About Ava

Ava is currently 3 years old and is originally from Henan, China. She was found when she was 4 days old at the entrance of a local orphanage. She was diagnosed with the special need of giant congenital nevus. Essentially, Ava has a large birthmark on her face and scalp, 5 other large birthmarks on her torso, arms and legs as well as many smaller birthmarks scattered on her body. A birthmark is skin that is highly pigmented with melanin. Normally melanin is distributed evenly throughout the skin. In instances of congenital nevus, the pigmented cells are not evenly distributed. When many of these types of cells are clumped together, they can result in moles on the skin because of the higher concentration pigment. Because of the extent of her special need, she was transferred to Philip Hayden Foundation (PHF) located near Beijing, China. Philip Hayden Foundation is a Christian organization that takes in at-risk and special-needs orphans. PHF dedicates themselves to loving these children, providing surgeries to correct their special needs conditions, and working to find loving families to adopt them. PHF named her “Holly” when she arrived at their organization just before Christmas 2006 at the age of 3 months old. She has been loved and cared for by the wonderful people there since she arrived. The one thing she lacked… was a forever family. Because her special need is so unique and extensive, PHF did not want to start the long treatment process that would be necessary to remove the many birthmarks on her face and body. They wanted her to be in a secure loving home. Therefore she has not had any treatments for her condition. We initially started searching for her adoption paperwork in January 2008 however her paperwork was still being prepared. We again started searching for her adoption paperwork in November 2008 when we learned that she had already been matched with a family. We were told the family that intended to adopt her would be traveling to China in December 2008. We were devastated. Imagine our surprise when we received notification in January 2009 that the family that was to adopt her had traveled to China to meet her and decided several hours later that they wanted to disrupt the adoption. She was sent back to PHF shortly thereafter. We immediately began searching for her adoption paperwork again. At that point we had been sponsoring her, praying for her and hoping the Lord would bless us with her as our daughter for 1 ½ years. 6 weeks later we received the call we had been waiting for. Our agency had Ava’s adoption paperwork and we were now able to begin the adoption process to bring her home. We hope to travel to China in November to bring her home. She has been through so much in her short life. We plan to provide her with the love, stability, attention, education and medical treatments that she so desperately needs. The road to get here has been long… but the rewards are so worth it. We are praising the Lord that He is allowing US to be her forever family.

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