NOOOOOOOOO...........

Ok well, I just spent 2o minutes typing another post about my trip and lost it all, so I will have to go for now and I will post it again later. Sorry!! A quick note, if you click on the Three angels link on the right you can see a few pictures from our trip. On the events page there is a picture of Noah(Wilbert) and I meeting for the first time. Browse around its a great website, with a lot of info on what they do in Haiti.

Wow!!!

I am so overwhelmed right now! I'm going to try to pull it together enough to post about my trip because I know some of you are waiting to hear. First of all it was a wonderful trip. I couldn't have asked for it to be any better. It is currently peaceful in Haiti compared to what it has been the last couple of years. It still doesn't compare to the states. We had to have escorts everywhere we went but we encountered no problems of our own. We witnessed a woman being beaten at the Grocery store and men with automatic weapons intervening but it was stopped and the remainder of our stay was peaceful. We are so blessed to live in a country where we can go just about anywhere we want to and feel safe.

I know you want to hear about Noah and I will try to tell you all about him, but it is a very emotional time for me right now, having left him in Haiti. Our meeting was wonderful!! I was waiting outside the "O" while the nannies dressed him. He had just had a bath and they wanted him to look nice for me. I was shaking and crying at the thought that he was just inside the door. After all this time I was going to be able to hold him and my emotions got the best of me. Finally Gail came out and said, "There's someone who would like to meet you." I slowly walked in and there he was, sitting in a small chair just waiting and looking at me. I slowly walked over to him and knelt down beside him. As I went to pick him up he put his arms up and we were together at last. He laid his little head on my shoulder and within a matter of minutes he was sleeping in my arms. It was such an amazing moment for me. I believe he knew his Manmi(Mommy) was there. From that moment on he didn't leave my sight. He stayed the nights with us at the guest house and even when we went to the "O" in the daytime he never got very far away. By the second day he was calling me Manmi. Jeremy and I had prayed before I left that God would help Noah to know who I was and that he would feel safe and secure with me and the Lord definitely answered our prayers. They tell me he has never responded to anyone like that before. God is sooooooo awesome!!!!

He interacted much more when we were away from the "O". He would talk and play and venture out a little more. When we were there it was more like he was afraid if he left me, I would leave him. I hope now that I am not there he realizes I will be back for him. By the end of the week he was speaking a little English. He would point at Jeremy's picture and say Papa and he said all the kids names in a 2 1/2 year old Creole way, but it was very sweet. He was saying Thank you, Be careful and best of all I love you. Meeting him felt the same as when my children were born. You long for the day when you can hold them and see what they look like and you wonder what their personality will be like then the day comes and all you can do is look at them and cry. That is exactly what it felt like.

A lot happened while I was there. An eight year old little boy was dropped off and that was heart wrenching. He cried off and on for days. Sometimes I would see him sitting alone in a corner singing a song with tears streaming down his face. I can't imagine what that must be like for him. Everything that he has ever had or known gone in one moment. When they changed his clothes it was hard for him. It was like they took away the last thing he had. I spent some extra time with him just trying to bring comfort. He was a sweet little boy with a very broken heart!!

I had the privilege of meeting Noah's birth father. He was a nice looking man, tall and thin and he loved his son. In our meeting he told me he didn't want to bring Wilbert (Wilbear) to the orphanage but he did, so he wouldn't lose him forever by death. He told Noah he would always be his son but now this was his mother. I of course was crying and I thanked him. I assured him that Wilbert would know that his father loved him and saved his life by giving him to us. I will never forget the sadness in his father's eyes as he realized this might be the last time he would ever see him. I told him I hoped to bring Noah back someday to see where he was born and if so we would try to get word to him but there is no guarantee that we would ever be able to find him because he doesn't have a home and is forced to move around a lot. I will pray for him that God will watch over him and bless him for this wonderful gift he has given us. We will be forever grateful for what he has done and for the sacrifice he made to save Noah's life.

