Okay...you all know I do not "blog" but I have been asked a few times to write down this incredible story so I do not forget it. I will apologize in advance for my poor writing skills and errors in my story. Ha! Since this story has so many details from other points of view, I'm going to stick to the story from my prospective.
Alright, here we go!
Thursday, Jan 5th I was sitting at the kitchen table eating breakfast when Scott told me that he felt God laid on his heart, the night before, to find a way to take care of this 15 yr old Latvian boy named Andris.
Now Andris (pronounced On-drease) was part of New Horizon's For Children hosting program that allowed families in the US to host orphan children for 5 weeks in the winter and 5 weeks in the summer. The hope is that not only would they get a wonderful break from their "normal" life, but also so they could possibly become adopted by their host families. Due to the requirements in Latvia's adoption program, Andris' host family could not adopt him. So there began a quest by Andris' host family to find a family to adopt him. The sister of the mom of the host family (all names have been kept off due to privacy and because I haven't asked if I could use their names ;-) brought Andris to our church in hopes that a family would look into his situation. It wasn't until a few days before Andris was to return to Latvia that Scott and I talked about him.
So, back to the kitchen table. Scott told me about God laying on his heart to figure out a way to take care of this boy, whether through adoption or finding a family for him. He then asked if I was open to looking into adopting Andris. I said "sure." So that Thursday we contacted the sister of the host family for details on him. We had to be as informed as possible, this is obviously not a typical situation. Plus, he's here in the States so if we are going to look into adopting him, what a great way to see what he is like and how he is with our kids!
(Ramble alert!) I mean, this is not how we envisioned the adoption process to go. We have really talked about adopting for the last year or so, but never from where, how old, when, etc. This is totally out of our comfort zone in a way. Our oldest is 7 1/2 and Andris is 15 1/2, soon to be 16! Crazy!
Back to the story. So we prayed about this decision Thursday night and on Friday Jan 6th, I called the lady involved with New Horizon's to get more information on Andris and then we asked if we could meet him. We had to fill out a form to meet him (some requirement with their program) and brought it with us just in case it didn't get faxed to the correct person. Then we went to the host family's house for dinner and to "hang out" (aka observe).
The night went really well. It was comfortable, relaxed and everyone was getting along very well. (Did I mention the host family has 4 kids: 1 boy and 3 girls, just like ours?) Jack, our 5 1/2 yr old was wrestling and getting along with Andris right away. What language barrier? ;-) As we were driving home that night, Scott and I decided that we wanted Andris to become part of our family. It was a simple decision really. God brought this child all the way from Latvia, to a family who knew they couldn't adopt him due to certain requirements, that led their sister to bring him to our church, and God laid on Scott's heart to take care of him. Simple.
As we went to bed, (by the way, I haven't said that I hadn't been sleeping for days. Many, many, many thoughts and plans and ideas were running around about our future family life in my brain.) Scott and I talked about when would be a good time to let the kids know we were planning on adopting Andris. They had no idea when we went to meet him because we wanted things to be as natural as possible. He said he was fine with whatever I decided, but I was unsure.
Saturday morning it hit me. What a great opportunity this adoption will provide to teach our kids to trust in God and obey His call. If it's God's will for Andris to be apart of our family, then He will make it so. We simply need to do what we can each day to make it our reality and trust in Him for the rest. Now let me back up a bit because here is a HUGE factor that can be a tad scary. Andris turns 16 at the end of May. If he is to be adopted, the adoptive parents' dossier (all the paperwork that the US and Latvia need to make this process happen) needs to be turned in to the Latvian government BEFORE he turns 16. If it is not, once he turns 16, he is deemed unadoptable. That's it. Very sad.
So we called the kids into the family room and of course, they didn't want to come because they are playing, but I told them it was a very important family meeting. Everyone then comes right into the room and Emma says, "what, like 'we're adopting' important meeting?" My jaw dropped and then I said, "yes, that's exactly it." She starts getting emotional and says she was just guessing but how does that just come out of thin air? Jack starts getting loud saying "Who? Who is it?" and we tell them that it is Andris, the boy that they met (Emma hadn't because of gymnastics practice) the night before. Jack had this huge smile on his face and said "Yay! The brother I always wanted!" Scott looked over to Annie (3 1/2 yr) playing on a DS and asked her what she thought. She looked up and said "help him." Then she came over to me and said "and I'll love him too." That's when the tears started flowing down my face. Such a basic but powerful response. And that's what our family will do.
Right after the family meeting, I called the adoption agency and home study agency recommended by New Horizon's and started the process of adopting Andris. Our homestudy was the following Friday, one week to the day we decided to adopt! Isn't it amazing how God works? And as of right now, two weeks after making a monumental decision, we almost have all of our paperwork done for the homestudy and the dossier. We just need a couple documents from the government and a few items apostilled. (no idea how to say it but let's just say it's like having the notary's signature notarized.) God's hand is all over this. I fully believe it.
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