God in a box and we are always open to prayer about anything.

            Khloey is a thriving 2 year old little girl, not only did we rescue her….she rescued us.  Bringing her home has changed us forever.  We can look into her eyes and see how happy she is and how much she loves us.  When we brought her home at 14 months old, she could not talk, crawl, or chew food.  This little girl has grown leaps and bounds…she is running from me most of the day.  She loves all food, and can feed herself.  Khloey loves to play in her play room and watch Dora and Mickey.  Khloey is one of the happiest children I have ever known....Khloey came home battling night terrors, and fearful of her new environment.  We covered her in prayer everyday, and loved her on her terms, and did not push anything on her….there are a million books on adoption, we read a lot of them, but nothing could prepare us for what was to come….nothing except God’s hand on all of this.  All of our children have been incredible blessings from God, and each one of them are apart of God’s story…I cant answer why children around the world suffer and die everyday, but I can tell you its because of our open heart that there is one less orphan in the world…I dare you to pray the prayer Adam and I prayed all those years ago:

Heavenly father, do you have a child for us, not one placed in my womb, but placed in our hearts.  Please reveal this child to us, connect our hearts and lead the path.  We are scared, we are uncertain, but our hope, faith and trust is in you alone.  Please allow us to be the vessel to save a child from poverty, and bring them back to you.  Allow this child the opportunity to grow and love your son.  Father if it is your will, we will love this child as we do the children you have already placed in our care, let us do all of this in Jesus name….Amen

this was the first picture we saw of her

                                                       picture from our baby shower

                                                        being introduced for the first time

                                                          holding her for the first time

 

first day at the hotel in Africa 

 

Our African Princess a year later