Surprise! Adopting...AGAIN!

Our names are Melanie and Luke Dabbs, and we have been best friends since our senior year of high school. Adoption was something we talked about before we were married, and since the beginning we were both in agreement that we would adopt someday. In 2019, we were thrilled to start our adoption process for a little boy from Sierra Leone. After a long and grueling 2 year journey to adopt our son (during COVID), Sidikie finally arrived home in 2021. He is now 9 years old and has grown in amazing ways since coming to the US. Although adoption is hard and his trauma is real, he is thriving and happy, and gives us so much joy.

The Dabbs family has been ready to welcome a new little one into the family for a while now, but we have recently found out that we are unable to have children naturally. Although we are disappointed, we can’t say we were hugely surprised. Thankfully, adoption is very close to our hearts, and we are already experienced in bringing a child home this way.

That leads us to our big announcement…we are adopting again! We just started our paperwork and have been approved by an agency. This has been a big decision (and a scary one), as we were not originally planning on adoption being our next step. However, we have a child in mind who we believe will be a perfect fit for our family in a crazy amount of ways. The child we are hoping to adopt was brought to our attention by a friend way back in November when we did not think we were ready to adopt again. But it seems that God had different plans for our family.

We are super excited to bring our new little one home and Sidikie cannot wait to have a built-in best friend to play with. However, we are also honestly very scared and not looking forward to the “before” part of the adoption process. This is not what we were expecting to be doing just two years after finishing our last adoption, and we are weary from the stress and turmoil of everything we went through last time. We also know that everyone around us is tired of seeing us fundraise, and that is making us nervous about the process as well, since this adoption is going to be extremely expensive and we are starting from zero. However, we know it is the right thing for our family, and that God will provide everything at the right time, just like He did last time. Will you please pray for us as we navigate this next step in our lives-- for strength, courage and determination, and funds to bring this child home? We need you all to come alongside us on this journey. ❤️