I am going to have to stop for now. I will try to post more later. Thanks to everyone who has been praying for me. Please continue to do so as being home has been harder than I expected. I knew it would be hard to leave and it was as I could hear him screaming for me inside, but being home has proven to be just as hard. My heart is broken but I thank God that He is faithful and though this sorrow may last for the night His joy comes in the morning. I know it won't be long and morning will come and our Noah will be home with us forever and what a day of rejoicing that will be. Thanks again for your prayers and my love to you all!!

Counting Down

Excitement is taking over! I am counting down the days to hold Noah in my arms. It is now less than two weeks, the flights are booked, the arrangements made and I have begun gathering supplies to take with me. I am so looking forward to my trip that I have to admit it consumes me at times. I am so thankful that God has led us on this journey, although it is a process sometimes full of unknowns and tears, I wouldn't change it for anything. I look forward to the day when I am not only traveling to visit our son, but to bring him home where he belongs. Today I received pictures taken earlier this month when the parent liason traveled there to bring two girls home to their families. He is growing so much and it hurts to be missing out on it. However God is faithful, and I know Noah is coming home soon!! I probably won't get a chance to post again until I return, so thanks to everyone for your prayers. Love to you all.

Proceeding as Planned

Well, I am proceeding as planned. I have booked our flights and we should be leaving March 8th. I spoke with the Parent Liason today and our Noah is doing well. She was there last weekend and she said he is doing very well and coming out of his shell a little. For the first time she got to hear a good "belly laugh" from him. Up until this time he had giggled at the most. He came to her and wanted her to hold him and smiled spontaneously. I know this seems simple to us, but for this little guy coming to the orphanage was hard on him. He was extremely sad at first and as you can tell has been a bit withdrawn. I can't wait to see his smile and hear his laugh.

My Mom has decided to join me on the trip. I am so excited to share this experience with her. From what everyone says it is a life changing experience and I am thrilled to have her with me. As I said we will leave March 8th arriving in Haiti March 9th. We will be staying in St. Joseph's Home for Boys close to the orphanage. As long as everything goes well, Noah will get to go with us to St. Joseph's in the evening and sleep with us as well. This time is going to be so precious. I can hardly wait. We will also be doing some work on the "O" while we are there, that is if they can pull me away from Noah. LOL!!! Our return flight is March 14th. Please be praying for us, as I know leaving Noah there is going to be hard. Praise the Lord for His grace though!! It will be sufficient!!

I also will be taking supplies to donate to the orphanage so if anyone is interested in donating items, please let me know via e-mail and I can send you the list of items needed. Thanks to all of you who have been reading my posts and praying for us. We trully appreciate it!! God bless you all!!

Making Plans

Exciting news!! I am making plans to go see our son! I found out last week that there was a chance I could go visit him for a week in March. As long as everything goes as planned I will be leaving on March 8th, I'll arrive in Port au Prince, Haiti on the 9th and will stay through the 14th.

I have to be honest at first I didn't want to go until I could bring him home. I was going to try to get Jeremy to do that instead(that's not very nice, huh). It was too heart wrenching for me to think about being there with him and then leaving him there. It almost worked. Jeremy was actually planning to go this weekend for a short visit, but it didn't work out for him to go.

God has changed my heart. I am so excited about getting to spend this week with him. I can't wait to meet him face to face. I have his picture and he has ours, but I am so looking forward to holding him, kissing him and telling him how much I love him and can't wait to bring him home. I know God will give me the grace to come home, and the memories I will make with him, I believe, will get me through the waiting. I'll post again when I know that I am going.

Blessings to all!!

The Minds of Children

Well there isn't a whole lot to update on the actual process currently. We are still getting the final documents together to send to Haiti. At that point we wait for their government to release him and ours to accept him. I thought I would give a funny story from the mind of our child. It is funny how children think. We have been talking to our kids about the adoption for quite some time now. We didn't tell them at first however when we started the paper work we told them about it. We've been talking to them about having a little brother. We have talked to Camden about moving the bunk beds into his room so when Noah comes he could sleep on the bottom and Camden would get to sleep on top. He was excited about that. We've talked about him being able to play with Noah when he gets here, etc..... Well I felt like everyone had a good grasp of what was about to transpire.......


Apparently not!! The other night I was putting Camden to bed. We read a story and we were talking again about, "when Noah comes". I mentioned again how nice it would be for him to have someone to play with just like the girls get to play together. The following was a conversation that stemmed from that.

