Haitian boy's adoption, one year later

AUSTIN (KXAN) - Wednesday marks the one-year anniversary after a 7.0 earthquake shook the ground in Haiti .

Thousands of people lost their lives -- 220,000 -- and rebuilding the capitol city of Port-au-Prince is slow-going.

Last year an Austin family adopted a then-4-year-old boy after the quake. One year later the family is rebuilding Haiti by starting in America.

Amidst the devastation, the pain, and the lives and hope lost there was the recovery. An orphaned boy brought from the devastated Haiti is new to the whole concept of simply having a family.

"Last year has been the hardest year of, maybe, our life. But also the best year of our life,” said Jamie Ivey, the mother of Amos Ivey, 5.

She said it has been a bit of a struggle at times. During the past year, little Amos has struggled with trusting, feeling love and feeling safe.

"[Those are] the three things he's had a hard time with. And us, we just try to prove to him that we're never leaving him. That we love him, and that he can trust us. And that we're going to be together forever," she said.

Amos has come a very long way. He's a regular fun-loving kid going to pre-school, asking lots of questions and playing Ninjas with his siblings at home.

For Aaron Ivey, Amos’ father, Amos is a sign of hope.

"This year has really been a reminder of how something that looked impossible actually came through," he said.

Often Amos is the teacher. He taught his dad that just because he wasn't there for the first few years of his life didn't mean that he missed the best part of raising his son. He learned there are special moments yet to come.

"Then a year later we're at basketball practice and he's trying to figure out how to dribble a ball and how to shoot a basketball into a goal with his brothers. It's surreal, but a sweet moment." Aaron Ivey called it a “dad moment."

Though Amos and his sister, Story, also from Haiti, will have an American upbringing, they'll never be far removed from their roots. Aaron wants his son to go back to Haiti, still be a part of its future, and bring his brothers and sister with him.

"Haiti has that place for us where we learn a lot when we go to Haiti ," Aaron Ivey said. "We learn how to serve well. We learn how to give more. Because you see those needs. You want to respond to it."