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Dear Family & Friends,

We are extremely excited to announce that on Thursday, August 5^th at 2 a.m. Central Standard Time we will have our 1 hour visit to choose the child we are going to potentially adopt. We believe whole hearty in the power of prayer, so please continue to pray that God will direct us to the child he desires us to adopt.

Many of our friends and family have been very confused by this choice. Most assumed that we couldn’t have children and when they found out we were expecting Chandler, the questions and concerns started pouring in. God calls every one of his children to care for our brothers in Christ, our enemies, the poor, the sick, the widowed, and the orphaned. We truly feel that God has called our family to this cause through adoption. We have known this for years, and God has confirmed this many times throughout our marriage. Casey and I have been praying for the child’s safety, the orphanage workers, their friends and most of all their salvation for three years now. We have heard all of your concerns; however we know that if God calls us, he will provide the strength and the ability to care for this child.

Another big issue with many has been our decision to adopt from Ukraine. We had been praying about the U.S. foster adoption program for years but we never had a complete peace about starting that process. God may lead us to adopt through the U.S. in the future, but for now, it is very clear that he has lead us to Ukraine. Casey met with a pastor who asked him to look into Ukrainian adoption, I immediately said no to foreign adoption, and then God just started working on my heart. God reminded me that he doesn’t ask us to follow him when it’s convenient for us, he asks us to follow him no matter what. We started the process and God has confirmed many times through his word, prayer, and providence that he is guiding us.

So prayerfully at the end of August we will be bringing our child home with us. There will be some similarities between Chandler’s homecoming and this child’s homecoming. Just like people visited us in the hospital, we welcome visitors at the airport. With older adopted children, there is a tendency to have some form of attachment disorder. Meaning that so many people came in and out of their lives and so many people took care of them on a daily basis, that they cling to everyone but don’t really trust anyone. I know that our friends and family want the best start for our child, so we will let you know what you can do to help. Casey and I will begin to rebuild the attachment bonds and help him/her heal from the emotional wounds of their past. The best way for us to form a parent/child bond is to be the only ones to hold, snuggle, instruct, soothe and feed them. As this cycle is consistent in their life, they will be able to learn that their parents are safe to trust and love them deeply. Once this important bond is established then we can branch out to other healthy relationships with our friends and family.

You can help us by setting physical boundaries and limiting what is considered normal physical contact. This will require, for a while, refraining from holding, hugging and kissing. Children in orphanages have learned to be overly charming to adults, to get their basic needs meet and this hinders the necessary child to parent bonding. Waving, blowing kisses and high fives are perfectly appropriate and very much welcomed because we do want our child to know that people love them. Our adopted child will have much more structure, boundaries and close proximity to us then Chandler has had. Please know that these decisions are made after a tremendous amount of research and we are not doing this to hurt our friends and family.

God Bless,

Casey & Kate Williams