Our adoption, how it all began...

During the last two weeks of February 2007, I had the opportunity to attend some schooling in California. While a student there, he heard Bob Russell (retired minister of Southeast Christian Church in Louisville, KY) talk about how God uses ordinary people to do outstanding things. Bob talked about how God can sometimes even surprise us when we open our hearts to do His work.

As Bob concluded his inspiring talk, he told the story of Bob & Kathy Drane. He told of how God is using them in a mighty way to effect the lives of orphan children in the European country of Ukraine. Bob continued to tell of how the Dranes had formed Hopeful Hearts to give these children a better opportunity in life. In fact, the Dranes had worked with countless American couples to adopt these children out of the orphanages and bring them back to the USA. Bob's speech had followed several other sessions, including an earlier one by Max Lucado. Max talked about how God has "rescued" all of His children and had given us chances we didn't deserve.

So that's where my mind started thinking about adoption. As I returned home from California, I had about six days to be with Barb at home, then I was scheduled to head off to Branson, MO on the Pleasant Hill Christian Church's Annual Men's Retreat. So I decided these six days at home were not nearly enough time to bring up this subject.... plus I hadn't quite sorted out my own thoughts yet. My thoughts were all across the board: is this something we should be doing at our age... won't this change our life a lot.... are we ready for this... can we afford do do this.... etc... etc?

As I sat in Branson, God didn't let up. Our speaker that year introduced himself and told about his family- and mentioned his two adopted children, I spent several hours in conversation with another man from our church who talked about he & his wife's adoption process when they got their son. (Later, that police officer would fingerprint us for our state police clearance.)

I returned home from Branson realizing that God had provided Barb and I with a terrific home, great jobs, a rich tradition of family, and terrific friends- it would be selfish to keep all this to ourselves when some little child faced a bleak future in an orphanage, and much less after that. So I finally threw the idea at Barb. Make no mistake, I didn't think I would have to talk Barb in to it, I just had to get myself past my own insecurities and mention it- and I knew there would be no stopping her.

Of course I was right, she was instantly in love with the idea... and I was the world's #1 Husband! From there, things started rolling. I contacted Hopeful Hearts, and at first was told that they didn't usually work with people so far from Louisville, KY. But she would call me back. Within a few hours, Nancy called me back and said that Kathy Drane said if Bob Russell had spoken with me, they would work with us. Shortly after that we were notified of an informational meeting on Easter Saturday April 7,2007 in Louisville.

Barb & I attended that meeting, heard what was involved, learned about the process, filled out paperwork to begin the process. Then raced home Saturday afternoon/evening so I could be at work in my usual role at church Easter morning at 5am! Only my boss, Preacher Dave, knew what we were up to (of course his boss Margaret knew as well) so there were a few days of keeping our secret as we discussed how to break the news to everyone. Finally on Sunday, April 29th we announced our plans to Barb's family, on Saturday, May 5th the Daugherty family was told, and the next day, Sunday, May 6th, we went public with our plans and announced our future plans to our church family.

Since then we have filled out much paperwork, travel several trips to Louisville & St Louis, redecorated bedrooms and converted a storage room to a playroom. Through it all, we have tried to let go and have patience that God would make everything work out... and He certainly has. God has been so good to us through this journey!

We'll keep you informed.... Darrin