Dreams Become Reality

We have been somewhat speechless over the past several weeks as we look and see how good God is. 

In mid December, we had the privilege of traveling to South Korea to meet our daughter, Jovie, for the first time! It was such a blessing to us to be able to travel (almost 1 year exactly after being matched) to meet her in person - to hug her, play with her and shed tears of joy because this had finally become a reality. 

God arranged every detail so this trip could happen smoothly; from having the boys cared for while we were gone, to arranging our trip and making everything work out perfectly. On December 11, we boarded our plane, which happened to be Heather's first international flight! She was a trooper - she even made it without anti-anxiety meds!! It was a 14 hour flight, straight to Seoul. We arrived, extremely jet-lagged, but bogged down with an adrenaline rush because we were about to meet our sweet girl! 

The very next day, we went to the Holt office and walked into a room of two other American adoptive families. We said quick 'hellos' and then were moved on to a play room, where all of our kids came in. Heather immediately cried. No matter how hard she tried, the waterworks wouldn't quit. It was a moment we had been waiting for - to look into her adorable little face. We melted. 

Our first play date was about what we expected. It was very quick and somewhat difficult for her to process. She was rather shy around us and had a hard time opening up to us being there, even though she had been shown pictures of us over the past few months. We brought out some special toys, like bubbles, which really got her attention! She giggled and chased bubbles for most of our playtime. We loved hearing her sweet little laugh! One of the other great things about our visit was that we had special time to talk with her foster mother to learn as much as we could about her and her routines. Our translator was extremely helpful during this time! 

We learned that Jovie's foster mother has fostered about 20 children over the past 12 years! She has such a heart for loving on these babies and hosting them while they find their forever homes. She was so kind and sweet. As we thanked her for all the love and care she had poured out to our daughter, she was so humbled and couldn't believe we were thanking her. We are so thankful for her and we hope and pray she is blessed for the care she is showing to these orphans.

That afternoon, and for the next several days, we spent lots of time with the other adoptive families (two American families and one from Norway) having coffee, dinners, and sightseeing. We laughed, shared stories and hearts with each other and explored the city together. We are convinced that God setup these meetings for us as parents - the support we were able to find in each other because of our similar experiences was wonderful! Another great part was that one of the couples were born in Korea and could speak fluent Korean! Because of them, we didn't starve!! Haha!! 

We sampled many authentic Korean dishes; using chopsticks at every meal! Most of the meals were delicious. Our palettes became adjusted to Kimchi, a staple at every meal. (Fermented cabbage in a red pepper paste).  We also enjoyed the steaks and pork, cooked right at our tables. Delicious!!

Kimchi

Beef Brisket & Dumplings

Chicken Ginger Soup

 

On Wednesday, we had another meeting with Jovie, which seemed much more productive on our part. She was more open to visiting with us. Even though she was very busy, checking everything out and moving about the room, she was intrigued by us and even began grabbing Josh's hand to have him walk places with her. We were told she enjoys cleaning and helping with errands around the house - she will be a great helper!! She also likes to clean (right up Heather's alley!!). She cleaned up all the toys in the playroom, then one of the boys dumped them back out again and she walked over and started cleaning again. :) So cute! We said our goodbye to her on Wednesday afternoon, which seemed much too soon and much too difficult. It was extremely hard on our emotions to hug and kiss her, knowing we wouldn't see her again for at least another month, maybe more. But we knew this was part of it and trusted God (with tears in our eyes) as we parted. 

Thursday was a day set aside for sightseeing. We had a tour guide that took us on a tour of the Gyeonbokgung Palace. It was beautiful! Seoul is full of such rich history and culture, while also maintaining growth and movement forward in modern culture. She took us on a walk through a district of older Korean homes, to a delicious lunch and then through some of the artistic areas of the city for some shopping. 

That evening, we met back up with our friends to go to the North Seoul Tower, which overlooks the entire city. The city, in size and population, is larger than I had imagined! We rode a cable car to the top of the mountain to overlook the city at dusk; it was breathtaking....and extremely cold!! We were bundled up, but it still never seemed warm enough! I'll pack better next time! :) 

Friday was our last day in the city, but it was one of our biggest days. Court happened Friday morning. This is where we met before the Korean judge for him to review our home study, and meet us as prospective adoptive parents. He determines after that meeting if he will issue our adoption decree. Thankfully, he issued ours without any problems!! Though we were very nervous and got some unexpected questions from him, it went by quickly and smoothly! 

