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Our Adoption Stories
Adoption 1 - Emily Rui Oatsvall “My Light”
The call to go to China to bring home a daughter came from many directions - a friend adopting from China, learning about the plight of little girls in China, and our own personal angel - Emily Chapman ... I was ready to adopt way before Scott and it took a precious student to convince Scott that this was truly God’s calling our life ... I will never forget the night Emily and MaryBeth Chapman came over to our house to discuss adopting from China ... MaryBeth answered so many questions and fears that Scott had and when they left Scott looked at me and said, “I guess we are adopting from China.” I was doing cartwheels and the paper chase began ... We were honored to name our daughter to be EMILY after Emily Chapman, because she is the one that bridged the gap between Scott’s heart and his head when it came to adoption ... I will forever be thankful for her !!
The paper work was brutal, confusing and seem to take forever, but finally we were in the wait .... I prayed daily for the woman caring my child ... I prayed for Emily and some days cried for her ... I knew God had a plan for her to be our daughter and yet I knew there would always be a piece of her that may long to know more about her 1st family ...
The call finally came and I think I used 1000 minutes on my cell phone that day ... We had a daughter - a beautiful, beautiful daughter ... She was 9 months old when I arrived to get her in China ... I walked into that governmental building and my life was changed FOREVER ... For the first time in my life I understood in a small way the LOVE of CHRIST ... To be chosen ... To be adopted ... the gift it was !!! I have never been so in awe of the Lord ...
Emily’s transition was so smooth ... She was attached to me in less than 36 hours ... She was smiling, laughing and just literally lighting up every room we entered ... We got off the plane to meet her new FOREVER FAMILY ... She adored her brothers and Daddy ... She completed us in a new way ...
I hadn’t broken it to Scott quite yet, but I knew I would return to China again to bring home another daughter ... A sister that would look like Emily ... Someone she would share a past and culture with ... Someone who would give her that slight anchor to the Father ... WE WERE A FAMILY !!!
Adoption 2 - Maggie Tara Chang Oatsvall “My Hope”
As I began to talk to Scott about adopting again, he was less than enthusiastic ... He said our plates were full and we had done our part ... Now we were suppose to share our story and encourage others ... I of course could clearly hear the Father’s Voice sending us back to China and this time it would be a Special Needs angel ... I knew God was calling us deeper and He was asking us to have faith and trust in HIM in a new way this time ... Scott was still not convinced and I always encourage wives, whose husbands are on board to respect the fears and doubts their husbands have ... Talk about them together ... God created men and women differently for a reason ... Work through it together and be prepared to walk the journey together ...
Scott and I decided to take 90 days and pray. We were not going to discuss, talk about with others, or make any reference about adoption for 90 days ... I decided that during the 90 days I would make a list of all the reasons WHY WE SHOULD ADOPT and WHY WE SHOULDN’T ADOPT ... I had about 100 reasons WHY and 3 WHY NOT ... I gave Scott my notebook after the 90 days and 12 days later we were starting the paper work to bring home our next angel ...
The process at the time to apply for a special needs child was that you received a list each month of available special needs children and you put in request for them ... We were applying for about 3-6 girls each month and it was a difficult process ... Being rejected, talking with doctors about different needs, and just trying to wade through where God was leading us ... I will say that our list of special needs was pretty short in the beginning and then God opened our eyes to HIS CHILDREN and how amazingly special they each were and that the journey we were on was not about what WE could handle, but WHAT we could handle with His strength ... OH BOY WAS HE RIGHT !!!
We were matched with Maggie 6 months after our dossier arrived in China ... We were told she had a burn and would need some hair replacement ... Sounds simple, right ??? Well when I arrived I could immediately tell the situation was much worse medically and mentally than we thought ... She was missing part of her skull plate, she had been bound, neglected, and abused in many ways ... She spent 6 months in the hospital alone and trusted NO ONE ... We came home and faced 11 of the hardest and darkest months in our family’s life ... Maggie wouldn’t look you in the eyes, she wouldn’t speak to you, she bit, scratched, and slapped us all ... She sleep less than 5 hours a day and screamed many of the others ... I watched my baby girl literally scream as if she was no longer in her body for hours ... To say I would sit on the edge of her bed and beg God to help her is an understatement ... I felt helpless and each night God would whisper in my ear - “Will you do this for me.” ... The answer was always YES !!! God was using our family to heal Maggie ... She needed God’s love shown to her before she could understand what a family was ... Jeremiah, Elijah, and Emily were amazing to their sister ... They gave her the space and love she needed ... They never turned their back on her and Jeremiah was especially protective of her when we would leave the house ...
