Twelve Year Gotcha Day - Haiti Adoption Story
As Christians, we often talk about how God directs our paths and how to recognize His will in our lives. The way God brought our youngest son to my family is a beautiful example of how He works in the lives of His people.
Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. When my three biological children were little, our family started supporting a little Haitian girl through Compassion International. To know how to better pray for her we studied the country and learned about the language, culture, food, religion, and how the extreme poverty affected their everyday lives.
My husband regularly went on medical mission trips to Rio De Janeiro to minister in the favelas and when our oldest son became a teenager he was hoping to take him on a mission trip. Because of the intensity of the Rio trips they only allow adults 18 and older to participate, so he began looking for other options. Upon finding out about mission trips for youth groups to Haiti through Brent Gambrelll’s ministry my husband began working with our youth pastor toward a trip to Haiti.
During the summer of 2010, our church group went to Haiti for a week long mission trip. As it turned out, Haiti experienced one of its worst earthquakes in January of that year. It was centered around Port au Prince. The location where our mission team was scheduled to stay was on a mountain just outside of Port au Prince. But as God would have it, the mountain guesthouse where our team was to stay was run by a man who also ran an orphanage in Port au Prince.
When Port au Prince was hit by the earthquake, the orphanage was unable to be reached for days. The man who ran it decided to move all of the orphans to his mountainside guesthouse compound so that he would never have such a worry again.
Though they had originally only planned for our mission team to spend some of their time at the orphanage when it was in Port au Prince, they ended up living and interacting with the children every day.
While staying at the guest house, my husband, who is a family physician, offered to do medical examinations of each of the children. One small four year old boy had pneumonia and thankfully my husband had antibiotics for him. Every day my husband administered the antibiotic and checked on this young boy. By mid week he felt attached to him.
I was home caring for our two younger children while our oldest was in Haiti with my husband. Midway through the week I was speaking with a friend on the phone about the trip and she mentioned how if she were there she would want to adopt a child. I said something noncommittal and when I hung up thought to myself, “I’m happy with where our family is and don’t think I would want to adopt.” My youngest was finally becoming independent and it felt like we were at a good place. Immediately after that thought, I felt like God said to me, “You need to be ready to adopt.”
My first response was to ignore that voice because surely it was not really God. But then I thought, if Mary had responded that way when the angel came to her, she would have missed out on the blessing of having the son of God. It was a sobering thought and I told God, “Okay, I am willing, but you have to make it clear.” I didn’t want to try to bring about something that wasn’t meant to be.
Two days later I received a picture text from my husband. (At the time communicating by text was much cheaper than actual phone conversations) The text was of a little boy, but there were no words. I followed up and asked who it was, but I knew in my heart that this was our son. My husband said it was a boy he’d been caring for and spending time with.
“This is it,” I said to myself, knowing that the next steps would change my life and that of our family. I knew that my youngest son’s life would change the most, so I showed him the picture and said, “How would you like to be a big brother?” He lit up and was so excited. After that, I messaged my husband to tell him that Daniel said he’d like to be a big brother. I knew that if Chad was not thinking of adoption at all he would laugh it off . . .
But he didn’t. He said he would check and see if he was available for adoption, and it was obvious that he had that in mind when he first sent the picture. He seemed worried I wasn’t serious. I told him about my conversation with God and he said we would see where God led.
It was not a surprise that our son was adoptable and when my husband and oldest son returned they were amazed at how God had gone ahead and prepared me. Even our daughter had been on board when I asked her before their return. We immediately began the 21 month process that would bring our son home to us.
The process was grueling and filled with endless amounts of research, paperwork for the U.S. and Haiti, home inspections and interviews, fingerprinting, check writing, and waiting. When we finally were able to go to Haiti and sign the paperwork there, we thought it was close to time to bring him home. That was an interesting trip that included sitting on a mattress in a lean-to that was considered the lower court judge’s office.
We rejoiced that we had a few days to spend with our son. Yet it was heart wrenching at the end of that visit to leave our son and tell him we had to wait for all of the paperwork to be finalized. After that trip, it was another ten months before the American paperwork was done and we could finally bring him home.
All through the difficult ups and downs of the process, we wondered if we would ever be able to bring our son home, but had to trust that God had called us to the adoption and He would complete the work He started.
Once we brought our son home, two weeks before his sixth birthday, the challenges didn’t end. We were faced with his PTSD and inability to communicate well because he spoke Haitian Creole (Google Translate was our constant companion). The difficulties have continued as he has struggled to bond and trust—a result of those unstable first six years of his life. We continue to look to God and know that this is His will and He has a plan and a purpose. We trust that He is working all things towards His good and perfect will.
We recently celebrated twelve years home for our son. It is amazing to look back at all that God has done. As a child of adoption myself, I know what a special and amazing gift adoption is. God knits families together in His creative and wonderful plan in ways that assure each person is right where they need to be. The journey there may be hard from an earthly perspective, but God is looking toward our future and knows what is needed to get us to that place.
Adoption is also a beautiful picture of our life in Christ.
Galatians 4:4-6 ESV - 4 But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, 5 to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. 6 And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, "Abba! Father!”
Praise God for adopting us! We are set free from the chains of sin!
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