Sera, Beulah and Kyle - an adoption experience memory

"Buuuuuuu-luh ... listen Mommy, isn't it beautiful? ... Buuuuuuuu-luh."


Sera had found the baby name books and being the always helpful four year old, she had taken this task quite seriously.  From A - Z she began scouring the books to find the perfect name for her new baby sister.


After delivering Sera through C-section a couple of years earlier, my husband and I had decided that it wouldn't be wise to put my body through carrying and delivering another baby at my age. I remember very well the evening my husband called me over to a bench beside the pool to talk with me. I remember this well because my husband is very quiet and is most often not the initiator of conversation. I also remember it well because I was not sure why he wanted to talk, he seemed a little serious and I was a bit concerned that maybe something was wrong.


But to my delight, my sweet husband wanted to talk about expanding our family. He told me that he felt we had enough love in our hearts for another child, enough financial resources and enough room in our home. This began our journey down the adoption pathway.


When all the phone calls were done, paperwork was completed and we were accepted by a Christian Adoption Agency, we found ourselves preparing to travel to Ukraine. Since we already had a little girl, had purchased a pretty bunk bed bedroom suite, and were told we would most likely come home with a little girl, we began thinking and planning in that direction.


Sera was convinced from the beginning that we would be bringing home a little sister and she was taking it upon herself to find the perfect name. It was while looking through the books of baby names one particular evening that she happened upon the name, Beulah. For whatever reason, this name attached itself to her attention and had no intentions of letting go. She ran around the house the  whole evening delighted with the beautiful name she had discovered. Her excitement was quite humorous as she would say the name over and over. And every time she said the name it was as though she was transported to some special, fanciful place.


We laughed along and put her to bed that night not expecting to hear any more about Beulah. Well, we could not have been more mistaken. Beulah was here to stay.


Sera made a point of telling everyone at church that we were getting a new baby sister and her name was Beulah. "Isn't that a beautiful name?" she would ask. Every day she talked about Beulah and told everyone she spoke to about this new addition to our family.


A few months later my husband and I were in the southern Ukraine city of Kherson. We had traveled there from Kiev where we had been shown paperwork on a little 16 month old boy. While we hadn't planned on adopting a little boy, we had been told that this was a "good baby" -- meaning there wasn't any history of mental illness in his family and no known drug or alcohol abuse in either of his parents.


We agreed to meet this little boy and arrangements were made for us to leave early the next morning with our Ukrainian driver, Valeri, who knew very little English. My husband and I rode for seven hours in a van without seat belts, over the roughest road certainly known to man, bouncing around the back seat like two pieces of popcorn in a popcorn popper.


Everything about this adoption process was new and unknown. We didn't know what to expect at any point along the way. When my mom asked how we would know which baby we were suppose to come home with I told her, "we'll know because the baby will have KNITTEL written across it's forehead."  The truth was, we didn't have any idea how we would know. But I was confident that God would make it perfectly clear to us.


As we stood in the dark hallway waiting to go into the Orphanage Director's office we looked at each other with such helpless expressions on our faces. We were totally at the mercy of God. He had brought us to this place at this time and we were definitely not in control. I remember praying just before we walked into the room, "Lord, if this is our baby, please make it obvious."


After we met with the Director and everything seemed in order, she sent for the baby. We waited for what seemed a lifetime until finally the door opened and a woman walked in carrying a tiny little blonde-headed boy named Dema. This very small little boy had spent the entirety of life viewing his tiny little world from inside his desolate bed. But to our surprise, as he entered the room, his smile caused the already sun-filled room to become brighter. It was as though he threw open his soul on the stage of our hearts and declared, "Hello!  I'm Dema!"


We took turns holding him. I checked him over as best I could under the watchful eye of the Director, Social Worker, Caregiver and translator. My eyes were first drawn to his beautiful blue eyes that seemed to disappear whenever he smiled. And his smile...it was magical. As he sat on my lap I took his hands in mine and found myself praying, "Lord, these are good hands. These hands were designed by You to do great things."


My husband and I were asked what we thought.  Did we like him? Did we want him? Did we need time to think about it? We looked at each other, still helpless and trusting God to make His will clear to us. Finally, my husband said to me, "I don't have any reason to say 'no'." It was amazing to me when I heard him say this because it was exactly what I was thinking. We knew that this was our baby and there weren't any hesitations for either of us.

Once our decision was made the officials began preparing all of the paperwork and we found ourselves once again at the mercy of God in a foreign place filled with unusual and questionable proceedings. We felt a need and a desire to finalize the adoption quickly and leave the country with our baby. However, we had been told that we would need to leave him in Ukraine and return a month later. There were other issues that were creeping in and causing us some anxiety and concern.


One day, after praying, I decided to trust God that we were leaving. I began to pack, stepping out in faith that the adoption papers would be signed and we would be allowed to return home. That night I sat in bed unable to sleep and crying out to God on behalf of our little boy. There seemed an urgency for him to be set free from his current situation of life in a baby bed. He needed to be loved and caressed. He needed nourishment and stimulation. He needed sunlight and exercise. He needed to belong ... to be part of a family who would love him and care for him.


Isaiah 61 came to my mind so I began to read; "The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me, because the Lord has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor ... to comfort all who mourn..." I started getting excited about what God was about to do in the life of our son. There was a renewed confidence that this child was about to be released from the darkness that had invaded his small world for so long. The Lord's favor was on him and very soon he would be set free.


But as I continued reading in the book of Isaiah I was brought to my knees at the marvelous and amazing preparation the work of the Holy Spirit had been doing in our family.  In ways that we were not aware, God had been at work in all of our hearts, even in the heart of our four year old daughter, Sera.

Isaiah 62:2-4  "...you will be called by a new name that the mouth of the Lord will bestow. You will be a crown of splendor in the Lord's hand, a royal diadem in the hand of your God. No longer will they call you Deserted, or name your land Desolate. But you will be called Hephzibah, and your land Beulah; for the Lord will take delight in you..."  

Beulah.


All along the Lord had been whispering the new name in our daughter's spirit.  No longer would Dema be deserted and alone.  No longer would he be confined to the desolate bed that had been his world for 16 months.  No longer a lonely orphan.


We were in and out of the judge's chambers in less than 12 minutes. For reasons unknown, the Prosecutor never appeared in court and the judge who heard our case had never heard an adoption case prior to ours.  She was all smiles, and after a few brief questions she granted the adoption and waived the mandatory waiting period. We were free to make arrangements to take our son home immediately. Apparently, in Ukraine, in this region, this was never how adoption court played out. The officials who attended the court proceeding were astonished and all struggled to explain what had happened. And though they did not understand who the One true God is, they agreed with great joy and certainty that there was someone in the heavens who had shown us favor like they had never seen.

Our daughter quickly accepted that we were bringing home a little brother instead of a sister and just as quickly accepted that his name would be Kyle (and not Beulah). I will always be grateful for how God prepared my daughter's heart to receive her little brother. I remain convinced that He was working in her spirit in ways that we simply could not comprehend.











And although I never named any of my children Beulah, I feel that I will forever be partial to the name and I will never forget the important role she played in the life of our family.