Charlie has a Forever Family!
Sweet little Charlie is now home with his incredible forever family! Charlie's mom was kind enough to share their adoption story, which demonstrates the power of prayer, faith, and God's perfect timing.
My little girls love orphans. So, for Christmas, they wanted to sponsor one as their Christmas present. So I searched for a foundation that let you sponsor a particular orphan instead of just generally donating to an orphanage so the girls could identify with the child and it could be more personal. We found Shepherd's Field Children's Village, Charlie's foster home. They didn't have a whole bunch of photo listings on their website for sponsoring, just a couple...and none of them really jumped out at them, as a lot of them were older children, etc., and the girls wanted to sponsor a baby or small child. So, I emailed them and asked if there were any little kids not on the sponsor website that we could sponsor, and they sent us Charlie and another little boy named Liam, with pictures and updates for both of them. And as soon as the girls saw it, they simultaneously said "Charlie!" So, we said "Charlie it is." We found out later, Liam was already about to be adopted by another family!
Charlie soon became an obsession for the girls, and they started praying that we could adopt him. Right away my husband and I told them that we weren't in the market to be adopting anyone...we are just sponsoring to help them out. But they continued to pray the same thing, in spite of us telling them we didn't have any interest in adoption right now. I have always wanted to adopt, but I felt like Molly, my youngest daughter, was too little. One night my husband and I talked about it, and my husband was not on board at all...Then he read Charlie's medical update (which we hadn't looked at yet), and saw that Charlie has the same birthday as my husband.
My husband got super quiet for like 3 days. Then we went to church on Sunday, and our pastor spoke on stepping outside of your own comfort and doing things just because you're called, not because you're the best person to do it or because you have the most money. After the pastor finished speaking, someone got up and sang that Oceans song by Hillsong, and we were done.
My husband I got in the car, and the conversation on the way home was "Which agency do we use?"
Then we got Charlie's medical file and his liver enzymes were high, and a bunch of family members freaked us out and said that was super scary. This was when we had just a few days to tell the agency whether we wanted them to hold his file for us or not, and I couldn't get an appointment for a doctor to look over it within that time. So I was bawling in the kitchen at 9 pm, thinking we were going to need to just pass on him, but a doctor from our church agreed to look over it at 9 pm right then and there, and immediately sent me an email saying "here are my concerns....but nothing is a big enough deal to not get him, so go get your baby!"
So after that, we were all in. I will admit I did freak out a little when we learned Charlie is deaf, but we know he is ours and we are actually completely fine with it now. It has been an adventure for sure! We already use sign language as much as we can. We are learning fast, I think we know everything that he would be able to need already!
And guess who the driving force is behind that initiative..? Not me. The two little prayer warriors who started this whole thing!
My little girls love orphans. So, for Christmas, they wanted to sponsor one as their Christmas present. So I searched for a foundation that let you sponsor a particular orphan instead of just generally donating to an orphanage so the girls could identify with the child and it could be more personal. We found Shepherd's Field Children's Village, Charlie's foster home. They didn't have a whole bunch of photo listings on their website for sponsoring, just a couple...and none of them really jumped out at them, as a lot of them were older children, etc., and the girls wanted to sponsor a baby or small child. So, I emailed them and asked if there were any little kids not on the sponsor website that we could sponsor, and they sent us Charlie and another little boy named Liam, with pictures and updates for both of them. And as soon as the girls saw it, they simultaneously said "Charlie!" So, we said "Charlie it is." We found out later, Liam was already about to be adopted by another family!
Charlie soon became an obsession for the girls, and they started praying that we could adopt him. Right away my husband and I told them that we weren't in the market to be adopting anyone...we are just sponsoring to help them out. But they continued to pray the same thing, in spite of us telling them we didn't have any interest in adoption right now. I have always wanted to adopt, but I felt like Molly, my youngest daughter, was too little. One night my husband and I talked about it, and my husband was not on board at all...Then he read Charlie's medical update (which we hadn't looked at yet), and saw that Charlie has the same birthday as my husband.
My husband got super quiet for like 3 days. Then we went to church on Sunday, and our pastor spoke on stepping outside of your own comfort and doing things just because you're called, not because you're the best person to do it or because you have the most money. After the pastor finished speaking, someone got up and sang that Oceans song by Hillsong, and we were done.
My husband I got in the car, and the conversation on the way home was "Which agency do we use?"
Then we got Charlie's medical file and his liver enzymes were high, and a bunch of family members freaked us out and said that was super scary. This was when we had just a few days to tell the agency whether we wanted them to hold his file for us or not, and I couldn't get an appointment for a doctor to look over it within that time. So I was bawling in the kitchen at 9 pm, thinking we were going to need to just pass on him, but a doctor from our church agreed to look over it at 9 pm right then and there, and immediately sent me an email saying "here are my concerns....but nothing is a big enough deal to not get him, so go get your baby!"
So after that, we were all in. I will admit I did freak out a little when we learned Charlie is deaf, but we know he is ours and we are actually completely fine with it now. It has been an adventure for sure! We already use sign language as much as we can. We are learning fast, I think we know everything that he would be able to need already!
And guess who the driving force is behind that initiative..? Not me. The two little prayer warriors who started this whole thing!