What do you tell an adopted child?

I was sitting in church and my mind wandered (don't tell the minister), and I thought what would I tell my two sons when they ask me, "Why did you choose me?"  or "Why did you adopt me?"

My thoughts come in the form of poetry sometimes (don't laugh), so I will share it with you.




GOD chose you for us
      for He knew that He could trust
                  our hearts that always must
                                    teach you about HIM.



                                                                      R. Scott Miskelly

We are still in the waiting phase of all of this.   We have not really heard much since last September.   We need four signatures to get out of IBESR, and we pray that that we are down to the last one which is the presidential dispensation.   Since we have three biological children we have to have a presidential dispensation which means the president of Haiti has to sign off on the families who already have children. 

It could be on his desk right now waiting to be signed. 

It is a good thing we have three children who keep us very busy, or time would almost stand still.

Skype, a wonderful thing

We skyped with the boys today.  At HIS Home for Children they set up Skype every first and third Sunday of the Month and we get to talk with our boys over the internet.  They do not say very much, pretty much what a three and five year old would do.   They do answer our questions with yes or no.   They love when our dog Lucy gets in picture.  What kid does not love a dog?  They sing Jesus Loves Me with us.  It will be great when we get to talk with them all of the time and give them the attention and love they need.

Fingerprinting-second time around

Every year we must be fingerprinted and today was our day for our second fingerprinting.  Darby has now turned 18 and she has to be fingerprinted for the first time today, too.   We just took the day off and enjoyed ourselves.  Poor Wilson and Madelyn had to stay in school.

We are in front of the Memphis USCIS building.    (United States Citizenship and Immigration Services)

All Smiles Today!!!!!

2012 - God Can Find Us a Child.

Upon arrival at home following our mission trip in March 2012 my family was extremely disappointed with the first Davidson's grandmother refusal to let us adopt him.  We all knew that the odds were that he would be sold.   She had told me at one time she could get $2,000 through the Dominican Republic for him.   There was nothing more we could do for him.

We had already completed application for adoption through His Home for Children in Port-au-Prince, and we had to decide whether we were going to adopt or not.  We had talked about several kids at the Sonlight Children's Home that we were familiar with but none were available for adoption.   We were going to have to place this in God's hands and let him find us a child or we were going to have to quit at this point.

In the book of Joshua, in the Bible, when it came time to for Israelites to inherit the promised land Joshua divided the land based on lots.  I had thought this interesting that each tribe inherited their land based on a system like drawing straws, but this was their way of allowing God to choose for each tribe where he wanted them to go.  Maybe we needed to let someone else choose a child for us so God could have a hand in this and HE could send us the child we could help the most.  I believe we will be able to tell our Haitian child (children) that God chose them for us and sent them to us.

We finally came to the decision that we were going to let Chris Nungester choose a child for us from her children.  She chose for us a little boy named Davidson.  We were told that he was born with bilateral club feet and that these had already been surgically repaired on one of the cruise ships that comes around to help the children and teach Haitian surgeons at the same time.  He stayed in casts for a good time, and he is now wearing braces.  He is three years old now, and they are trying to get him up and walking to strengthen his lower legs.

                                                                      Davidson

In this process we thought about the child we adopted being lonely or being a stranger in a different world here in the United States, and we thought that he might do better with a friend coming with him who would become his brother so we told Chris to find us another child to go with him.   We did not know the Haitian laws were going to change and that suddenly everything had to be in September of 2012.  Chris called us and told us that there was a boy she thought would be perfect for us, and she wanted him to go to a good home.   She told us he was sweet, kind, and very quiet, and she was not sure if she would have any choice in where he went after the laws changed.  We were pleased to be able to agree to adopt him, too.  Now, not only was God sending us a Haitian child, but he was sending us two children.   The second boy's name is Cherdinor, and he was born with a cleft lip and palate.  He came to the US twice for surgery and has done well following his surgeries.  He is five years old.

                                                                   Cherdinor

WE think that both children are perfect and we thank God for him allowing us to adopt them.   We hope that we can live up to his trust.

One more photo of the first Davidso

I have been asked about this first Davidson, and we are not adopting this little boy below due to his grandmother.  I have a picture of the grandmother with Darby, my oldest daughter, and me.  Ironically, the child that Chris chose for us from HIS Home For Children is also named Davidson.   But that is for the next post when I will continue our journey.    This picture below is the Davidson we are not adopting.   The next post will continue our story of how we let God choose who HE wanted us to adopt.  Will post soon.

Sorry, try again on the pictures from last post

Back to the Story.....

Now, where were we?

It was not until the earthquake of 2010 that we considered adoption again.  The earthquake happened in January of 2010 and our mission team was there in March of 2010.  We had many Haitians coming into our clinic that were really in bad shape.  One mother stood before me in the clinic with her four children around her, and she asked if I would take one of the children back with me.  She told me her husband had died in the earthquake, she could not feed all of her children, and she would have to let one child starve or give it away.  I sadly told her I could not take her child, but I did give her as much food I had in my daily snack pack and gave her as many vitamins and medication as I could.  This scene occurred time and time again.  My heart was very heavy.

