How God Worked It All Out

The face we fell in love with!

On Sunday, February 7, 2010, I was looking at a photo book of some kids they met, as I turned each page the faces just melted my heart, but when I turned to one certain page, my heart sank and my stomach dropped to my toes, I fell in love and God spoke to me and said, "this is your little boy" it was like I was looking at my ultrasound for the 1st time! My best friend came to me and said, "we (her and her husband) found a little boy you and Jacky need to adopt" I told her that I had already fell in love, she said "let me see" so I turned to his page and she said "oh my goodness, that's the one we thought you needed to adopt" so now I just had to go talk to Jacky. Little did I know, that morning before church, Jacky had looked at the same book and had already fell in love with the same little boy! I went outside and he looked at me and said "you've found one haven't you?" I just showed him the picture and he said "let's see what we need to do to bring him home" I was shocked! I got right on the phone and called the guy that had the pictures and said we were ready to start the process to bring this little guy home

We started the process Monday, February 8th 2010, with paperwork and phone calls.  We had no clue what we were doing.  A couple at church helped us out 100% and we are very grateful for them!  We did an independent adoption, which simply means we didn't use an agency.  We did everything on our end and then it was time to start in Ghana.  We weren't sure how this was all going to go.  We contacted the pastor we met and asked if he would help us on that end, he agreed to it, found us a lawyer and got the process started there. 

The adoption process is very expensive, but God provided every penny.  Let me just start at the beginning.  In 2009, the plant Jacky worked at, was shutting down.  He was going to get laid off.  We started saving every penny we could, I would substitute at the boys school and we would put those checks in savings.  We would cut back where we could and try to save all that was possible.  It ended up that he got to keep his job because they were keeping it running at that time, but we didn't know how long, so we continued to save.  His old boss, that had left a couple of years before this, called him and asked him to come work for him.  He asked what he was getting paid and offered him the exact pay!  He decided to take the job, and as soon as he took it, the other plant shut down completely.  We really felt God's hand in that.  So the money we were saving, we decided we would build a house.  God had other plans! And boy do I like his plan so much better than my own! Jacky even made a joke we were going to name him House because we were saving to build. 

The day after we chose to adopt, Jacky went to see his dad.  He found him in a way that no one should ever find their parent, or anyone for that matter.  His dad had passed away, probably the night before.  His dad didn't have any money to pay for his funeral, and Jacky was his only child, so that meant it was all on us.  This worried Jacky because it was going to take the money we had saved up, and he said this might change everything.  I was devastated, but he was going through a lot so I just decided we would discuss this more when he could think clearly.  We got all the arrangements set, and then started receiving phone calls asking if people could donate money to help us pay for the funeral rather than sending flowers.  Once again we were amazed.  People at church gave, friends and family gave, we were not expecting any of this but God knew what He was doing.  Every penny was given to us to pay for the funeral.  We received another donation and we called the people and told them we were sending it back because it was all paid for and they told us to keep it and put it toward the adoption.  God totally blessed us in this terrible situation.

Through the process, we would randomly receive envelopes at church, with money in them, ranging between $100 to $1,000.  Over the whole process we received $6,500 in donations.  So between people giving to Jacky's dads funeral and the adoption, people gave us $15,000.  Do you see God's hand moving here?  We sure did!  I have always believed that if God has called you to do something He will provide for it, and He just showed us that He would do just that!

We started planning our trip over.  It looked like we would be going in October, our little guys birthday is October 10th and it was very important that I got to see him on his birthday.  That day was on a Sunday in 2010 and they were looking at tickets arriving on the 11th.  I really wanted it to work out for us to get there on or before the 10th.  After looking for tickets for a while they finally chose some, our tickets the group was getting was to arrive on the 11th, I was so sad, but excited that I finally knew when we were going.  We called to book the tickets and the travel agent said we had just missed the cut off, the only ones he was finding was for us to arrive on Sunday the 10th!  Oh my, that made my day!