Saturday we boarded our plane for home - getting back to the States was so exciting for us. We couldn't wait to hug the boys and share with everyone about the amazing experience we had. 

As for our next trip - well there's great news ahead! We received word this week that our preliminary adoption decree was issued and will be in our agency's hand very soon! We are anticipating our custody trip to take place within the next 2-3 weeks! All could change, based upon scheduling, but as for now, that is our plan. Unfortunately, we can't make official travel plans until they have our visa interviews scheduled, so we will most likely find out very last minute about our travel plans. But, God in all His goodness, is already allowing us to get things ready here so we can smoothly get up and go! 

So there you have it - the moment we have been praying for is finally here, friends.I know we say it during every post, but we seriously cannot thank all of YOU enough for the support, encouragement and prayers. We feel blessed. 

Now...let's count down the days! The next post will have her sweet face in it! 

Happy birthday, Jovie!

It's been quite a while since we've posted and so much has been happening, we just had to update! For starters, in April, our family felt the Lord was opening doors for us to be back in Kentucky, closer to family. We are beyond excited to be back "home" and closer to our family, who means so much to us. We have already had the opportunity to see all of our family and friends for birthday celebrations and family gatherings and we know this has all been possible because of the hand of God. In addition to being closer to family, He has called us to ministry at a new church home at New Work Fellowship. We couldn't be more excited to be serving alongside this group of people and have already seen God work in our short time. We are already enjoying this ministry as we serve here and look forward to making this our home! 

This change came as a result of many months of prayers. We knew God had called us to serve in Missouri, but we also knew there were big changes coming for our family, as we are getting closer to bringing Jovie home, and how much we needed to be nearer to our family as we welcome her home and for our boys, as well. The Lord very clearly opened these doors and we followed. And though He didn't have to, He chose to show us confirmation after confirmation that this is where He planned for us to be. We are grateful. 

So, with this news also comes adoption updates! We spoke with our adoption agency a while back when we began learning that this move might become a reality, to make sure it would be allowed during our process and looked favorably upon. They assured us it would be, especially since our move was moving us closer to family, and would also allow Heather to stay home on a more permanent basis, as we raise our young family and welcome our new girl! They said these were very acceptable reasons to move, and because we had already been matched with Jovie, we were able to make the move. We have already been working on our updates with our new agency here in KY and are looking forward to getting everything finalized and updated in the very near future. 

On June 9, we celebrated Jovie's 1st birthday! (Which also happens to be Heather's mom's birthday!). We had to take some friends to the airport in Nashville that day, so we made an enjoyable afternoon of it and had lunch at the Aquarium Restaurant, and then came home to make Jovie a "birthday video" and our favorite Korean dish (thus far), Bulgogi. (pictured below). Bulgogi is a Korean style barbecue and it is absolutely delicious. This was the boys' first time trying it and they both loved it! 

 Needless to say, we had a great time celebrating her birthday, but it wasn't without its difficult moments. It was harder than we thought to celebrate this special day while on the other side of the world, but we know the Lord has a special time and season for bringing this to fruition.

Please continue to pray with us as each day becomes harder and harder. Heather has been very "realistic" from day one, understanding the timelines and prepping herself for the months and months it would take to finalize this adoption. (She tends to do a little too much research on timelines!!) But, it has definitely become harder to face reality as we progress. We continue to get updates on Jovie; her checkups, health and also pictures. (I desperately wish I could share these pictures with you, but we still are not allowed to do so...but I can assure you: she is nothing short of beautiful!) Each update brings great joy and great pain - joy as we see her sweet face and anxiously await her coming home, and great pain as it gets harder to wait. The Lord has given us so much love for her already and we truly know that while this season of waiting becomes more difficult, our faith is being tested and strengthened in trusting the Lord and His timing.

Even though our move will require a few updates with our home study and paperwork, we anticipate it to continue to move ahead as planned. We have already received a couple documents and approvals that are very encouraging to the process and we continue to pray for progress in the midst of the move!

As of now, we still aren't for sure on any travel timeframe, but we are getting much closer to that day!

