"A father to the fatherless...is God in his holy dwelling. God sets the lonely in families." Psalm 68:5
The Pre-Adoption Story...
Adoption was something that had crossed our minds briefly when we took a trip to China and saw how many little girls were in orphanages there...but as life went on we didn't think about it much. Then we decided we were ready to start a family...well the Lord, in his faithfulness, decided it wasn't time and that it wasn't his plan for us to have biological children at this time. It was one of the most difficult times for us in our marriage and in our personal lives, but our loving Father was so good and met us in wonderful and new ways. We were able to see more of His heart and how he uses hard things for His glory and our good. In January of 2005 we went ahead and sent an application to Lifeline Children's Services to adopt a child domestically (from the U.S.). We continued with some more infertility treatments at the same time. In February we met a family who had just returned home with their son from Ukraine (Nathan, Ann, and Canaan Duncan). Seeing them and hearing their story confirmed to us that adoption was definitely what the Lord was calling us to. Adoption was not plan B, or second best. It was what God had planned for us since before we were born. He just had to take us through some hard things to realize it. We stopped with our infertility treatments and went full-speed ahead with our adoption...and changed our plans to adopt from Ukraine! We realized the incredible needs in Ukraine. Here are some staggering facts that made this decision easy for us:- children have to leave the orphanage at age 15 or 16
- after they leave, 60% of the girls end up in prostitution and 70% of the boys end up in crime
- there are hundreds of thousands of children in the orphanages of Ukraine that might not ever know the love of a family or hear the life-changing good news of Jesus Christ!
The Name
We decided to name the child we would adopt, Samuel Gibbs. We had requested a boy because there are more boys available for adoption in Ukraine. Samuel, is of course from the Bible. Hannah had prayed for a child, much like us, and when the Lord finally granted her request, she decided to name him Samuel because she had asked for him of the Lord. Simply put, Samuel means "asked of God"...what an incredible thing to know you were asked of God for so long! His middle name, Gibbs, is a family name on Rachel's side. We wanted him to have the heritage and tradition of belonging and taking a part of Rachel's family.
Our Timeline...
Our entire process took about 9 months (from the time we started to the time we returned home with Samuel). Here's a summary:
March through April 2005 - applied to Lifeline Children's Services in Birmingham, Alabama and started our homestudy with Hope For Children in Atlanta, Ga (we had to have a Georgia social worker do this since we live in Georgia). During this time we had 4 visits with our social worker, visited the doctor for physicals, got two different sets of fingerprints done, and filled out LOTS of paperwork (we had to apply to homeland security to adopt an orphan internationally).
June 2005 - Received our 171-H (approval from homeland security to adopt an orphan internationally). We then went to Atlanta to get all of documents notarized and sealed with the state of georgia seal. After that we were finally able to send our Dossier to Ukraine on June 16 2005. It was then translated and submitted to the National Adoption Center a few days later.
July 22 2005- Received word that our appointment date with the National Adoption Center in Kiev, Ukraine was on Monday October 31!!!!!!
August through October - the wait went by pretty quick as we prepared for our trip. We had baby showers, secured plane flights, and made arrangments for our cat, mail, and house while we would be gone. Before we knew it, we were leaving on the plane!
Now that we are home with our precious Samuel, we are so thankful that the Lord called us on this journey. We know that He hand-picked Samuel to be our son! It wasn't an easy or smooth process (international adoption never is), but we know it is what God wanted for us. Through this adoption, we have been more amazed at our own spiritual adoptions through Christ. Because of His sacrifice we are a part of God's Kingdom family and have all the blessings of being God's children.
