The Gerardo Family Love Story

I wrote a blog one time after a trip and it reads, “I wish I could take every one of these babies home. I wish I could kiss their boo boos. I wish I could tuck them into bed at night and say their prayers with them. I wish that I could protect them and hold them so they know they aren’t alone.” This sentence still resonates within me…I still wish this. I still want to love so many babies. I knew adoption was going to be a part of my life when I asked God to break my heart for what breaks His. We both knew when we started dating that adoption was a big deal for us. We did not know that it would be the first step into starting our family until we fasted last April. Adopting is scary, exciting and rewarding all at once.

What Brought You Together?

We started out as great friends. We met in 2015 while I was traveling the U.S. with a children choir from Uganda. We went through South Carolina and I met Alejandro. He told me that he was moving to Uganda in 2016 and I told him that it was a dream of mine someday. He then told me to talk to the man in charge of the ministry and one conversation later I was signed up to move to Uganda in 2016. I am from Alabama, so I would take 6 hour car rides to South Carolina often to see the team leading up to the move. Alejandro and I were still friends and, since we are being real, I will admit that I did not want to like him, but he snuck in and that is what we joke about now. While living in Uganda and working with the same ministry, he would teach me Spanish words on car rides, take me to get ice cream on bad days, and look after me. I moved home 5 months after moving there and it was hard living away from everyone. Alejandro was not a citizen of the U.S. so he did not have the ability to fly back and forth. I moved home and cut ties because it was too hard to keep in touch with everyone back in Uganda. One day I was driving and my feelings for Alejandro surfaced like a ton of bricks. I called him and said, “I have to tell you something, but you can’t let it change anything.” It did change things and we started dating a month later when I flew to Uganda to surprise him. He asked me to be his girlfriend while we were on a safari with our best friends. Alejandro got a visitors visa to the U.S. in December and he visited for two weeks and then he left again. We were in a long distance relationship for months. In February, I walked into his parents house in South Carolina to visit them and Alejandro turned the corner. I fell to the floor and he told me he was home for good. We got engaged in the house we would move into after we were married. He asked me to be his wife in front of my family. We got married in a cabin in Tennessee on May 20, 2017. We knew two things when we got married: that adoption would be how we start our family and that we would have a food truck someday. We are in the process of starting our family and we have a food truck now too!

Why Adopt Now?

We said that we would fast and pray about starting our family. We prayed about adopting and prayed for confirmation. Before we were married, I (Callie) was working at a spa and met a lady who was talking about her adoptions. I told her that I loved adoption and wanted to know more. She gave me her card and I asked her a few questions via text messages after Al and I got married. I knew it wasn’t time since we were newlyweds. We started fasting and praying about adopting right before our one year anniversary. We both spent tons of time praying for direction. After two weeks of fasting we had our answer, but we wanted confirmation. My mom called me one afternoon and told me she was just in an elevator with a social worker and she told her that we had talked about adoption. Mom sent me a picture of her card and IT WAS THE SAME SOCIAL WORKER that I had received a card from before. We texted my co-worker and told her about the craziness of asking the Lord for a confirmation and Him giving it a week later.