Looking back now I can see all the big and small miracles of Maggie’s journey ... We have had 4 surgeries already and visit Vanderbilt Children’s hospital 1-2 times a week ... IT IS ALL WORTH IT ... 11 months after Maggie came home we were walking in Walmart when Maggie looked up at me for the first time and said, “I LUFFA YOU MOMMY.” I cried and praised Jesus that she finally understand - LOVE ... I called Scott and we rejoiced together ... It was in those next months I knew God had been calling us to Africa ... SCOTT THOUGHT I WAS CRAZY ...
Adoption 3 and 4 Joseph Wayne Oatsvall “My Strength” & Daisy Katherine Oatsvall “My Peace”
As we were praying through this (Scott really praying God would give me some sense) our family met Katie Davis (Amazima Ministries - kissesfromkatie.blogspot.com) ... Our family and the Mayernick family began volunteering for her and our hearts were drawn to Uganda ... Scott keep reminding me that we were living on a teacher’s salary and that this was just NOT going to work ... There was NO more time in the day for him to love more children, NO more money to support them, NO more, NO more ... I reminded him that neither of our other two adoptions made sense financially either, but God provided and he would provide again ... That is when Scott finally came up with the saying “GOD WILL FUND WHAT HE FAVORS!” ... We began the paperwork process and started fundraising ... We had originally thought we were going to Ethiopia, but the more we got involved with Katie, we knew our hearts were in Uganda ... We applied to the orphanage that Katie volunteered at when she was 17 years old ... We felt drawn there and to the area Katie lived ... Scott did some amazing growing in the Lord during this time ... He is an amazing leader and I watched God work through him with the many fears that lay ahead for the leader of a household of 8 ... Scott leads us in FAITH ... He will admit he has never felt the call to adopt, but that he trusts the calling that God has placed on my heart ... I LOVE THIS MAN !!!
In March of 2009, Joseph’s picture was sent to us by the orphanage ... We had not this time signed up to bring a special needs angel home, but when his picture arrived and the fact that all his friends were being adopted in our area and that he would be left behind - there was no way we would say NO ... His smile is all you need to see to know he is one super-cool amazingly, happy child ... Joseph has hearing loss and developmental delays ... he is tiny (absolutely no booty at all !!! ) ... He was our Joseph we had prayed for ... Now we always knew we would be adopting two children from same area for the same reasons we felt lead to adopt two from China ... We wanted that common bond of culture and past ... We had dreamed of a daughter ... We were told there was NO daughter available and we were sad and confused at first ... I knew we had a daughter, but apparently it wasn’t God’s timing, so we proceeded with adopting Joseph and God with all his PERFECT TIMING brought us a daughter a couple of months later and here is the WHITE DOVE ... We were selling t-shirts with daisies on them as our fundraiser. When the orphanage called about our daughter and told us her name was DAISY it was as if God was speaking audibly “HERE I AM FOLLOW ME” ... Her name was our confirmation that we were on the right journey with the Lord ... We accepted and prepared to bring home our son and daughter from Uganda !
As with any adoption there are hills and valleys ... The process was taking so long in Uganda and each time we would get weary and defeated God would remind us HER NAME IS DAISY ... This was our comfort in the wait ... God’s timing is perfect and our children would come home !!!
A little over a year later, I boarded a plane with my oldest son Jeremiah and two friends to bring Joseph and Daisy home ... The trip was stressful at times with the many uncertainties of how the process was going with our visas ... It was no ones fault, this is just how it goes in the adoption world... There were more miracles than I can count that had us boarding a plane on our way home with two more Oatsvall Team members ...
We arrived at the airport with over 200 people waiting ... These were our prayer warriors ... Our family and friends who walked this journey with us ... We have never been alone ... God walked before us, beside us and even carried us many times ... He even moved many of His people to walk daily with us - with out fail and for that we are thankful ...
THE QUESTION WE GET ASKED ALL THE TIME ... Are you done adopting ??? I can’t answer that question ... We are God’s family and we will listen for His voice ...
Thanks for following our journeys ... If there is ever anything we can do to help you along your way, please let us know ...
Scott, Gwen, Jeremiah, Elijah, Emily, Maggie, Joseph, and Daisy
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