Our Story
We are a family with 12 children. Five of whom are biological and seven are adopted. Our journey towards adoption began early in our 27 years of marriage. We already had three daughters when we traveled to Mexico with our church to a home for children that the church was supporting. We found out about a 2-year-old boy that was blind and he needed a home. We were able to bring him home in December 1985, just 2 months after that first visit.
He is now 21-years-old. He had been beaten while at the home and had been in a body cast and his legs had been broken, we were told. Because of this they feel he suffered some brain damage and is mildly retarded. We always wanted a large family and it was our heart's desire to help the children no one wanted.
After we had 2 more children, we did foster care to adopt, but we were not able to adopt any of the 9 children that we cared for. We moved to West Virginia and began the process to foster/adopt here. This was a very trying time for us and we felt that maybe the doors were closing on our ability to have more children. We chose this route because we didn't have any extra money to consider a domestic adoption through an agency, and no way did we think it was possible for us to adopt abroad. We have a very strong Christian faith and felt God wanted us to, but nothing was happening.
Then I spoke to friend who had adopted two precious
children from Russia and she told me of a program called Cherry Orchard with Frank
Adoption Center. I called and was told they had all the families for the next
one but there were children still waiting for a home from the last one. Jacob(
Zhenya) - age 11 with severe scoliosis, Sasha - age 6 and her sister Christina
- age10. We said yes and started a walk of faith towards bringing them home.
We had all our paperwork- home study, INS, and dossier
done in record time and planned to travel in September 2002. I had called my friend
on June 17th and we did travel on September 5th. We owe much of our being able
to do this adoption financially to our director, Lisa Olney who was at Frank then.
She helped us apply for funding which we received. Zhenya had some health issues
related to breathing so we were able to expedite things. One week before we traveled
we found out there was a problem in Russia. The girls' paperwork was not going
to be signed by a relative and now they were not adoptable. Of course our hearts
were broken. We left hoping for a miracle but it was not to be for the girls.
Our trip which was planned for 10 days turned into
23 and we brought home Isaac-age 5 who was the size of an 18 month old and nonverbal
and Lily- age 2 also small and has eye problems. Isaac has now grown 8 inches
and weighs over 50 lbs. Just having him for two days in Moscow he began talking.
After 4 weeks with us he and Lily were both fully English speaking. Lily has had
surgery to correct some of her problems and she wears glasses. Jacob who we were
able to bring home of the original three children, spent three weeks at Hopkins
and his back has been corrected. He also has had other surgeries that went well
for some urological problems.
We were home not yet
a month when we went to the Frank office to "show off our kids", and
Lisa showed us a baby named Oksana. She was 10 months old and weighed 9 pounds
and had "hip displasia"; a failure to thrive baby for sure we thought.
They had eleven families who all said they did not want to adopt her. Lisa wanted
us to help find a home for her. We took one look at her and decided not to show
her picture to anyone until we were sure about her ourselves. That took all of
a few minutes-Smile. Again more expedited paperwork with updated home study, INS
and dossier. Lisa called us the Tuesday before Thanksgiving and said if we could
get it all in by the Monday after Thanksgiving we could travel for our first trip
on December 18th, which we did.
This time we had our updated home study that said we could adopt 4 more children, just in case we decided on adopting more children when we traveled. When we visited Oksana she was so tiny and could barely sit but she had our hearts immediately. We also visited with our Anna, a 7-year-old who had been in the baby orphanage all her life because they were afraid what would happen to her. She has major cleft lip and palate issues. We took one look at her and instantly knew we wanted to bring her home as well. We also traveled two more hours to visit our Josiah, a 3-year-old with kidney problems. We returned in January and adopted our Anna and Mya. Mya was 13 months old and weighed only 11 pounds. Because of a paper not being filed we had to wait for another trip to bring home Josiah. We again were not sure how we would be able to afford this last adoption. We had used all the creative financing possibilities with the girls.
Once again A Child Waits Foundation came through for us and Frank reduced their fees so we were able to travel in April to bring Josiah home. We had traveled to Russia four times in eight months to bring home six of our children. On our trip to Tver to adopt the girls we were asked by the adoption center (the equivalent of our social services) if we would consider doing a television interview. We agreed and on the evening after our adoption we were on Russian TV being interviewed about our family and our adoptions of special needs children. It was a wonderful experience to be able to encourage other Russian families to consider adoption.
We have met wonderful people through all of this, families adopting like us, Russian officials, and people in the airports, on our planes and at the embassy. We have had people help our children to get home from Lisa, and Natasha at Frank to our INS contacts, the West Virginia State police and DHHR- social services, our home study agency - Adoptions from the Heart - Marilyn, Jenna and Sandy, Congresswoman Capito, Governor Wise to some financial help from, our church and family, A Child Waits Foundation, Hope for Special Children and finally our Lord. Without His love in our hearts and the love He placed in others to help make the adoptions happen none of this would be possible. I can only thank-you and your Foundation by continuing to let the love in our hearts minister to and love these children. Really with out your help none of our children would be with us.
Our journey continues...... we are waiting to hear about our next child. There is a little boy in the Ukraine we have asked for and at first they were not sure if the director would place him with us because of the size of our family. He is the most medical needy child -- he has heart problems, a cleft lip and palate, his leg was attached to his stomach at birth (he has had surgery to correct this), and a spinal hernia. We have just heard that the director is open to us. So we wait to hear what is needed. We were told a donor came forward to pay for his adoption. I can not express any better way than to share this story even because it tells you of our hearts for these children. We have been so grateful to others, like you who make it possible for families to adopt these special children. Thank-you again. I can not even say from the bottom of our hearts--as it seems that with the love of Jesus expressed through people like you and the love we have for these children it is a never-ending love that compels us.
Paul and Jeane Briggs
The Briggs family (2 older daughters are not pictured).