Open Eyes and Open Arms: Back to the Start

I thought I would start with the beginning and how we got here for the 31 for 21 blog challenge. Many of you have read this all before or walked it with us. It was God, from the very start. We had NO idea that we would be where we are today 5 years ago. Even 3 years ago, for that matter. I can look back and know that God was setting the stage long before that time, but we were being prepared unawares. I think it is pretty cool to look back and see so clearly how the preparations started and yet be so clueless at the time.

If you had asked us 5 years ago, we would have told you that our family was amazing. We would have said that we would love to adopt a child someday... Someday when our lives settled down and our children were grown. Someday when the military would be out of the picture except for the nice retirement. Someday when it was more convenient. And then God :)

Many things happened just before and during our move to Marvin's shore command. He began to to work on our hearts and our circumstances. Little by little, in many different ways, He began to open us up to adoption. We began asking people to pray for us as we started making decisions. And then we waited to see the next step. On a drive, words came out of my mouth that I had never seriously considered before that point. I asked Marvin if he would be open to special needs adoption. His answer was that he would pray about it. And so we began to pray, and I began to research. I googled special needs adoption and found Reece's Rainbow. I looked through the many faces of children that began to break my heart. I would look through the pictures of waiting children and pray for them. A few weeks later, a friend sent me the link to her friend's blog. That friend had just adopted 2 boys from Ukraine and had a documentary posted on that blog about the special needs orphans in Ukraine. Sitting in the bed, watching those children with so much potential wasting away, tears began to stream down my face. God spoke into my heart at that moment. He brought several verses to my memory on our job as Christians to care for the orphan. He had opened our eyes and we had a choice to make. What were we going to do? Just a few days later, I found the picture of a baby girl that grabbed my heart. I showed her profile to Marvin and asked if I could just inquire. I had no idea at the time where she was and knew very little about her. I was informed that there was another family that had already began to inquire about her and so we waited. We did learn that she was located in Ukraine. Coincidence, right?! Before that blog, I had no idea where Ukraine even was. In that few weeks times, God broke my heart for the children there. While we waited, we began to research the process for adopting from Ukraine. We needed to know if moving forward was even an option for us. We found that it was the perfect fit. The other family did decide to move forward. However, soon after that, a group of baby boys were listed. I saw this picture and I just knew. This was my son. I woke Marvin up and asked him to look at these sweet boys. He knew right away too.

And so it began. Our journey to Ukraine. He was born with an extra chromosome, in a country where different is hidden away. He was hidden away, but God allowed him to be found. We saw the treasure where others had seen a burden. We began the race to get to him. Almost the same time we found our Tobi boy and began our adoption process, another family was placing their son in the very same orphanage. We did not know at the time that he even existed. We added a second child to our paperwork because we were told we could and should if we were open to that possibility in any way. We learned of his arrival to the orphanage a few months into our process, but at that time his paperwork was not complete. We decided that we would bring him home if his paperwork was completed on time, but that we would not slow down in reaching our Tobi boy. Just a short time before our paperwork was submitted to Ukraine, I received a picture of our sweet Josiah with news that his paperwork was ready.

Very soon after that day, we were meeting our boys, holding them in our arms for the very first time. Months before, God had opened our eyes. We responded by following Him and opening our arms. When we took that first step of obedience, we had no idea what blessing was to come. When they placed our boys into our arms, they gave us an unimaginable gift. It breaks my heart that our blessing came from such brokeness and pain. I wish it could have been different, but I am so thankful that these boys have been given to us.

Our very first smile from Tobi in country :)