The Gowin Family

Our journey together

Archive for category Adoption

We are going to get our kids!!!

Dec 29

Posted by Suzanne in Adoption, Events, Family | 1 Comment

Our year and a half adoption journey is coming to a close…..and the adventure is about to begin!!!

We leave in just two days (Fri, Dec 31) to fly to Ethiopia to pick up our kids and bring them home forever!!  No, we still don’t have “official confirmation” that Jan 5 is our Embassy date, but our paperwork has been submitted and we understand that “no news is good news.”  Apparently, the Embassy doesn’t always get official word back about the appointment until right before the date which, by then, is when most of the families are already on their way to Ethiopia!  So we are going in huge faith but are told by our agency that there should be no problem.  (However, we are still asked to acknowledge in our emailed flight itinerary to our agency that we know that we are taking a risk in going without confirmation….. :) )  I am at peace though.  This is what I read in Scripture the morning we found out that we might not hear confirmation:

“Depart, depart, go out from there!
…you who carry the vessels of the LORD.
But you will not leave in haste or go in flight;
for the LORD will go before you,
the God of Israel will be your rear guard.” (Isa 52:11-12)

The Lord is going before us and guarding us from behind, and He will protect us as we carry His “precious vessels” home!!

So please keep us in your prayers!  We fly out of Peoria, to Minneapolis, to Amsterdam, and then to Ethiopia—will arrive on Saturday and hopefully that day pick up our kids forever!  We will have our Embassy appointment on Wed, Jan 5, and pick up their visas the following Friday.  We will not leave Ethiopia till the next Tues, Jan 11 because staying a few extra days cut out a huge chunk of money for our airfare!  So we have several open days in our trip to play, visit museums or landmarks, visit orphanages, etc.  We are taking Erin, our 10-year-old daughter, with us.  This will be a life-changing experience for her and she is so excited!  She will also be a great help with the kids.

One other great thing about this trip is that we will get to celebrate Ethiopian Christmas with all the kids at the Transition Home on Friday Jan 7!  The other families (Smith, Hammons, Miller, Grant) and us were asked to bring Christmas decorations and stocking stuffers.  Though we were initially disappointed not to have our kids home for Christmas, we are so excited to spend Ethiopian Christmas with Aidan and Eva in their own homeland!

Our KLM/Delta flights are scheduled to get in to Peoria on Wed, Jan 12 at 3:50pm.  Our friend Gena Monical-Ruhl has graciously offered to drive the Mt. Pulaski Christian Church bus to come pick us up and bring friends and family to the airport to meet us!  So if you are interested in joining us on that glorious day, please contact me (sgowin@gmail.com) before we leave or Chantell Mills (chantellmills@gmail.com) after that.  The bus will be at our home at 2:15pm that day to gather people for the trip.  There will be some spots open on the bus, or others can meet at our home and caravan or go straight to the airport.

Thanks to everyone who has followed us, prayed for us, given to us, encouraged us, and loved on us through this long journey!  You are such a blessing!  Our biggest prayer is that God is glorified through His work in our lives and that many others are able to experience His amazing grace and redemption in their own lives as well!

“Fear not, for I have redeemed you;
I have called you by name; you are mine.” (Isa 43:1)

Waiting on an Embassy Date

Dec 8

Posted by Michael in Adoption, Family, Fundraising, Us | No Comments

Waiting... © 2010 Michael Gowin

If there is anything predictable about the unpredictable journey to international adoption, it’s the waiting. While there is a prescribed path to follow—paperwork, homestudy, dossier submission, referral, court, embassy—there is no consistent timeline. After you pass one step, you learn that you’ll have a wait before you reach the next one. How long? Anybody’s guess.

Since we passed court a couple weeks ago, we’ve been waiting to learn of our assigned embassy date. It’s at that point that we’ll travel to Ethiopia again to get visas for the kids and bring them home. We’re expecting to receive word on that today or tomorrow. While we’d hoped to have an embassy date at the end of December, it’s now more likely that we’ll travel at the beginning of January. There are pros and cons to both scenarios but the waiting is hard nonetheless.

In the meantime, friends have asked how they can help. Here are a few suggestions:

Pray for us – Pray that we’re able to coordinate flights and get tickets when we need them, hopefully with seats together on the planes.

Pray for the kids – Pray that Erin, Eva, and Aidan will be healthy while we travel. Pray that they will adapt to their new lives here in the States and that they will feel welcomed and loved by their new family. Pray that Liam and Maura will do well with Grandma while we’re gone.

