MUST READ

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

God's Story not ours.

This morning KNOE showed a follow up to the story they broadcasted last night. We are so thankful to have people in the media who are excited about the story of hope through adoption. We pray that this story will inspire many others to begin to invest in and support the calling for adoption. We truly can not wait to bring our child home to be apart of a community that has been so supportive.

It's becoming surreal now that we will be traveling in a few days and that in 7 days and 16 hours we may see the face of our child for the first time. My prayer this morning was that through this process and despite the resistance, that God reigns as Victor over a child's life that had no idea that hope was on the way. That her story of adoption becomes her story of faith, that she too will become a child of God through his catalyst of grace and her response in faith. God this adoption story is yours not ours, may all people hear of the grace and the mercy you have given us through your Son.

My song for the radiance of hope that will be breaking through the oppresion of an orphan is this: So let hope rise, And darkness tremble, In Your holy light,And every eye will see Jesus, our God, Great and mighty to be praised. God of all days, Glorious in all of Your ways. Your majesty, the wonder and grace, In the light of Your name. With everything, We will shout for your glory.
Click here

Spreading the Word

Samantha Boatman from KNOE came over today did an interview about our adoption. You can watch it below. Our hope is that the Gospel will be shared through this process and that more couples will be inspired to support and invest in adoption.

Click the link below to view the first story showed

KNOE Link to Both Stories

15 днів до України

Translation: 15 days until Ukraine. It is official, we will be boarding our flight to Kiev, Ukraine on August 2 at 11:30 am out of New Orleans, LA. It's surreal to think that over a year ago we began this journey to follow after God's will to have pure and undefiled religion through adoption and in 18 days we may see the face of the child/children in a picture that he as preordained for us to adopt long before we ever knew we would. We truly pray that God will gives us peace and clarity in this process. We truly know this is one of the largest steps of faith that we can take but have complete comfort in how sovereign our God truly is. 

I wanted to thank you all for your prayers and support and for the continuing encouragement that you have all bestowed on our family. The adoption process brings out the best and the worst in people, it has been a long road filled with plenty of doubters, skeptics, and even those encouraging us not to adopt, but thankfully we serve a God who is bigger than those nay-sayers. Our prayer is that God will soften their hearts and when they see the hope and the joy in that child's face, that they are no longer orphaned but have a family who loves them and show them what the Gospel looks like more than just tell them, they will embrace the gospel calling to care for those 143 million orphans in the world.

So pray, pray, pray that there will be a clear connection between us and the child and that the Love that we have for them, which is truly an effect of the love God has given us, will be clear. Even more so, pray that in a month and a half from now we will be landing in Monroe, LA with a child that gets to come home to their family for the first time. In which at the airport you are all invited to celebrate with us this amazing culmination of the Gospel calling for our family.

May God be glorified in all of this for it is He who is the one who is truly inspirational, not us.

SDA appointment! AMEN!

These past few days have felt like weeks with the anticipation of our email from Kostya our translator/facilitator that would tell us what day we had to be in Ukraine. I woke up around 4:30 this morning and immediately checked Kate's email and began praying that we would find out our SDA appointment date today. After checking her email at least every 30 minutes this entire day we received the email we have been waiting for:

Hello Kate,
I just got letter of invitation for you.
The appointment August 5th.

Kind wishes,
Kostya

Can you believe it! It's hard to believe that last year this time we were just beginning this process and now we actually have a target date to be in Ukraine. PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE Pray harder than you have for us, because this is where we truly have to rely on God to guide us to the child/children that he desires for us to make apart of our family. Please pray that the appointment goes smoothly, we find a child, and that everyone involved feels sure that we are supposed to Adopt this child and give them a family.

Its only 26 Days or 631 hours until we will be at the SDA in Ukraine!

Rounding Third

For those of you who haven't heard our paperwork was submitted successfully to Ukraine and we are now waiting to hear when our State Department of Adoption (SDA) appointment will be. So the next step in this process is actually going to Ukraine to find our child. We are anticipating this date to land somewhere between the last week of July to the First few weeks of August. We encourage you all to pray that God will lead us to the child he has for us, that the SDA therapist will deem us suitable to adopt, that the Orphanage director will see our hearts and allow us to adopt the child in their orphanage, and that the child will have an instant connection with us and will decide to come home with us. This whole process has taught us that no matter the cost we must follow God's call, that no matter the negative resistance we have a God who is stronger than our ability, that despite the doubters the Gospel through adoption is worth the sacrifice, and that through the struggle our Gods sovereignty is at work in his children.

Father, thank you for adopting us as your children! We did not know you and were fatherless but you loved us enough to send your Son to pay the debt owed to our sins, so that we may be your children. Sola Deo Gloria! To you alone be all the glory!

We are still missing a part of our family and can't wait for the day we can take a picture of all of us together.