adoption day.....holla!

So after 2 years and 7 months, the Lord added two children into our family...permanently. Or, as David puts it, "fowevah and evah".

Welcome David Josiah and Jayda Hope into the Smith family!

I have learned so much these past years through the process of foster care and adoption. I've learned about compassion and mercy. I've experienced the ongoing unknown and possibility of loss. I've learned (and am still learning) how God is truly the only one we can totally trust in and He is worthy of our trust. I've been the recipient of so much care and love by so many in our church family. I've seen my self-righteousness rear its ugly head and I've seen how God has amazingly put a love and care in my heart for the birthmother. It has been a full two and half years! This journey was so different than that of our international adoptions.

Just the night before, I was remembering the first moment I met D. He was with two social workers in a conference room, dressed in overalls, quietly standing there, seeming afraid. He was just 14 months old and I'm sure confused as to where he was and why. I knelt down in front of him and said, "Hi buddy! You're our number one!" He just smiled, shyly. When we decided to become a foster family, I imagined having lots of children come and go. I imagined a wall in our basement filled with pictures of children we would have the privilege of caring for until they went back home to their birthparents. I never anticipated adopting our first foster children. D was our number one, but I imagined numbers 3 and 4 and 5 and 6 and 7...child after child coming and going.

Wendy Gill wrote the following in a card to us:

Who would have imagined stepping out in faith and obedience to God would end like this!

I never imagined it, that's for sure! God's goodness and blessing to our family has really overwhelmed me.

The official adoption ceremony took place on Wednesday, December 15th. Friends and family gathered to celebrate the big day with us. Enjoy the pictures below:

Judge Whitfill really makes it special for the children. Underneath his desk is a box full of stuffed animals and each child gets to choose one. David chose Pluto and Jayda chose a stuffed bear.

Judge Whitfill holding the children after signing the final adoption petition.

Amanda and her children...all sporting hand-knit hats. How cool!

Family and friends on the other side of the court room. What a great crowd!

Judge Whitfill, our family and the proud grandparents.

“The joyful news of the gospel is that God the Father brings us to share in the loving communion that he forever enjoys with his eternal and natural Son through the work of his eternal and natural Son in our place and in our stead. Through adoption God graciously brings us to participate in the reciprocal love that ever flows between the Father and his Son. Not only is this the very heart of adoption; it is also the very heart of the gospel.”

- Dan Cruver