What a long journey it has been to bring our son home! When we first embarked on this adoption journey we had no idea how long or how difficult the journey would be. Looking back over the past 3 ½ years of this adoption journey we have seen God’s hand so clearly guiding us each step of the way and we would gladly do it over again for our son!
We are an expat family sharing the love of Jesus in Thailand. Because of our location, our adoption journey naturally started with the pursuit of adopting a child from Thailand. We did our Thai home study and submitted all of our paperwork to the Thai government and were waiting to be matched with a child. After being in process with Thailand for nearly two years, we were shocked to suddenly find out that the Thai adoption authority decided that we were not eligible to adopt from Thailand after all. We were devastated. God had clearly shut that door.
After a few months of prayer and seeking God, we felt God leading us to continue pursuing adoption, but this time from India. Once again we plunged into the paper chase. A few months into the process the agency that we were working with had its license suspended. We were left scrambling for a bit, but eventually found another agency and we completed our home study and dossier and sent our adoption application to the central adoption authority in India. Right when we were expecting to be approved by India, the Indian government changed their rules to say that expats are now no longer able to adopt from India. Once again we were devastated and left trying to figure out what God was telling us through all of this.
We spent a few weeks in prayer seeking God for clarity for the next step. Was God telling us to give up on adoption? Just wait? Pursue another country? After lots of prayer we were directed to China. Once again, we started the paper chase. Unlike our experiences before this, our China paper chase went quite smoothly and quickly and we were soon matched with a little boy in Xi’an, China!! We could hardly wait to meet our precious little boy.
Finally, on Sunday, January 5, 2020 at 4:00 PM we met our fought-for, prayed-for, and deeply loved little boy! We are so happy to finally be able to hold our son in our arms. It has been a joy to see all the positive changes that have taken place in his life in the few short weeks we have had him!
We are so grateful to each person, organization, and agency which has walked with us on this adoption journey! Without each one playing their part our son would still be an orphan. But now… now he is a beloved SON!!