Our Journey To Date

Hello, we are the Chambers and this is our story to date. My name is Joel Chambers and my wonderful wife is Melissa. We have been married for 16 years and have two beautiful biological children: Ansley (7) and Elliot (4). A few years ago Melissa started hinting (and then really hinting) to have another child. I had been content with two and very happy for the blessings of Ansley and Elliot. Things seemed perfect as they were and I had finally convinced Melissa that we were done with having kids. So we bought a dog, Clementine Fire Dog. Ansley decided on the first name and Elliot chose the second name: Fire Dog.

One of my concerns was the financial side of life. We were comfortable and needed to replace our savings account that was recently reduced as we remodeled a bathroom and paid of our new van (Dave Ramsey would be happy that we paid off the van or as Dave calls it, "stupid tax"). To add to the financial side of things we also send our daughter (and next year our son) to Whitefield Academy which is a small private classical-Christian school. So basically my thinking was how in the world would we be able to send three kids to Whitefield? And this school is very important to our family. Melissa always tells me, "we will figure out how to pay for it".

Melissa then employed a tactic that she knew would work on me: the kids started asking for a brother or sister. I still fought it. But then I noticed God softening my heart. Finally I realized I was thinking more about it more and more. Then one day in May a co-worker told me his story of how they were adopting a child from China. I went home and told Melissa we needed to adopt a child!

Melissa immediately started the process at full speed. She devoted everything to expediting the mountain of paper work and we quickly were on our way. I still try not to think about the cost as I know we will "figure it out".

Early in the process Melissa found a little boy on the Internet that was waiting on a family to find him. He had special needs but they seemed minor. We started to get excited and asked for more information on this child we started calling, "Charlie". Once we received his information we found out his condition was very serious. We both felt guilty in deciding not to pursue him. But one thing we had decided early on was that we would not take a child with needs that would take away from our other children and we needed to remember this when thinking about Charlie. It is several months later and we still think about Charlie as he remains on the waiting list.

We selected Holt International and the home study was soon in process. Joann was our social worker and she was great. Finally it was time for our Parenting Class and there were four couples in the class. One of the couples actually go to our church and we did not know them. We are excited to know we will be going through the process with them. They are also adopting from China and look forward to getting to know them more.

The home study was completed in August and we were ready for a referral. The end of October rolls around and we had nothing! Our patience was evaporating quickly. We would call Holt and it seemed to us that nothing was happening and we could get no answers. We continued to pray for patience and that God would find the right child for our family.

Throughout this process, Ansley and Elliot, would ask a lot of questions of when their brother or sister was coming. When we went for finger prints at Homeland Security we had told Elliot we had to go get finger prints for the adoption and Elliot asked if we would be bringing home the baby. This is a great example of how excited they are for their sibling.

Finally we started calling Holt and trying to get answers for how long it was going to be. Still nothing. Throughout the process Melissa had started networking on the Internet with other families who had adopted or were in the process. Many other were indicating they were getting referrals and looking at all the children on the "list" that China publishes each month.

On Wednesday, October 21, someone emailed Melissa and indicated there was a little girl, under 2 years old with cataracts and pigtails on the list. She called me and we agreed to find out more. So we called Holt and told them we found a child on the list. We think they were surprised we had access to the list as they do not provide the list. The Holt person said they would investigate and get back to us. She did not call us back that day so we called back on Thursday with a little more information about this child. We were told she had been locked that morning.

The frustration continued but we also continued to pray and ask for patience. We prepared our selves mentally that the next list would be out in November. Saturday night we traveled to a Halloween party at a relatives farm. As we were leaving some cousins, Tim and Brandy, were arriving. They had known of our adoption situation, as they are in my Alpha group at Christ Church, so they asked if we had heard anything from the October list. I told them we did not get a match and we would probably not hear anything until the November list comes out.

Sunday morning comes and we headed to Church. After church I mowed the lawn and picked up leaves before watching the pitiful Kansas City Chiefs game. Around 2:00pm the phone rings. The TV indicates who is calling and it said Holt International. Melissa answered the phone and I knew immediately it was good news.

The Holt person indicated they typically do not work on Sundays but she came in to catch up on paper work and noticed the little girl with cataracts and pigtails was back on the list. She told us we had until 2:00pm Monday to lock her in. She asked if we wanted pictures of her when she emailed the child's information. Of course we want pictures. She is beautiful and we immediately started loving her.

It is Sunday and how are we going to find a doctor to discuss the limited information we have? Now what?

I tried calling a next door neighbor I had growing up as he was the local eye doctor. I had not seen him in many years but I did not care. We need answers. He did not answer. My father recommend calling his eye doctor at home. So we did and she was very helpful. We went to the mall as they always have eye glass stores and asked if any doctors were there. We lucked out and got to speak to one. He was cautious in his comments but gave us a positive feeling and also provided us with some pediatric doctors to call.

We then went to my mothers and shared our great news with our family. My sister and her kids and their boyfriends and girlfriends were there. My brother and his son Alex were there. My ex-brother in law was there. We all shared in the excitement.

There was no sleep Sunday night. First thing Monday morning Melissa started calling more doctors and specialists. We were getting positive input and continued to feel like this was a good match. There was one more doctor we had left a message for and she had not called back.

Melissa and I had talked numerous times throughout the morning and decided we would lock her in if this last doctor confirmed what we had been hearing all morning.

She called. She is a pediatric opthamologist (spelling?) who does a lot of humanitarian work. She is very familiar with these types of situations. We greatly appreciate her honesty and feedback even though it did not support what we thought. She indicated we need more information on this child before making a decision. If not we need to be prepared for a child that may be blind.

Melissa and I feel like God has placed this little girl in our path for a reason. We have asked Holt for her to be examined and provide the information. So now we wait to even find out if she can be seen by a doctor. If so, we pray for good feedback (that she can see).

We continue to be positive and feel like she can see and we will soon be heading to China to get her. If the news comes back that she is blind I am not sure what we are going to do. We have asked everyone to pray for her and we will continue praying until we know more.