Growth

This has been a month of growth for us…and we’re not just talking about Ashley’s continually growing baby bump. Two weeks ago, after returning from a short and wonderful trip to the US for Ashley’s sister’s wedding and visiting family, our family size doubled with two boys joining our family.

Both boys were residents of the DOORS Home for the past two and a half years. One, 14 years old, was formerly living on the streets of Kampala before coming home to DOORS, and the other,16 years old, was a pupil at DOORS Primary School who ran into a hard family situation leaving him homeless. Since entering the DOORS Home, both have had some reconciliation with their biological families. So, how did they end up in our home as part of our family?

About two years ago, when Ashley returned back to Uganda, she felt strongly that one day these two boys would live with her…she just didn’t know what that meant or would look like as she was no longer living at the DOORS Home as she had been previously. When Matt returned to Uganda the following January and our relationship was on the cusp of beginning, one evening Ashley shared with Matt passively her feelings that these two boys would stay with her one day to sort of test the waters of their potential relationship. That morning as Matt had been praying, he had had a similar thought: that one day these exact two boys would live with him. Well, that night we began dating…

These boys moving in and becoming a part of our family has been something we have been thinking and praying about for the past year and a half together. The timing definitely does not seem ideal as we are still in our first year of marriage and also expecting a baby in less than two months, but again God has made it clear that September was the time for our family to start growing. God’s wisdom is certainly not the world’s wisdom, and for that we are thankful.

While the boys are fully a part of our family, we feel it very important and necessary for them to continue to build relationships with their biological families. Because of their age and family situations, we have no intentions of formally adopting these boys; Ugandan law also prevents this. We are at peace with maintaining a fostering status with the boys as we raise them up to be the Ugandan men God created them to be. They will continue to visit their biological families during portions of the three school holidays each year to continue the reconciliation processes with their families.

While we love these boys and are so excited that they are finally a part of our family, the transition has not been easy for us. We have found challenges with changes in our routine, changes in our household and schedules, changes in the amount of time we get together just the two of us to catch up on our days and invest in our marriage. While we know this is the path God is leading us down, we are asking for your prayers as we navigate what it means to be parents to two Ugandan teenagers from hard backgrounds, and how to prepare to be parents at the same time to a newborn baby in a month and a half, while maintaining and strengthening our marriage. It is our desire that as our family grows, we would grow closer to God and to each other.

Please also pray for the boys as we know that while they were excited about moving in with us, the transition has not been easy for them either. Their walk to school is significantly longer (and now includes a massive hill home), they are no longer surrounded by their friends of the DOORS Home causing some boredom for them and also some bullying from the other boys in the home, they are working out how to be at home here and be themselves with us, and also they are learning how to get along and befriend one another as previously in the DOORS Home they weren’t the closest of friends.

It is our deepest desire that in our home they would have the freedom to be who God created them each to be. Would you pray for us that God would reveal what that looks like for them?

Some pictures of the boys’ first weekends with us:

Gardening

Playing frisbee with Matt

Playing tennis against the gate

PS…The baby continues to be healthy and develop normally, due date is estimated November 22-25^th. Matt continues to stay busy busy at eMi (more on that later with a subsequent newsletter), and Ashley is beginning to take some steps back from DOORS in preparations for a new lifestyle with a baby in tow.

***We have been asked to remove the names of the boys on social media sites as per DOORS' Child Protection Policy***