Family Day

Our family celebrates October 19 as our annual “Family Day.” We choose this day because it is the anniversary of Jonathan’s placement with our family, although the actual adoption was not finalized until several months later. The day, however, isn’t just for Jonathan, it’s for the whole family. We celebrate belonging to a family, and October 19 is the day that God brought our whole family—such as it is now—together.

When we discovered that we weren’t likely to give birth to any more children after Jeremy, we began praying about adoption and looking into different options. At first we considered Chinese adoption, but the legal hurdles of pursuing it from Africa proved too daunting. On our furlough in 2000, we contacted a number of agencies, but nothing positive seemed to pan out. Only after returning to Benin, where we then lived, did we contact Agape of Central Alabama, located in Montgomery.

The social worker who contacted us was too new to know any better, having just changed jobs from foster services to adoption. Buddy Renahan turned out to be a blessing as he walked us through the process of applying for the adoption. When all the paper work was complete, we waited.

After several months, we had almost given up on being contacted, and then one day, shortly after our move to Togo, we received an email, just asking us to give an update our new home so our home study could be updated. At that point we hadn’t even moved into our new home, still waiting for water lines to be installed. But we were optimistic. About a week later, on September 28, 2001, we received another email from Buddy just checking in and, by the way, there was a little boy that we might be interested in.

We immediately wrote back and confirmed our interest and soon received email photos. Jeremy was three at that time and when he first saw the photos, he pointed to the computer screen and said, “That’s my baby brother!” He kept wanting to go back to have another look.

That night we spent about three hours on the phone to the States, first talking to Buddy, then to family, then to our church to say, “We’re coming to America!” There were some formalities we had to wait on, but on October 17 we boarded a plane to the States, arriving in Atlanta and driving to Birmingham the night of the 18th, and by the morning of the 19th we were in Montgomery and held Jonathan in our arms for the first time. My whole family—parents, sisters, in-laws, nieces, and nephews were all present, as well as the good folks from Agape and the foster family who had been taking care of Jonathan since his birth. After an emotional yet joyful placement ceremony, we headed to Johnny Ray’s for some Alabama BBQ.

I’m amazed that it’s already been four years, but at the same time I can’t imagine life without Jonathan or any other member of our family. God has blessed and stretched me beyond anything I could have previously imagined by making me a husband and a father. There’s no way I can be worthy of or adequate for this honor, except by his power and strength.

As I take special pause today to be thankful for my family, be sure also to say a prayer of thanks for yours—both those who are family and those who are “like family”—and drop me a line to tell me about them.