Roberta, the director of the orphanage, had people living in tents in her compound and she told me that if we were ready to try adopting again that there was a baby that had lost his mother that we might be interested.  His story brought me to tears.  His mother was 16 years old and was coming to their nutrition center daily to be fed.  She was a smart young lady and Roberta was helping educate her.  She stopped coming one day.  Roberta went out to her mother to find her and was told that this young lady was sent to the Dominican Republic to work.   That was code for "she was sold into prostitution" by her own mother.   This lady has was selfish and down right cruel.   Roberta was heart broken that this had happened.  She could have helped her and taken care of her.  Right before the earthquake she came back to the orphanage and just showed up on the doorstep with a small boy named Davidson.  She was 19 years old.  She was told by the doctors when he was born to never feed him her own milk because she was "sick".  He was healthy, though.  She, not soon after, developed congestive heart failure.  Her mother would not take her to the doctor but put voodoo fetishes around her for healing.  Roberta went to the girl and asked her if she wanted to go the hospital, and she did because she was really sick.  She left her there at the hospital that night and when she went back to see her she had died.  Davidson was at the orphanage and he had only that grandmother left.  I fell in love with him immediately.


                       


When I got back home my wife and I sat down, talked about this, prayed and decided it was time again.    We started to get to work on the paperwork again.   It was not until that summer that I heard that the grandmother found out about the adoption and came and got him and took him from the orphanage.   She proceeded to tell us that she would not let us adopt him unless we gave her money.  We informed her this was illegal and could not do this.  Our dialogue with her continued all this year until we went back in March of 2011.  She agreed at that time to let us adopt him and we got all of the paperwork ready in the summer of 2011 and completed an agreement with Chris Nungester at HIS Home for Children to do the adoption for us, and then we got word that she would only give the child over to Roberta if we helped her repair her house.   This continued for the rest of this year,  we could adopt the child - we couldn't unless we gave her money.   Finally, March 2012 during our mission trip and told her that she either give the child to the orphanage and let us adopt him or we were finished.   She told me no and I was crushed.    I came back to the US to talk with my wife and family and we had some decisions to make.

All of this time I was trying to control who we were adopting, but maybe it was time for us to let God find a child for us.  I never could understand why God allowed Paul David to die.  It made no sense.  Now, I could not figure out why this was not working out for us.   Maybe we were being told to "wait on the Lord" and let him take control of the situation.   Maybe he had a child he wanted us to help.  But that is a story for the next post.

The Beginning of Our Journey

The beginning of this long journey started almost 20 years ago.  My wife and I after doing mission work in Haiti decided that after we had children, and they were a little older, we wanted to adopt a child from Haiti.  We realized that there was so much need in Haiti, and even though we could not help all of the orphans we were working with we could help at least one.  Just like the little boy and the starfish.  We felt we could give that child a Christian home with Christian brothers and sisters and all the love that he/she was missing out on. 

We went on to have three biological children who are all teenagers now.  The oldest is a girl named Darby, the middle child is a boy named Wilson, and our youngest child is a girl named Madelyn.  These kids are great and were also excited about us adopting another child to bring into our home.

I continued to go to Haiti yearly to conduct medical mission teams and work with a small orphanage there in Port-au-Prince called Sonlight Childrens' Home.  The time was finally right in 2007 and a child was born January 6th, 2007, and his story moved us.  He was found by the director of the orphanage in a bucket with his placenta still on him covered in ants.  His birth mom had obviously thrown him away.  We were moved to give him a better life than the start of his, and we started the process of adoption.  Our family was so excited.

We worked on all of the paperwork, which is massive and finally finished everything in April of 2007 and sent it for translation and legalization.   We got the dossier finished and it arrived in Haiti June 5th of 2007.   We were so excited.  He went for his medical exam on June 28th of 2007 and passed with no problems.  He got sick on June 30th 2007 and I tried to treat  him over the phone with the director of the orphanage there in Haiti.  He got so sick that by the late afternoon of that Friday she took him to the ER there in the city because he had blood in his diaper.  He needed an ultrasound and the ultrasound operator came out and gave the orphanage director her money back and told her that she was going home and did not have time to do this for her.  The medical staff told her that he was just an orphan anyway.  He continued to get worse over that weekend and she tried to get help from other places but by the time someone would take care of him he was too sick to be helped and died.  He had intussusception and could have been easily treated and corrected here in the United States if found in time.   We mourned for a long time and chose not to proceed with adopting a child at that time. 

They had a little grave stone made for him and sent to Haiti.  It was put in the little graveyard at the orphanage.  We gave him our last name, unofficially.  Notice even the date of death was wrong carved in the marble.  This was definitely a tough time on our journey.  Finally, after the earthquake in January 2010, stories from my medical mission trip melted our hearts.  If I was asked once, I was asked dozens of time to take babies home with me who were unable to be fed because one or both of their parents had died, and no one could feed another child.  My wife and I sat, talked, prayed, and finally it was time again to try adopting.   That story will be for another post.

The Boy and the Starfish

A man was walking along a deserted beach at sunset. As he walked he could see a young boy in the distance, as he drew nearer he noticed that the boy kept bending down, picking something up and throwing it into the water.
Time and again he kept hurling things into the ocean.
As the man approached even closer, he was able to see that the boy was picking up starfish that had been washed up on the beach and, one at a time he was throwing them back into the water. The man asked the boy what he was doing, the boy replied,"I am throwing these washed up starfish back into the ocean, or else they will die through lack of oxygen. "But", said the man, "You can't possibly save them all, there are thousands on this beach, and this must be happening on hundreds of beaches along the coast. You can't possibly make a difference."
The boy looked down, frowning for a moment; then bent down to pick up another starfish, smiling as he threw it back into the sea. He replied,

"I made a huge difference to that one!"
~Author Unknown~