Mommy: "Maybe you should go through your toys and get some out that you want to give to Noah, so when he gets here he has some toys that are his. Then you will have toys and he will have toys and you can both share."

Camden: "He will have toys at his house."

Mommy: "This will be his house."

Camden: "You mean he's going to stay here!!" (note: this was exclamation more out of confusion than excitement)

Mommy: "Yes."

Camden: "What about his Mommy?"

Mommy: (fighting tears) "He doesn't have a Mommy, I am his Mommy now."

Camden: "What about his sisters?"

Mommy: (still fighting) "He doesn't have any sisters. Jordy and Ali are his sisters now."

Camden: "But I saw those kids and babies in the pictures."

Mommy: "Those are his friends that he is living with until he gets to come home."

That was the end of that conversation. He was satisfied with that. I laughed as I told Jeremy about this conversation. I really thought we were doing a good job of preparing him. Obviously I was wrong!!!

It amazes me how much a four year old can understand. He didn't realize Noah was coming here to live, but he did know that there was something wrong with a little boy not having a family.

God's Provision

When the Lord began to lead us in the direction of adoption, we were very excited, but at the same time we thought "ok Lord this could cost thousands of dollars." You know one of those moments where you feel like you need to remind Him that you don't have thousands of dollars sitting in the bank with no where to spend it. Like He is unaware of our financial situation. I knew though that if God was truly telling us to do this then He would provide a way. As I said before, from that moment we began to research things and began finding out what costs were involved. There were many times that doubt would try to rise up. Thoughts of, "there is no way. The first step alone is well over a thousand dollars and it goes up from there." But yet on the inside of me was a knowing that God would provide for what He was asking us to do. So we continued. You know for that year of just researching I would pray about the adoption and I had asked God to bring in the finances that we needed, to help us to know what steps to take and give us wisdom concerning our finances so we could save up in preparation. I would love to tell you that in that year God brought in every penny that we needed. However I would be lying. LOL!! I didn't see an extra penny for that year, but we continued to press on and knew when the time was right it would all work out. Finally the day came when we felt like it was time to begin taking steps in that direction. We had been saying we were going to adopt but had not actually begun any of the paperwork. It was finally time. I felt like the children of Israel, it was time to leave Egypt. Remember though we still didn't have the money, but we both new it was time to take that step of faith. So I began to make contacts to find someone to do our home study. The cost involved ranged from $1,000 - $2,500, of which we didn't have. I had been putting money in what has become my "Noah Box" but it still didn't have enough in it to even cover this first step. At any rate, Jeremy said, "Make the appointment." So I e-mailed the social worker and set a date, asked about how she needed to be paid, cashier's check, money order, etc. I'm sure she thought we had the money to pay her. I guess we fooled her. LOL!!!

On the day before the appointment I had saved $900. I knew Jeremy would be getting paid the next day so I had it planned in my head that we would take the extra $500 we needed out of his check and just be more cautious with our spending that month. We could work it out. Well that morning, my Dad called and asked if I was going to be home. He said he wanted to come by and give us some money for Noah. Now Dad didn't know how much we had or needed for the home study (I'm not even sure he knew anything about the home study) and he didn't know the social worker was coming the next day. However, when he came by, he handed me a check for $500!!!!!! I, of course, was extremely emotional, so much so I forgot to tell him that he had just given me exactly what I needed to pay the social worker that was coming the next day. You see God is sooooooo faithful!!!! There have been others who have given so generously to us, and I am so thankful. I am giving this example of Dad's gift just to show you how God can work things out. He knows exactly what we need and when we need it!!

