So what does adoption and a tornado have to do with each other? Well, in Jon's case a lot. He really likes this story and I think it goes a long way in explaining how God can use something bad to create something very good.
In the fall of 1998, a tornado went through our property. Amazingly, this storm tore 100 year old oak trees to smithereens and yet didn't touch our house. We could not open the door of the house the debris was as high as our roof in places. These trees were pulled up by there roots as if they were onions. The insurance estimate to clean-up would have been over $10,000. They would have needed front-end loaders and bull dozers to get the mess out. Since the max. insurance would pay was $500, we needed to find other means. I was able to find a lumber company willing to come in and pay us for the wood and with help from our church friends we managed to clean up the rest. The money from the lumber paid for first adoption.
Our local newspaper had an article about a family that had adopted from South Korea, I was surprised to read that travel to Korea was not required, the child could be escorted. With Chris's situation travel seemed impossible, so this made me think. It was only as I went to throw out the paper that I stopped and asked Keith if he had read that article and what did he think. It's hard to believe that if I had gone on and thrown that paper away, how different our life might have been.
We knew we wanted to adopt a child with special needs and our Jonny had plenty. At a certain point our social worker began to talk about children. In those days children with special needs were listed in a big clunky notebook, the pictures were outdated and descriptions old. As we began looking through the book there was one cute little boy who took my attention, not for the reason you might think. No this little boy's special needs and hospitalizations took up a page and half and that was typed! At age two he had spent over half his life in hospitals. I told Keith when it was his turn, that he shouldn't even really look at that little guy, it was that sad! We went that way for three weeks, looking at those kiddos, telling Keith not to read about that little boy, Keith reading it anyway. But that fourth visit we got a call before leaving home, our social worker told me that there was a child the main office wanted us to look at. She said she should have an update on that boy by the time we got there that evening.
It was such a long ride that night. Finally we got there and our worker went to check there fax to see if the update was there. It was and she brought it to us, and who should this child be? You probably guessed, it was the same little boy, I kept refusing. I'm sure my mouth could have caught a herd of flies! But after much thought and prayer we made the leap of Faith that brought our Jonny home. Jon has had several more surgeries and hospitalizations since coming home but I wouldn't trade him for the world! What an experience we've had. Of course Keith loves taking credit for it and I guess he should!
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