Pray for our friends – One of the families with whom we traveled, the Flemings, passed embassy today and will be traveling home with their new son. Two other families, the Smiths and the Laughners, learned that they passed court today and are also waiting for an embassy date. As I’m writing this, the Davidsons are still waiting for word on passing court. UPDATE: the Davidsons did not pass court today; still waiting on their MOWA letter. Please pray that these families’ cases will move through the system in Ethiopia so that God’s will may be done.

Give toward our expenses – We will likely spend around $10,000 (or more) on airfare and travel for our next trip to Ethiopia. If you’d like to help us with that, you can make a tax-deductible contribution on our behalf to Lifesong for Orphans. Please make checks out to Lifesong for Orphans with “preference Gowin #1206 adoption” in the memo and send them to:

Lifesong for Orphans
PO Box 40/202 N. Ford St.
Gridley, IL 61744

Lifesong can also accept contributions through PayPal if that’s easier. On the Lifesong donation page, scroll down and click the yellow Donate button. Remember to indicate “preference Gowin #1206 adoption” in the “Purpose” field on the PayPal form.

If you’re not concerned about the tax break, you can write us a check or contribute directly through PayPal by clicking the yellow Donate button below the puzzle pieces in the sidebar to the right.

Give a gift to help orphans and others in need – Consider giving a gift to Lifesong to help other families adopt. World Vision, an organization which we’ve supported for over 15 years, publishes a gift catalog that allows you to choose how your contribution will be used. Our family looks forward to this every year (I’ll have a post about this soon).

Thank you again for your continued interest in us and our family. We’re grateful for the ways God has blessed us through the many of you who’ve prayed, encouraged, and supported us on this journey. We hope to have news of our embassy date shortly and will share that with you all as soon as we can.

Gowin family

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Jesus has AIDS

Dec 1

Posted by Michael in Adoption, Events | No Comments

So writes Russell Moore today (World AIDS Day) in a thought-provoking post:

Jesus loves the world, and the world has AIDS. Jesus identifies himself with the least of these, and many of them have AIDS. Jesus calls us to recognize him in the depths of suffering, and there’s AIDS there too.

World Vision is doing good work in this area. Richard Stearns, CEO of World Vision, also takes up the topic in his book The Hole in Our Gospel.

NB: Moore has also written an excellent book on adoption.

A few more photos from our adoption court trip

Nov 27

Posted by Michael in Adoption, Family, Us | No Comments

I’ve added a new gallery on our Photo page with some of the photos shown in the video on the previous post. Here are just a few of the images.




Click here to see more photos

We passed court!

Nov 26

Posted by Suzanne in Adoption, Family, Us | 16 Comments

AWAA called today with news that we passed court: “They are yours!” We can now share the video and photos we’ve held in the vault for the past few weeks. Enjoy! Please keep praying for a December embassy date. We’ll have more pictures to share soon.

Podcast Video [ 3:56 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Between the Testaments

Nov 21

Posted by Suzanne in Adoption, Church, Devotional | No Comments

No, we don’t have any new news about our paperwork, but I did want to share some of my personal reflections now so that God can be glorified when all is fulfilled.

To be honest, I haven’t been very worried during most of this journey.  I have known that I can trust my God who has led us this far, and I trust His timing and His provision.  Until now.  It’s actually really bugging me that I am letting a little thing (a very common thing, actually) like not passing court the first time, bother me.  But here are my honest worries:

  • that we won’t pass in time to get the kids home before Christmas
  • if/when we do pass, we will have such a short time to get flights that we won’t be able to sit together with our new kids (plus Erin) on the long flight home (not to mention the 3x cost of airfare at Christmas!)—you know, a mommy needs to keep all her little chickadees safe under her wings!
  • that we won’t pass at all—feeling forgotten by the social agency that was supposed to have written the last piece we need to pass court (the same agency that has written numerous other letters since our court date)

I know in my head that God has it all under control, that His timing is best, that He is powerful enough to take care of a piece of paper and some plane tickets, and that this is HIS story to write, not ours.  I KNOW it.  But I’ve had a hard time letting go of the control (that I don’t have anyway!) and letting my heart be OK with that.

This week God has been impressing some things on me that have helped me to let go.

  • Last Sunday we sang a song at church that reminded me that God has “overcome.”  He has already “breathed” this story, intended somehow for His glory, and we are simply His ink, writing it down.
  • Rom 8:28: An oldie but goodie—”And we know that IN ALL THINGS God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.”
  • Gen 22: In faith, Abraham obeyed God and took his only son Isaac, the one through whom God had promised blessing to all subsequent generations, to sacrifice him on the mountain.  When Isaac asked where the lamb was for the burnt offering, Abraham answered, “The Lord will provide.”  God took Abraham down to the wire before he stopped Abraham from sacrificing Isaac and provided a ram instead.  Abraham renamed that place “The Lord Will Provide”—a phrase that later became an important name for God.
  • Dan 3 (from church today): Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego knew they would be thrown into the fiery furnace if they did not worship the statue as the King ordered, but this was their response: “If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to save us from it, and he will rescue us from your hand, O king.  But even if he does not, we want you to know, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up.”

