The Thanksgiving My Dreams Came True...

The day began cold and snowy.  We were thousands of miles away from home.  When we woke up, our families back home had just finished their turkey and gravy and giving thanks.  It was the kind of Thanksgiving for us that held emotions and the giving of thanks like no other.



It was the day that my dreams came true.

It was the day my prayers were answered.

It was a day of anticipation, joy, frustrations, and nerves. 

November 25, 2005. 

It was the day we picked Samuel up from his orphanage and welcomed him into our arms forever.

Years of pain and grief and waiting and praying all culminated to this point.  To this day.  To this moment where my empty arms would finally become full. 

"I will praise the name of God with song, and shall magnify his name with Thanksgiving." Psalm 69:30

"Father to the fatherless, defender of widows — this is God, whose dwelling is holy. God places the lonely in families." 
 Psalms 68:5-6

Simply put, adoption is beautiful.  Hard? Yes.  But it's worth it.  5 years ago our lives were blessed through this amazing and wonder filled legal act.  Words can't do justice for what fills my heart and my soul when I think about the way God brought us to Samuel and him to us at the end of November.  I am so so thankful. 

 "O give thanks to the Lord, call upon His name, make known His deeds among the people."

1 Chronicles 16:8

Happy Adoption Day Samuel!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Our Adoption Story

"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.

Finding Samuel

From our Finding Samuel blog 2005
(this was the post where we let everyone know about our son!)

NOVEMBER 3 GOD'S SOVEREIGNTY
"He has made everything beautiful in it's time." Ecclesiastes 3:11 Thank you all for your prayers and for lifting us up to the throne of grace! God has been good and faithful in the last 36 hours. We have had much to pray about as we have sought his direction with something that will change the rest of our lives. We feel confident that He has met us and has confirmed in our hearts the direction we are to take! It might not be an easy path, but it will be one of joy and one that gives glory to our Father! We prayed that God would give us a referral at our appointment that would be Samuel. After our appointment, we thought the referral we took was just a means to get another appointment later with a "better" referral. We are so grateful that God is much more powerful and wiser than we are because he led us to a beautiful, sweet little boy who needs a home. That's right, we have decided the boy we saw yesterday is our Samuel! We are humbled that God led us to him despite our finite minds and understanding. The reason it has taken us so long is because there are some medical issues that we wanted to seek advice from doctors back in the states as well as here in Kiev. It is amazing how the Lord has worked to give us confirmation through wonderful Christian physicians. Samuel has a heart defect that can be corrected. He has had one surgery and will require one more surgery after we get home. God has given us incredible peace despite these circumstances. We are proud to give Samuel a home and offer him the best medical care in the world no matter what that requires! We know God will provide. We are reminded of our adoption in Christ...God decided to adopt us because our own hearts were dysfuntional and full of sin. He did not need us to be perfect before He decided to give us a new name and a new heart. He graciously bestowed His grace to us without condition! Now what you all want to know about...Samuel. He is three years old and beautiful! He has blonde hair and light blue/green eyes. He seems very sweet and was well taken care of at his orphanage. We were so impressed at his orphanage yesterday...they really love him and want the best for him. He is a favorite among his group and they described him as "friendly, curious, and playful." He is a little small due to being in the orphanage as well as his heart condition, but we have full confidence that he will catch up! His caretaker told us that he likes to give massages...we can't wait to receive those! As he left us yesterday, he told us "bye,bye" in English and blew us kisses. It really stole our heart and we cannot wait to see him tomorrow and show him off to all of you. We will post pictures as soon as we can tomorrow. Thank you all for your prayers...we know that God has answered them and led us sovereignly and in his amazing timing to the child he chose for us before the foundations of the world.