A sad day

Imagine you had a two year old boy, and one day, virtual strangers from some foreign country came to adopt him as their son and take him half way around the world. How would your little boy feel? Wouldn't you hope that he would miss you? Wouldn't you expect him to grieve the loss of his family and the only home he has ever known?

That is how our son Isaac is feeling today. He has been in the same home and slept in the same bed with his foster father and mother for the last 18 months...not one day have they been apart. They have loved him and cared for him as their own son...and today they gave him to us, waved goodbye and we drove away in the taxi.

We knew that today be would be hard...we tried to prepare ourselves but there is really no way to prepare except to be ready to love and be patient. We arrived at the adoption agency around 3PM to get Isaac. We met for a few minutes with DJ to discuss his paperwork, and travel documentation. Someone came to the door and said that we needed to come downstairs. The foster family was down there with Isaac and he was just weeping. He does not like to go to Holt because he usually gets a medical checkup there and he is afraid of the doctor. He cried all the way through his pre-flight medical check.

We spoke briefly with the foster family and exchanged some final gifts. Then DJ called a taxi and we packed all of Isaac's things that the family gave us in the trunk. After a picture together, the father handed Isaac to us and we said goodbye. The whole thing lasted 15 minutes.

Isaac was just sobbing...but he clung to Sharon and buried his head into her chest. He stayed with her for the entire 30 minute ride back to the hotel. When we got to our room, he started to cry again and kept going to the door saying that he wanted to leave. After crying for a solid half hour, Sharon took him into the bathroom to play with the water in the bathtub. He began to play a little but was still whimpering.

For the last few hours, we have played together, he has eaten with us, and we have watched some videos together of our home and the girls. There may be moments that he is not crying, but he is always whimpering. About every 15 minutes he goes to get his shoes and backpack and grabs our hand to leave.

The saddest part was when he found the toy phone that we gave him. The foster family had recorded their voices on there and he kept pushing the button to hear their voices. Then he put the phone up to his ear and just cried into the phone, like he was telling them to come get him.

We can tell that he is a fighter and that he is trying to be strong. He gathers his stuffed animals around him. Even as he whimpers he still organizes the toys and throws away his trash. He likes to have things a certain way.

It is heart breaking to see Isaac in so much pain and we cannot console him. We try to communicate to him how sorry we are that he has to go through this heartache. We can only imagine how the foster family is feeling right now. We are so thankful for the time that we got to spend with the family before today. We feel for the other couple we saw at Holt who met their son for the first time today and took him with them a hour later. We can't imagine.

Pray for wisdom for Sharon and I as we try to comfort Isaac and help him. And pray for sleep tonight. Thank you so much.