As many of you know we created a cook book dedicated to bringing Noah home. This was an idea that came to mind one day when I was praying about the adoption. So thanks to so many that sent recipes we were able to create a cook book with over 200 recipes. We had 100 printed and hoped to sell those to help with the other costs involved. Well within one week all 100 were sold and we were having 50 more printed within a couple weeks those were gone and we had 50 more printed. Now those are almost gone. God has blessed this project in ways we never dreamed. His Word says He is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we could ask or think according to the power that works in us (Ephesians 3:20). He continues to blow me away at how good He is and how much He loves us. A young girl at the printing office asked me about them, because we have been keeping them pretty busy the last few weeks. When I was talking to her she asked how we had been selling them. I was able to share with her that it was a God thing. "We" hadn't sold that many, it was other people. My Mom took some to work and they were gone within a day, Jeremy's Dad and Step-mom gave some as Christmas gifts and their insurance agent bought one for $100, my Dad and Step-mom took one to church and sold over 20, Jeremy's Aunt Beverly sold 11 at work, his Aunt Leslie gave some as gifts and her sister-in-law took it to work and sold 20, a good friend of ours and Jordy's piano teacher took one to her church and sold 17, another friend of ours, Deb and her sister Vicki were taking them to work and selling them and it goes on and on. It has been the generosity of others, putting it out there, making it available and people we don't even know have been buying them. God is so awesome!!!!

I know this has been a long post, but I get so excited when I see God's provision. I would like to leave you with some words of encouragement. There maybe things that you feel like God is leading you to do and you might be thinking, like Jeremy and I did, "how is this going to work." Well let me tell you, if God is asking you to do it, He will make a way. I'm sure the children of Israel thought there was no way when they came to the Red Sea, but the Lord caused a strong wind and the children of Israel were able to walk across on dry ground. God is the same yesterday, today and forever. If He tells you to do something, He will make the way!!!!

Finding Noah

You know how you hear of people finding love on the internet. Well, I'll go one better. I found my son on the internet. For the first year, 7/4/04 - 7/4/05, we did a ton of research. I looked into different countries, different agencies, etc.... and one day I was watching a show on TV about adoption on the Discovery Health channel. One particular couple was going to Haiti, now I have watch this show several times and saw several adoptions from a variety of countries, but there was something about this one that tugged at my heart. I began to do some research on Haiti, and the children available there. I was shocked at the number of orphans in this tiny country, because you don't hear of that many adoptions from there. However there are hundreds of thousands of orphans in a country about the size of Maryland. I was hooked, something told me my son was there. This was different than when I knew the Lord spoke to my heart as I described in my earlier post, this was more of a knowing, as a Mother sometimes does. I began to make some contacts with different people and found an agency I thought we would use. They had pictures on their website of "waiting children". I would look at those pictures and there was one little boy with sad little eyes that got my attention every time. Little by little I was drawn to him and finally one day I ask the agency contact about him. When she sent me his information, I sat at my computer and cried. Not necessarily because his story was so sad, but because I believed I had just found our son. I shared the information with Jeremy and his response was, "What do we need to do?" We decided a couple of months later to adopt independently, so I made contact with the orphanage I thought he was in, hoping I was right, and indeed he was there. I had found Noah!!

The Journey Begins

July 4th, 2004 I was sitting in my church, Oasis Church in Evansville, IN. My Pastor was preaching a message about praying for our leaders. In his message he read from Genesis "Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord." When he read that, the Lord spoke to my heart and told me, "Your Noah will find grace in the eyes of the Lord and I will deliver him from his destruction." Well from that time, till the end of service, I'm not sure what my Pastor preached. I'm sure it was good, but as you can imagine, my mind was going crazy. At that moment God placed in my heart a knowing and a longing for this son that I didn't know or even know where he was. To make a long story short, Jeremy and I discussed it and decided to begin researching and looking into adoption. We had always said, "Wouldn't it be neat to adopt. To give a child a future that doesn't seem to have much of one." Honestly though at the time I never really thought we would. Jeremy says he thought we probably would one day but I really didn't. However on that 4th of July God dropped something in my heart and that something was a love for a little boy that I didn't know, had never seen and didn't know where he was, but at any rate, I loved him and began the journey to find him and bring him home.

Purpose

This blog is being created to leave updates and personal thoughts and feelings concerning the adoption journey Jeremy and I are currently on. Somewhat of a journal maybe, of my thoughts, but mostly updates for friends and family to be able to check and see what is going on and where we are in this process. I hope you enjoy reading it and I will post updated pictures as I get them. God Bless!

Initial Post

This is my first post to see if it works. Hopefully all is well...