So it finally sunk in to my heart today.  My God WILL rescue and deliver our children to us, in His timing and by His method.  But if He does not (worst case scenario), I will still trust in His faithfulness and redemption and will trust Him with my life and my heart.  To quote a song from today, whether “the sun is shining down on me” or I’m a “road marked with suffering,” “I will choose to say: Blessed be Your Name!”

In my Beth Moore study of Esther this week, she providentially reminded me, “God’s plan for Israel hadn’t fallen through the cracks between Testaments.”  During the time between the OT and the NT when God seemed silent, He was, in fact, doing a major work behind the scenes to prepare the world for His most glorious work—the birth of His Son!  Similarly, during this silence between our two trips to Ethiopia, it is easy to wonder if God has forgotten us and our court issues.  But I truly now KNOW that even in His silence, I can trust that He is preparing a glorious work for us—the adoption of our son and daughter!  Hold on tight, Babes, “God Will Provide” is providing a way!

What are you waiting for?

Nov 17

Posted by Michael in Adoption, Devotional, Us | 4 Comments

David DuChemin, a photographer and writer whose work I admire, reflected yesterday on the brevity of life and choosing what’s important. This is a theme that’s been coming up frequently for me in the last several weeks. Francis Chan discusses it in his book Crazy Love (which I’ve mentioned recently) and it’s an idea that comes up repeatedly in the Bible:

As for man, his days are like grass,
he flourishes like a flower of the field;
the wind blows over it and it is gone,
and its place remembers it no more. (Psalm 103.15-16)

Now listen, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.” Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. (James 4.13-14)

It’s a thought that arose while we were in Ethiopia last week as well. Much of the time I’m oblivious to the reality that my time here is short. Being uprooted from normal routines in a vastly different culture on the other side of the world, however, affords one some opportunities for reflection and focus.

To be honest, the past 15 months of the adoption process have been hard on me. Adding two children to our family—at once—brings with it some significant uncertainties. How will they fit in with our family? Will they bond with us? Do we have enough space for them? Can we afford the expenses of adoption, much less the food, clothes, vehicles, home maintenance, and the thousand other attendant things that go along with a household of seven? What will our family and friends think of us and our decision? Do I have what it takes to be a father to five children? What if…? I could fill a dump truck with the “what ifs” and doubts that have crossed my mind in the last year and a half.

All of these doubts have a common origin: fear and unbelief. I’m afraid that I don’t have what it takes to get things done and I don’t believe that God will come through. Why? Maybe because I live in a setting that requires so little faith. Jesus told his followers to ask God for daily bread; I have a kitchen full of food, an adequate salary with which to buy more, and a grocery store a few miles from my house. Jesus said that birds have nests and foxes have holes but he had no place to lie down for a nap; I have a very nice home. If I get sick, I have access to hospitals and doctors. If I die, a life insurance policy will provide for my family’s financial needs for years after I’m gone. I’m grateful for all of these things but where is there room for me to depend on God? Where has God had opportunity to work his strength in my weakness? Billions of people in the world live without these safety nets; I’m not one of them and neither are most of the people who live in America, Canada, or Europe.

While the adoption process has been hard, it has stretched me and helped me grow. It has taken me past what I know and forced me to do things I wouldn’t do. I like my life and family here in central Illinois just fine, thank you, but now I’m seeing beyond the corn and bean fields that surround us. I’m not a huge fan of travel but I had to fly over land and sea to attend court and meet our children in Ethiopia. Each day in Ethiopia put me on someone else’s agenda, not my own. This has been good and is helping me to learn trust and faith. These are lessons I’m not sure I’d have learned another way.

We don’t get many opportunities to do life-changing things for others. Or maybe we do but we don’t do them or fail to see them. Either way, if our time here is truly short then what we do or don’t do matters all the more.

I’ve dragged my feet through the past several months, to my own shame. Having been in-country, though, and having spent time with the children—and not just ours, but those of the other adoptive families as well as dozens upon dozens of children waiting for families of their own—God has opened my eyes and my heart. We are doing something that matters to these two children and to their mom who so wishes she could support and raise them but loves them enough to let them go. It is an incredible trust she is placing in us and I want to honor that trust.

