Six years ago we were boarding a plane, leaving our 5 year old daughter behind, and embarking on an endeavor that would change our lives. This was not our idea on expanding our family, but God's plan to fill our lives with children and open our hearts to orphans.
It was 2 weeks after "9-11", and we had spent about 9 months planning for this trip to Russia to adopt our sons. To say the least, we were apprehensive after the attacks, but sure that God wanted us to follow through with the adoption. We had one daughter and wanted more children, but after 2 miscarriages, we knew that we should adopt. We had some friends that had adopted through EAC, and because of their positive experience and encouragement, we chose not to look any further. We could feel God's leading throughout the entire process, but his direction was so evident from the start, connecting us with others that had adopted and opening our hearts to it. After much prayer, I opened the Bible to Zechariah 10:9, "And I will sow them among the people; and they shall remember me in far countries; and they shall live with their children, and turn again." Although this particular scripture is not necessarily directed at orphans, knowing the process of adopting internationally, it couldn't have been clearer to us.
When we applied, we requested 2 boys under the age of 3. When our first referral came, we were surprised to find pictures and videos of a boy age 5 and a 9 month old girl. After prayer and trusting that this, too, was God's Will, we accepted. A couple of days passed and we found out that these children were not the ones we would adopt as the boy had been visited by his grandmother, and there were problems adopting from the little girl's region. We would wait for another referral. The second referral of our two sons came just weeks later. We accepted the referral, started making travel plans, and doing more paperwork when we had been faced with a surprise... a confirmed pregnancy! Having had the 2 miscarriages, we knew we did not want to stop the adoption process, and take the chance on losing another, so we continued to pursue the adoption.
Our travel plans went very well and we can with great confidence say that God was watching over us the entire process. EAC had everything planned so well and made this trip so easy. I would not consider myself adventurous (my husband, on the other hand, is) so when we landed in Russia and saw an EAC representative holding a sign with our name on it, I was so relieved! From there on we were taken well care of, having "our hands held" throughout our time in Russia by very kind and caring EAC personnel. We spent part of our time in a hotel in Moscow and the other part with a host family in the region that we were adopting from. We were blessed to meet our sons, ages 17 1/2 months and 9 months old, the morning after we arrived. We were in Russia just a short time so each day was full with traveling and paperwork. We very much enjoyed the opportunity to stay with a host family and would highly recommend doing this. We learned a little about the culture and also feel it helped all of us with the transition.
Since our adoption experience 6 years ago, we've added 2 more biological sons to our family and find ourselves immersed with raising 1 daughter and 4 sons (3 of which are within 21 months of each other). I tell many people that we can sometimes guess what the personalities and interests will be with biological children, but with adopted children, each day is such an adventure. Our little "Russian boys" add so much dimension to our family. We probably would’ve never considered adoption if it weren't for infertility reasons and now we are so thankful for these problems because otherwise we would have missed out on the joy of adopting. We're just sure that God planned it all so Axel and Zach could be part of our family and we could have the privilege of raising them.
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