JURIS and VILIS for the Kirkland family — SC

Tyler and Valerie began their journey when they met in 2003 in Biloxi, Mississippi. In 2005 they were married and lived in Sumter, South Carolina where Tyler was stationed. They have a wonderful 7-year-old son Hunter who is an amazing boy who always wanted to be a big brother! In 2008 the Kirkland’s moved to Aviano, Italy. It was there that God clearly showed them that they were to adopt after 4 years of infertility. They began the process for 2 “healthy” children from Ukraine in October of 2009. The process took much longer than it was supposed to since Tyler was deployed to Afghanistan and all of the documents had to travel all over the World. Some time in September to October 2010, Valerie found adoption blogs that lead her to Reece’s Rainbow. Tyler, Valerie and Hunter spent hours reading the blogs of Reece’s Rainbow families and would look and pray over all of the children on the Reece’s Rainbow website. The Kirkland’s knew that they could not forget about these children and felt without a doubt that God was calling them to adopt a child with Down syndrome. While this was happening the Kirkland’s dossier was in Ukraine and they were waiting for their travel date. It seemed everyone was getting their dates but them, but God quickly revealed his plan. Around the middle of October Valerie received an email from their agency stating that they would not be getting a travel date until there were “healthy” children available. A day or two after that they saw a little girl on Reece’s Rainbow who had a major heart problem and needed a family. Without even thinking twice Valerie and Tyler called Andrea at RR and said, “We want to adopt this little girl!!” At the same time they called their agency and told them that they didn’t want a “healthy” child and that God was calling them to a child with Down syndrome.  In God’s provision the Kirkland’s agency used the same facilitator in Ukraine that Reece’s Rainbow did!!!! But they found out that a family who was already adopting a little boy from the same orphanage wanted to adopt the little girl they had called about! Still they knew God had a plan. Andrea gave them time to choose other children and they knew that they wanted two, a boy and a girl. God led them to their two beautiful children, Asher (Caleb on RR) and Emma (Beth on RR).  Their gotcha day was December 27, 2010, one day before their 6^th Anniversary.  Their family was complete—for a little while. Almost a year later, God put it on their hearts to adopt again, this time two boys from another country in Eastern Europe.  

3/15/12—HOME STUDY COMPLETE, COMPILING DOSSIER

Follow the Kirkland family’s adoption journey on their blog http://thekirklandfamily-valkirk26.blogspot.com/