"When my father and my mother forsake me, then the LORD will take me up." Psalm 27:10

For we walk by faith, not by sight …. Most of you reading this had the opportunity to follow our adoption through our adoption blog, however I was asked to write how the Lord lead us to Dmitriy on another site, so I thought I would share here as well. Here is how the Lord lead us to our precious new gift, 6 year old Dmitriy Ezekiel, born into our hearts from Torez, Ukraine. While our adoption was just made final in March of this year, the journey of how the Lord brought us to our son starts several years prior. Today in this post I will share with you the events of how the Lord in His divine sovereignty directed our steps to Torez, Ukraine. At the time, Mike and I had been married for 8 years. The Lord had blessed us with three children and I was about 8 months pregnant with our fourth blessing. The Lord had very briefly in His perfect will, crossed our paths with a family here in South Dakota who was adopting a little boy with special needs from Ukraine. This family went on to adopt 3 children with special needs from Ukraine to add to their already large family. They were such a testimony to us of true religion (“Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted form the world.” James 1:27) that we followed their blog and prayed for them during their adoption journeys. It was during this time that I was first made aware of a 4 year old little boy with many special needs, including complete blindness whose name was Dmitriy. I was immediately drawn to this little boy, but did not even mention this to my husband since I was of course 8 months pregnant. We were able to easily conceive and deliver our own healthy children, why would we consider adoption? Adoption is for those who cannot conceive, right? Adoption of a special needs child, why would one “desire” to seek that? International adoption is so expensive, how does one afford that? I went on to deliver my healthy baby girl . Little did we know but 2010 would quickly prove to be the most difficult of all years for our family. My sister had delivered a son who was stillborn the previous year at 34 weeks into her pregnancy, little Conner Ian. We were rejoicing with her as she had become pregnant again with another little boy, only to one day at her 36 week appointment be told that this son too would never be brought home but that little Cameron Ian had already entered the presence of God. We drove from South Dakota to Georgia for the second time in 2 years to watch my sister and her husband bury their second little boy. After leaving Georgia we traveled to Texas where we were able to spend a week with Mike’s mom. After continually not feeling well, my mother in law at 54 years old went to a routine Dr’s appointment to find out her heart was working at 15 % capacity. We had a wonderful visit with her and returned home to South Dakota. We were home one week when we got the call from Mike’s dad that she had entered the presence of her Lord and Savior in her sleep. We drove back down to Texas for her funeral and a couple weeks later found out I was expecting again. Our hopes were crushed at almost 20 weeks into my pregnancy when the Dr's discovered our precious fully formed Levi Wesley had went to be with his maker. “Then Job arose, and rent his mantle, and shaved his head, and fell down upon the ground, and worshipped. And said, Naked came I out of my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return thither: the LORD gave, and the LORD hath taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD. In all this Job sinned not, nor charged God foolishly.” Job 1 20-22 We had experienced nothing in comparison to Job, yet our hearts were left full of deep sorrow. While 2010 was the hardest year Mike and I have walked together, we are thankful we did not have to walk it alone. "Fear thou not: for I am with thee: be not dismayed; for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the righthand of my righteousness." Isaiah 41:10 It was a year of truly learning to trust the Lord and truly feeling His presence through the loss of 2 nephews, a mother and a son. Through this the Lord showed us the brevity of life. “Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away .” James 4 :14 Then came the question. As Christians, if we do believe, which we do, that our life is a vapour….what are we doing for the kingdom of God? What are we doing that will matter in eternity? Yes, we spend day in and day out living our lives for ourselves, enjoying the temporal, but what eternal treasures are we storing up? How will we serve the Lord with this life that He has purchased? We experienced the pain of burying our son. My sister bore the pain of burying 2 sons. We would have never chosen that. It humbles me to know that Christ chose to take the payment of my sins through the sacrifice of the shed blood of His only son, He choose this. He gave His only son as a ransom for me. “Who gave himself a random for all…..” 1 Timothy 2:6 Not only did He save my soul, He adopted me into His family. By this time, I had been a Christian for 10 years. I knew the Lord as my Savior, I knew these scriptures, yet the Lord had never so clearly placed these scriptures on my heart as He did during this time of my life. Shortly after we began to seek the Lord and His will for our lives. On April 11, 2011, The Lord placed that same little boy Dmitriy into our hearts and we began praying for Him and for God’s will in our lives regarding him. This time our hearts more tender to the Lord’s will. March 2, 2012 We stand in a small court room in Torez, Ukraine where the judge gives her blessing and announced the parents of Dmitriy Ezekiel Remember all the questions I had on adoption during the start of this story? Well as you can see God answered them all ! Adoption is for those who cannot conceive, right? “…Thou art the helper of the fatherless.” Psalm 10:14b Christ is our example. Adoption of a special needs child, why would one “desire” to seek that? “I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvelous are thy works…” Psalm 139:14 We ourselves are needy. “But I am poor and needy; yet the LORD thinketh upon me…”Psalm 40:17a International adoption is so expensive, how does one afford that? “Faithful is he that calleth you, who also will do it.” 1 Thessalonians 5:24 Every single penny we needed was supplied to us by our Heavenly Father. As I look back over our adoption journey, I can now very easily see how the Lord worked in bringing us to Dmitriy, I am reminded of one simple verse. “Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.” Proverbs 3:5-6 I do believe that through all our sorrow the Lord was working and that through the Lord, Joy does come in the morning. I see evidence of this in the form of a 6 year old boy spinning in my living room as I type. “…Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.” Psalm 30:5b We are humbled and thankful that the Lord would use us to serve Him in showing the love of Jesus Christ to Dmitriy. The Lord has heard our prayers and He is consistently faithful. I look forward to sharing more of Dmitriy’s story in future posts and sharing with you how the Lord is working in the life of our son as the Lord allows.

Dmitriy was the 4th child to be adopted from the Torez institution. We choose to follow the Lord’s leading to Torez where we were welcomed with opened arms. God has placed in our hearts a love both for the town of Torez, where we made dear friends and also for the Torez facility where we grew to love both the workers and the residents. Our time spent there over the 6 week period while completing Dmitriy’s adoption was a very sweet time for us. The children there are precious and we would highly encourage future adoptions from the facility.

“This is the LORD'S doing; it is marvelous in our eyes.” Psalm 118:23 *** I am sorry this reads as one big paragraph...blogger will not let me divide into paragraphs.