Other Plans

In 1999 I told Amy I thought we should be done having children since we had been blessed with a little girl and a baby boy…God and Amy had other plans.

In 2001, after the birth of our third child, I told Amy I was not open to having a fourth because we were never going to be rich and we had been blessed beyond our imagination with the 3 we had (not to mention that life with a 4 year old, 2 year old, and newborn was messy, loud, and tiring)…God and Amy had other plans.

In 2003, after Nathaniel was born, I told Amy we were done and she smiled and agreed. I even went and bought some frozen peas, visited a doctor, and finalized what I had been saying for 4 years…God had other plans.

In 2006 Amy and my oldest children started talking about adoption and talking out loud about maybe our family adopting. While I was a major proponent of adoption, we had been blessed with 4 children and our house was already full. So, I made it clear to all those around me – we will not adopt…God, Amy, Olivia, Phillip, Natalie, and Nathaniel had other plans.

In 2007 some pretty amazing circumstances led me to completely reverse my thoughts on adoption for my family and we jumped head first into the process and eventually found ourselves in the paperwork for an African adoption. We had even decided that we would take a sibling set of 2, if they were available. I was now fully on board with adopting but put some parameters on it – NO older children…but God had other plans.

This summer we were told there were no younger sibling sets available so we agreed to to take an adoption referral for a single child. For the past few months we have been preparing and waiting for the referral of younger child – probably a 2 or 3 year old and most likely a boy. Our caseworker was in Africa completing some final paperwork and visiting the home and our referral would come as soon as she returned home. All we had to do now was wait on that referral…but God had other plans.

Three weeks ago I was sitting at my desk on a Wednesday morning and realized through some paperwork that our agency now had a sibling set in the home but the oldest boy was 8 or 9 so they had not told us about it. Amy had been talking to me and praying about adopting an older child in a few years from Africa and her prayers took a major turn when I called her upstairs and told her I wanted to consider these 2 children. God has always used the faith and strength of my wife to stretch me spiritually and this was a culmination of things going on in my own mind that I don’t think I was even aware of. I called the agency and told our startled caseworker that we wanted to learn more about these children (whom she had just fallen in love with on her trip). She told me about some obstacles we would need to consider and investigate before making a decision. Amy and I talked about it, sought advice, prayed, and then did the only thing we knew we could do – say YES.

So, it has been 9 years since I declared we were done having children and I can’t be more excited how dead wrong I was. Yesterday, Amy and I sat in our adoption agency’s office and officially said yes to 2 amazing children.

They are amazing because they will soon legally be a part of our family.
They are amazing because God has unbelievable plans for their lives and their stories and I am honored to be a part of that.
They are amazing because for the past year they have been loved unconditionally by an amazing staff of people who devote their lives to these children.

Until the adoption is finalized (sometime in the next few months), I can’t share with you their names or their beautiful faces or much of their story BUT as soon as I am legally able, I will. We will refer to them as “Y” and “S” until we can share with you their given names.

Here’s what I can tell you…

“Y” is an incredible 9 year old boy who loves to play chase, take care of his little sister, and help organize all the younger children in the Buckner home where he lives. Every person we know who has met him has amazing things to say about his spirit and how he watches out for every one around him. Evidently he is a very good language teacher – he loves to teach his native language to those visiting from the United States. My oldest son is also 9 and can’t wait to have his new brother at home and school!

“S” is a 4 year old African Princess who will melt your heart just by flashing her smile your way. The pictures we have of her scream of lots of spunk mixed with 100% girl. She is very close to her older brother and loves to chase the older kids around the home.

I will share some very specific prayer requests with you over the next few days, including my need to jump back into fundraising mode in a huge way.

Thanks for joining with us on this journey.

~ by brianseay on September 11, 2008.