So we, the Gowins, walk into the unfamiliar, into uncertainty, leaving behind a portion of the life we’ve known, a life that is comfortable and befits us. But we walk in faith in a way that we have not known, and with that has come an unusual peace as well. I’m looking forward to having our children, all of our children, here with us at home.

Fear and uncertainty have held me back but I’m moving forward. If we are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes, what’s holding you back? What are you waiting for?

(*note from Suzanne: Now, please also go back up and click on that David DuChemin link that you passed over.  It’s worth your time. )

Home

Nov 9

Posted by Michael in Adoption, Family, Us | No Comments

Just a quick note to say that Suz and I are back home in the States. Looking forward to picking up our first three children from school in a few minutes. Long day of travel, bittersweet goodbyes yesterday but a good and blessed week overall. More to come. Thanks to all for your faithful love and prayers.

Saturday in Addis Ababa

Nov 6

Posted by Michael in Adoption, Family, Us | 2 Comments

Today’s schedule was somewhat lighter than the past few days. We spent some time at the transition home with the kids this morning. Eva slept on me most of the time while Suzanne and Aidan played soccer and painted with watercolors. He also loves to hang upside down on the jungle gym in the yard.

After lunch, we drove up Entoto Mountain with two of the other families. Entoto Mountain overlooks Addis Ababa and features St. Mary’s church and a palace built by King Menelik II in the late 19th century. Along the mountain road, women carried bundles of eucalyptus branches on their backs to sell at the market at the base of the mountain. The wood is sold for firewood. After they’ve sold their stock, they buy supplies and then head back up the mountain. Below is a photo of our group outside the palace and Suzanne and I in front of the church.

This evening we had dinner at the guest house with our friends. The guest house has a patio on the roof from which the surrounding neighborhoods can be seen. Just to the east is a street which we’ve nicknamed the Fashion District (one other dad here called it the Mannequin Graveyard): nearly every shop sells some manner of clothing items, and there are a few restaurants, cafes, medicine shops, and other stores as well. Right across the street is a kindergarten and the KVI orphanage which we visited yesterday is just around the corner. Interspersed throughout are homes, some well built and surrounded by walls and gates, others simple corrugated metal shacks. The city itself is surrounded by mountains. The two images below show a view to the east of the guest house and then another at sunset across the rooftops to the west.

Tomorrow we’re attending church services here in Addis. Appropriately, it happens to be Orphan Sunday. Our agency, America World Adoption Agency, is asking Christians to pray that God will continue to:

  1. Protect orphans around the world and shower them with grace and mercy.
  2. Move on the hearts of families to adopt and be actively involved in bringing hope to the fatherless.
  3. Raise up advocates on behalf of vulnerable children.

Would you join us in this effort?

If you happen to be in or near Lincoln tonight, consider attending the Adoption Rocks Coffee House at Jefferson Street Christian Church at 7:00 PM. Plan on an evening of music, good coffee, and an opportunity to celebrate the blessing of adoption.

Court update 2

Nov 5

Posted by Michael in Adoption, Family, Us | 4 Comments

We’re still waiting.

In order for our case to proceed to the next step, the ministry of women’s affairs (MOWA) needs to submit a recommendation letter to the court here. As I mentioned yesterday, this should have been in our file prior to our court date. The AWAA staff has learned, though, that MOWA is backlogged with adoption cases and claims they don’t have time to write the letter. The judge has affirmed that we have been approved to adopt pending receipt of the MOWA letter. The AWAA coordinator will continue to advocate for us but, for now, MOWA has stated that they will submit the letter by November 27. This would push our embassy date to late December or early January; we’d prefer an early December date.

How you can help: please pray with us that MOWA will get our letter submitted sooner rather than later, if indeed that is God’s timing.

As for the rest of our day, this morning we visited two orphanages, Kingdom Vision International and Kids Care, that partner with AWAA. Each orphanage cares for about 40 children, most of whom have come to Addis Ababa from southern Ethiopia. Severe poverty is a constant problem in the region and parents are simply unable to support their children. We came loaded with donations of baby blankets, cloth diapers, formula, and bedding. Other families brought things for the kids to play with–balloons, inflatable beach balls, and soap bubbles. The kids enjoyed the attention and gifts and the nannies appreciated the donations. Below is a photo of one of the workers at the Kids Care.

This afternoon we were back at the transition home to spend time with Aidan and Eva. Eva has had a chest cold the last several days but has still been pleasant and smiley. Pray that she’ll get over the cold quickly. Aidan and I played a matching card game with several of his friends for over an hour–they all had a great time.

We likely won’t have any further news on the MOWA letter until Monday, and we’ll be flying home on Monday night. Thanks again for your prayers.