The Collingham Family

John & Gen Collingham

My husband and I married later in life, both our parents thought we would never marry, but at the age of 36 and 38 God finally brought us together. We never thought we would have problems conceiving, and we both wanted lots of children. However, in October of 2006 we found out my tubes were closed. We did have some treatment to open them up, but God has not yet opened my womb. Long before that however, we both said we would want to adopt someday, and in July of 2006 decided to adopt from Guatemala. Looking for an agency was hard, it seemed that not many agencies had God as a foundation for their adoptions so when I found CWA on the website stating their belief that God was in control of their adoptions we knew we had found the one. We signed up the next day.

 It took us some time to get the ball rolling and find a home state agency, as we were in the middle of moving and building a new house, but in October 2006 we had our first homestudy visit. I felt increasing anxiety about all the changes in Guatemala and found out about Kyrgyzstan as a new program on the CWA website. I asked for permission to look at the list at the time and we fell in love with some of the children we saw. We prayed and felt led to switch programs, the week we did we received a referral for 2 children. God works in mysterious ways and those referrals though placed on our hearts were not meant to be ours. But we continued to wait and pray. It was a heart-wrenching journey as we received more referrals but our international adoption doctor advised us unless we wanted some significant developmental delays we should choose not to adopt the babies. This was hard, each child you see leaves a little scar on your heart when you say no. Anya and all we spoke to at CWA were incredibly supportive and understanding during these times, had it been any other way we would have given up hope. Our social worker at home told us that in new programs often special needs children were referred first to see if someone would love them, but our hearts told us each time that this was not the one.

On May 8th, 2007, Anya called with a little boy referral. We were hesitant to let our hearts go and waited with bated breath from the IA doctor, this time he called us instead of emailing us and said this one’s a keeper!!!! WHAT a MOMENT!!! We accepted our little Michael on May 11th, 2007. Our dossier had been submitted January 22nd, except for the USCIS approval (that is a different long story). 3 months 11 days from that time we were given a son, what a miracle!!! He was born on February 23rd, 2007-the same month of our anniversary.

Two ½ months later we were on our way to pick up our son. On July 30th, 2007 we traveled to Kyrgyzstan to meet our boy and bring him home. On August 7th, 2007 we arrived home as a new family. We are now in the process of completing a second adoption in Kyrgyzstan.

We cannot say enough good about the people at CWA, Anya and the facilitator in Kyrgyzstan are some of the greatest single women we know, helping families unite with their children. With all the changes and unknowns, it is a truth to say that God is with CWA and their adoptions. CWA is definitely an agency we would recommend!