Our Adoption Story

Our adoption story started on Valentine's Day in 1999. I was wakened that day out of a dream about a little blond baby boy. The dream made it clear that our family would be raising him as our own. At the time I honestly thought that someone would be giving us their child to raise. The only international adoptions I had heard of were of children from South America. I knew it was likely that no one in the United States would approve us to adopt a child from the US because we already had seven biological children.

About 2 ½ years later I read a newspaper article about adopting children from Russia.
There was a website mentioned in the article and I was determined I would look at it in a couple of months; as soon as we had paid off our suburban. On the site it mentioned the agency was holding a meeting for interested parties in a few weeks and the location just happened to be close to our home!

My husband and I attended and liked the whole idea, except the cost!!! How could we ever get enough money together to afford it? As it turned out we were able to get money from our 40lK and "A Child Waits Foundation" to make up the difference that we still needed. With help from these two sources put together, the idea became a real possibility!

Our idea had always been to adopt at least two children so they could have each other's friendship and support, plus the idea of giving another orphan a home always felt right.
We finally left for Kazakhstan on July 13, 2003. Once we arrived we were told to not even ask for two children because the day before a lady had been denied permission for two. We told our translator that we just wanted the officials to know we were WILLING to take two. When we arrived in the office of the Minister of Education and told her we would like to adopt two children, she could not understand why. We gave her our reasons and the translator told her that it was our "family tradition" to have a large family. At that moment a beautiful Spirit entered the room. This stern woman gazed at us with a look that said, "you must be crazy," but, she said, "Okay, and tell the lady that came yesterday that she can have two also," We feel that two miracles occurred at that time.

When we met our Kazak/Asian son the next day, we knew right away that he was meant to be in our family. He was younger than we had planned, (not quite three), but that didn't matter. The next day we met our older son, Dima. I had always felt he would be at least four years old or older since I had seen him crawling in my dream. A couple of weeks before we left I had also begun to feel like he wouldn't have much left of the blond in his hair. He turned out to be almost seven, but he was small for his age.

Renat at the Baby House in Pavlodar		Dima at the playground at Children's Home in Kichere

We have had our new sons home now for over 6 months and each has integrated well into our family. They both speak English quite well now too. They love to play with each other as well as all of their older siblings. A wonderful side effect of our adopting has been to see the interaction our older children are having with these two little boys. They have learned how to teach them new skills and play new games, and even help them clean up their messes! It had been a great learning experience for all of us!

Isaac Dimitry Barnes

Henry Renat Barnes

 

We really feel that the Lord has blessed our family to be able to have the way made possible to have these two little ones join our family and have a future here in America. We are so grateful to those who helped in all the many ways that were needed to get us to this point.

"The Lord does notice us and watch over us, but it is usually through another person that He meets our needs." - - - Spencer W. Kimball

WE HAVE FOUND THIS TO BE SO TRUE!

At each bump and turn we have found a least one person with the "answer" we needed to get through the need we had at the time. We hope all who are involved in their own adoption "journey" will know that help is out there for them, if they choose not to give up the "fight" to bring those children home.
Shad and Leila Barnes

Family Picture December 2003

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