My husband and I have been married for 12 years and we have four children. My husband runs a business from home and goes to Bible college. I’m an at-home mom and a volunteer at our local pregnancy resource centre.
We recently returned to Southern Ontario after two years in Ethiopia, where we adopted two of our children. When we arrived in Ethiopia in the summer of 2006, we had two biological daughters and no intentions of increasing the size of our family. I’ll just say this: God’s plans for us are rarely the same as the plans we have for ourselves. His plans usually cost more in effort and emotions, but His plans are always better than ours. Always.
When our daughters were born, I suffered for a long time from post-partum depression. I did not recognize it as PPD, therefore I did not get help for it. Those first few years of parenthood were not pleasant times for our family. Compounding my depression was the loss of my first pregnancy just ten months before our first daughter was born.
Before we started our family, I worked as an administrator in an investment firm. And before that, I was a counselor in a group home for mentally handicapped adults. I can tell you the difference between working at a lucrative job that you hate and loving a job despite the nominal income.
My husband and I met at the summer camp where we both worked in our teen years. My brother and his wife met at the same camp. My sister and her husband met at the same camp. We have another sister as well, but she was too young to get married, so she was not allowed to go there.
I have been a follower of Jesus Christ since a very young age, having been born into a loving, God-fearing and God-embracing family. Not a perfect family, but a forgiven and teachable family. What more could I ask for? | 
