Thank You Lord

A few weeks ago, I was asked to share a testimony at church about our adoption and how God worked in our lives. Since there are parents waiting to adopt reading this, I wanted to share a little with you all.

We started on our adoption journey in 2006 after feeling it was something the Lord was leading us to do. In September 2006, we signed with our agency after months of research and phone calls. We initially started thinking of adopting a boy around three years of age, then as time passed, we felt the Lord wanted us to adopt a sibling group. Now it was time to start working on the paperwork. In particular, the homestudy. Keep in mind, we are a single income family with three kids already. Our household income is less than $100,000. We did not know how we were going to pay for this adoption, but we knew this was God's will and that He would provide.

God was there, holding our hand for the journey. However, we had more company. The devil himself was there to stir things up. When we announced to the family in the summer of 2006 that we were going to adopt, my mother was diagnosed with cancer just a few weeks later. Not just any cancer, but a rare form of cancer that was inoperable, could not be treated with radiation and, did not respond to chemo therapy. She was not expected to live through Christmas.

In October 2006, I was in Sanibel Island, Florida at a meeting and on the last day, my group learned that we were receiving a $2,000 bonus in our next paycheck. Now, I work for an insurance company. Believe me, this was a very unusual move for them. In my 20 years with the company, they had never done this. I called Dawn and told her the good news. God had provided the money for our homestudy.

We knew most people preferred girls over boys and that sometimes, siblings were broken up. In March 2007, we learned of a sibling group of three in Eastern Russia that needed a home. We KNEW these were our children, now we just had to convince the US government and the Russians. Mom had made it through Christmas and asked me every few weeks, when we would be able to get the children home. At that time, we thought if things moved quickly, we could be home Christmas with the kids.

In Alabama, the state DHR has to approve your request to adopt. So, once our homestudy was completed, and our state police clearance was in, our social worker sent the documents to DHR. They can take a week or even up to five weeks to process your documents (our state clearance had already eaten up six weeks). One Friday, while working in Pensacola, FL, I received a call from our social worker - our homestudy had been approved in just five business days. Again God was taking care of things. Now, our homestudy could move to US Immigration (CIS). Atlanta CIS was taking six weeks to process applications. About five weeks in, we received our approval - but there was a problem. When we originally filed with CIS, we were only thinking we would adopt two kids. Even though our homestudy cleared us for three, they went by our application. For the next month, we sent several e-mails and hard mailed documents twice to CIS. We finally got our documents changed to approve us for three children. Once again, God was there..

Mom was doing worse and was now to the point of being bed ridden. She had beat all expectations, but it was becoming clear her end was near. It was October now and she asked me again (as she had done many times before) when the children were coming home. I told her I didn't know, things were moving slower than anyone had expected. The state police clearance and the CIS issue added about two months to our process. I was worried we would be in Russia and she would leave us. However, God was there.

On November 4, two days following her birthday, Mom died. She fought a good fight, and it was time for her to go home. A little over two weeks later, on November 21, we received a call from the agency asking us if we could travel the next week to meet our kids. there was never any question, we said YES! I rushed that day and ordered tickets for us to leave on November 29.

On November 23, while returning home with my oldest daughter after feeding the horses, my wife called, her 1993 Explorer seemed to be smoking. She called, and I told her to pull over and I would come get them. After returning home with them, not 20 minutes after her first call, the phone rings its the police. Dawn's car was on fire. We drive to the scene and the truck is nothing but a hunk of charred metal. We were so thankful she and my daughter had pulled over and parked the car and had not driven it any further. God was there and took care of them.

We traveled to Russia on November 29 and arrived in Vladivostok on December 1. Did I mention we had to make an emergency landing in New York - complete with emergency trucks lining the the end of the runway? God was there and took care of us.

Speed to the end of the story, on April 19, 2008 I received a call from our social worker - we had a court date for May 19! We were elated! Late the following Monday, we received our final "bill" from the agency. I won't get into specifics, I'll just say through no one's fault but my own, the bill was $6,000 more than I had expected. I was in shock because the error was really on me. I had no idea of what I was going to do at that hour. I shared the information with Dawn and told her that I could pay the bill, but had no idea of how we were going to pay for the travel expenses. We said nothing to our friends and prayed. I'm talking hard, down on your knees praying in tears. The following Sunday night, our pastor asked my family to step out while they discussed somethings about us. Keep in mind, we had told no one of our problem. We were called in later and the pastor walked up to me and told me we were the recipients of $6,000 in donations that had come from several people. Once again, God was there and took care of us. Things would be tight, but we were going to make it.

Final note - we arrived in Russia and learned that the motel rate was $40 per night more than planned. Okay, $40 extra for 21 nights. That was going to eat up our travel cushion. Two days later, we received an e-mail from a group we had applied for a grant. They were notifying us we received $1,000 in grant money. We were elated! God was there, taking care of us.

There is more, so much more. But I did this for myself as much as anyone else. To remind me and everyone that God is always there and will care for us if we just seek Him.

Happy Thanksgiving -

Tony