On the way back to our apartment, we stopped at a grocery store to pick up a variety of formulas and the other supplies that are needed to take care of a newborn. When we arrived at the apartment, I asked my daughters what we should call her. They had been watching Anastasia on television, so they suggested Alexandria. From that moment on she was Allie. A year later when her adoption was finalized, we named her Alexandra Danielle Ellis. Alexandra, because it is the Greek root of my name Sandra, and Danielle, because that is what her biological mother put on the birth certificate. 

The reason I have shared this part of Allie’s story is so you can begin to understand how and why MaKayla’s story is unfolding. When I left the Philippines with Allie, I saw a need and considered going back to open an orphanage of my own – one that would be different from anything I had seen, but life has a way of taking over again and we get caught up in the thick of thin things. For the first two years after I came back, it seemed that I was constantly fighting to keep Allie and Steve, my husband, alive. There was just one crisis after another. I also realized that due to all of this drama, I had not fulfilled my obligations to pay back the debts I owed, so we began to formulate a plan to get our business launched and off the ground so that we could pay off our debts and then someday (have you ever noticed that someday never comes?) when my obligations had been met and I could afford it, the plan was to go back and open an orphanage.