Thank You

November 2013


Dear Friends and Family,

I hope you will forgive this “form letter” but as I sat down tonight with an earnest desire to write each of you a thank you note for the immense service you have given our family over the last 10 days, I felt impressed to share some of the feelings I have had during this experience.

It is a humbling experience to have a family that you are physically unable to take care of for a time. When we received the phone call that our daughter had been born and we had less than 24 hours to get ourselves to Detroit, we were overwhelmed. We felt an absolute certainty that this child was our daughter and we yearned to physically be there but we could not fathom how we were going to make that happen. Within minutes, we had committed ourselves to be on a plane within 5 hours and to prepare our family for us to be gone for a significant but undefined period of time. As I sit and type that tonight, it makes me laugh! We have 4 children…3 of them attend different schools and one of them is still a baby himself. Over the last few days, I have often thought of the analogy of being willing to take a step into the darkness with absolute faith that your way will be lighted when the time comes. What I have learned is that while the Lord provides that light, He does so through others. We provide the light to each other at critical, crucial moments in life. And our family has been the recipient of angels’ work this week.

Thank you to each one of you for the kind, unselfish, tender service you offered. Whether it was offering to care for our children or assuming all the carpool responsibilities for getting to and from school or providing meals or cleaning our house or just sending texts and emails to offer support and love, you have made such a difference in our family. Every single time that our family had a need that we weren’t certain how to meet, someone would step forward and knew exactly what to offer and how to help. Every text you sent offering a ride or a meal was a direct answer to prayer. I am deeply touched by the love you have shown and offered. I am keenly aware that each of you played a very real part in bringing our Ava home! Every act has left a deep impression on my heart and made me earnestly desire to be more Christ-like, more aware, and more eager to help others in my own life. I have been touched by your examples and truly feel that over and over I have literally seen the hand of God taking care of my family when I couldn’t. I really can’t express my gratitude enough. Thank you!

Bringing each of our children home has been a miracle. They have each arrived with their own unique stories and evidence of the Lord’s perfect love for his children. We also recognize the utter dependence we have had to develop on our Savior to guide and direct us. I testify that the Lord dreams bigger dreams for us and has a greater imagination than we could ever fathom for our lives. Thank you for being a very real part of making our family’s dream come true!

Thank you again for everything you have done over the 10 days. We hope you know how much you mean to our family and how much your love has meant!