Noah Daniel McRoberts
blessed our family with his arrival on February 5, 2003!!
I can't believe he is 8 already!!
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| Just hours old...what a precious baby boy! |
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| 1 year old |
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| 2 years old |
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| 3 years old - His passport photo so we could move to Singapore |
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| 4 years old |
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5 years old - What did you do on your 5th birthday Noah?
Met a US Senator and helped get my baby sister home! |
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| 6 years old |
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7 years old
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| Noah is now 8! |
I'm finding myself a little reflective these days, so bear with me (or is it bare with me), you get the idea...hang with me...
I'm a planner by nature. I love lists and calendars and itineraries and more lists. I NEED a plan! I make great plans! Ask anybody that knows me...I'm a planner!! I remember going through our pre-marital counseling sessions over 10 years ago and we were told we needed to talk about our life's expectations...you know talk about if you want kids or not, how many you want, where you want to live, which way the toilet paper is supposed to be put on the thingy, etc. You know talk about big issues so you don't have any big surprises after you tie the knot. I devised a GREAT plan and I even let Claude help a bit, at least he complied well. I We had it all figured out! Good thing we also learned in our counseling sessions to keep God at the center of our family. Who knew?! There is an even better planner in the world than me...God!
I just marvel at how great our God's plan is for the Claude McRoberts Clan. You can see His hand all over our story. When Claude and I married our plan was to have three awesome children, love God, love others, and live happily ever after. Wow, am I thankful that God had His plan...it is so much better!
I'll start with God putting a genuine empathy for the plight of orphans in my heart from the time I was a little girl. I remember crying over the lives of orphans in my favorite childhood movies like Annie, Pete's Dragon, The Rescuer's and The Apple Dumpling Gang. I find it remarkable that although I never consciously considered adoption for my future family, I feel that God prepared my heart for adoption from the time I was a little girl.
Unknowingly our adoption story started a few days before our precious oldest son, Noah Daniel was born. After 37 great weeks of pregnancy I started to have medical complications that resulted in an early delivery via c-section (that was NOT in my birth plan). And not far along into my second pregnancy with Malachi "Chi" I started having the same problems which resulted in a very long, painful, and difficult pregnancy. During this time I struggled greatly with why God was having me physically suffer so much. It did not take us long to realize that God was using this tough time for good, as He always does. Due to these pregnancy problems, we quickly realized that God was unfolding His plan for our family...adoption.
Initially our plan for adoption was to adopt one baby girl from China. But when our social worker asked us if we would be open to adopting twins or crib mates, we prayerfully considered it and answered an excited "YES!" From that moment on we were sure that God intended us to have two baby girls, despite the fact that China normally does not match twins with families that already have children. After we submitted our dossier to China in the summer of 2006, we were stationed in Singapore for 6 wonderful months. During that time we were able to travel around SE Asia, including to the country of Vietnam. We absolutely loved it there and discussed the possibility of adopting from Vietnam one day. Little did we know that was God's plan from the beginning.
And then comes the infamous NOID story...After we adopted the girls on September 18, 2007 in Vietnam things went very wrong. Our two week adoption trip, that we made without our young sons turned into four long, anguishing weeks. The US Department of State issued Eden a Notice of Intent to Deny (NOID), denying her a visa to enter the United States. The rebuttal to the NOID cost us many agonizing months away from our daughter, whom we had to put into foster care in Vietnam, while we returned home to care for our other children and work to get her home. After months of doing everything humanly possible to get Eden home, it took God stepping in to resolve the situation...
One Sunday morning we were listening to a guest pastor preach about not being a "Boat Potato." The scripture reference was Matthew 14:22-33, the story about Jesus Walking on Water. The story was about God giving us an invitation, calling us as he did to Peter...to step out of the boat, to have faith. God will never call us to sink and his assignments will often make us face our fears. The story was also about the reservations we'll have about getting out of the boat. Of course the boat is always safer, even Peter became frightened after he stepped out of the boat. But Jesus met Peter there in the water and helped him. And this should be our motivation to get out of the boat...The water is where Jesus is! Well you would be amazed at what God did that day to me while this sermon was going on. I heard God's voice so LOUD and CLEAR, IN MY FACE! Not just once but several times. That had never happened to me before or since. God told me to "GET OUT OF THE BOAT! Take your 3 children to Washington DC and stand on the steps of the Capitol Building to get Eden home!" What?! Now in all of my human-ness I said there is no way I can do this. This is so not in my plan! I can't travel across the country with my 4 year old, 3 year old and 9 month old, by myself, not knowing what on earth we were going to do on the steps of the Capitol Building in the dead of winter. But everytime I had a thought or fear like that ran through my mind, the pastor would say, "FEAR NOT!" or "DO NOT BE AFRAID!" Everytime!! And when I started to change God's plan in my mind, God shouted at me again to take my 3 kids to the steps of the Capitol Building! So to make a long story short. I got out of the boat and followed God's plan. I took the kids to DC. We met with Senator Barbara Boxer in her office on Noah's 5th birthday, February 5, 2008. Our story and Jordan's picture was on the front page of the National Section of the NY Times. And best of all we received Eden's visa 3 weeks later. Our sweet girl finally was able to come home, God's plan worked!
A couple of blissful years later, Claude and I started talking and praying about expanding our family again. We considered international adoption, but were very leery after having such difficulties with Eden's adoption. As a result of this difficult and costly international adoption, we started researching extensively the possibility of adopting domestically through the foster care system instead of pursuing another international adoption. Our plan was to start the foster care process at the end of August 2010 (this date would meet the 6 month TN residency requirement for becoming foster parents). But again, God had His plan. Despite our fear and financial unpreparedness, on August 13, 2010 God showed us the path to our son.
That day we met a family at a homeschool park day. This family told us all about their daughter they would be adopting soon from Holt's Korea Waiting Child Program. The mom talked me through the process in detail. As I learned about the process, and specifically that children from Korea are paper-ready (i.e. approved for a visa to enter the US) prior to our travel to adopt, I KNEW in my hear that this was God's plan for us. I went home that afternoon and immediately found the picture of our son. It has been a whirlwind ever since. Now we wait with great anticipation of Isaac Luke's homecoming!
So today I thank God for His plan! I feel like my life began the day Noah was born...he is such an awesome kid! I am so blessed to be his mom and the mom to his brothers and sisters!
I can't wait to see what God has in store for us next! I'll keep making my lists, but I'm lovin' His plan!
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