Beating The Odds

We've had a lot of fun watching Kayleigh & Michael achieve some nice accomplishments this past week or so in some of their activities.  Michael tested for and earned his advanced orange belt in tae kwon do class.  It was his first test with the adult class as he has aged up into that group and he continues to excel in it.  Yesterday was Kayleigh & Alyssa's dance recital and it was wonderful.  Kayleigh looked truly beautiful and did great!

I saw a Facebook post from someone else in the adoption arena that reminded me just how amazingly blessed our family is to have these two kids as ours now, and how absurdly poor the odds were for them.  Older kids rarely get adopted.  Speaking statistically and watching reality play out, the odds are overwhelming that families who adopt will seek babies or younger children.  We had long planned on adoption, and yes for a younger child, but God has His plans and obviously we ended up in a different country, number and age!

Kayleigh was 15 when our adoption finalized and less than a month away from aging out of the adoption system and ending up on the streets (in Ukraine you age out when you graduate 9th grade....).  For kids who end up on their own, statistically they have a 90% chance of failure.  Failure is ending up in prostitution, crime (and subsequently prison...) to try and survive, or suicide to end trying to survive.  She has grown into a crazy beautiful 16 year old, so it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out where her life would have ended up.

To watch her up on stage, looking so beautiful, happy and smiling, surrounded by classmate friends, and surrounded by family afterwards, is nothing short of an odds-defying miracle.  To spend 29 dance routines sitting next to Michael (he did great...) , knowing that he would have simply followed older boys into crime and jail or gotten himself killed, is a miracle.

I am going to hug my kids today.  A lot :)