So in conclusion, we ask that you continue to pray with us in the following ways:
1) That Jovie would continue to be healthy and happy
2) The our paperwork, approvals and updates will continue to move quickly
3) Finances - we are currently still in need of additional funds to pay for the remaining program fees; this money must be raised and paid before our next round in the process can take place. Many of you have asked us how you can help in this way, and we will try to keep everyone updated on ways we will be fundraising in the future. We are so appreciative of your thoughts toward this area - the finances are the most daunting part of this whole process, but the Lord has helped us get this far, we have faith in how He will provide the remaining.
4) That our family, both immediate and extended, would continue to have our hearts grow fuller with love to share with this precious baby girl

Blessings to all of you!! Thanks for sharing in this journey with us!

It's a.....

....GIRL!!!!

Can you believe it? Already we have been blessed with the match of a PRECIOUS baby girl!!

It was Christmas Eve the day we received the call. We weren't really expecting any kind of news from our agency during the holidays, but we were surprised with the greatest Christmas present!

She is adorable and cute - and I don't just say that because she's my daughter! :) At this time, we can't really share too much publicly about her until our adoption is finalized, but I can tell you that she is already loved and adored by her parents, brothers and extended family here.

She is currently 7 months old and we have started the mountains and mountains of paperwork to get her home as quickly as possible. The first question that many of you have for us is "when will she get to come home?" and our answer to that is (unfortunately): "We really don't know." I wish we did...I wish we had a very strategic time frame to work with (because, for those of you who know me well, know that the organizational madwoman in me needs a logistical, mapped out spreadsheet with timelines and events...) but due to the loads of paperwork that get processed both on the US side and the Korea side, it's a very unpredictable time frame.

So - in the meantime, we will keep you updated as we can and know more!

We continue to ask you for your prayers as we wait for her. Please pray that she stays healthy and happy and continues to progress in her development as she begins reaching lots of "baby milestones" in this upcoming year! She is in the care of a loving foster family now and know she is getting lots of love and attention!

We are so thankful and blessed for the outpouring of support and love we have received during this journey thus far. We ask that you begin praying for Jovie (as we have named her), that her little heart would already begin the preparation of accepting us as her mommy and daddy and learning to love our family through th pictures, cards, videos. Etc. that we will be sending her over the next several weeks via care packages.

We also ask that you pray for us as we prepare our hearts, home and family for her arrival, even though it will be quite some time before she is home with us. We are already just smitten in love with her. We hope that our home can be a place she finds comfort, strength, support and love all the days of her life.

And we wait...

And so we wait...

It's been quite a while since we posted, but we wanted to wait until we had more to share.

The past several months have been very busy in the adoption realm, getting together loads of paperwork to complete our home study. We ran into a few roadblocks last month, which we thought was going to delay our approval quite a bit, but let me assure you that God and His Almighty plan turned things around much quicker than we could have imagined and we are pleased to say that our home study was officially approved a couple weeks ago!!

This is a HUGE step for us, as many of you know who have gone through this process or know someone who has, it is the step that gives us approval to wait for a child referral. At this point, we get to "wait" for the phone call that will refer us a child to be possibly matched with our family. There are so many details that go into this point of the adoption; so we ask that you pray with us as we wait and as we get that phone call (hopefully very soon...my heart is so full and is about to explode, y'all!). Please pray for wisdom, discernment and great joy as we wait upon the Lord.

We were able to walk in Room For One More 5k a couple weekends ago, as well. It is a local non-profit that provides aide in the form of grants to families adopting. It was a great opportunity to come together with our community to raise more awareness for adoption, but it was also a fundraiser for us, as well! We met so many amazing people along the way through that organization. We were so blessed by the people who raced on behalf of "Team Hensley" to help raise support!

On another fun note, the boys are getting more and more aware of the adoption and learning more each day. They pray for "our baby brother or sister" every night. Aaron has even asked for a map! So we got him a world map to put on his wall and just about every night, he can't wait to point to S. Korea to tell us that's where they live. It melts my heart that they are already opening their hearts to this sweet child that we haven't even met yet. It is only by God's grace and love that I know their little hearts can be so open to something like this. And it's only by His love and grace that we, as parents, have been opened up to this.

We still have so many fears as we get ready to bring another child into our home, but fears that are completely outweighed by the impending joys. We know God is preparing us for this. In Him we have complete confidence that He will see us through each step of the way.

Please continue to pray for us as we wait and also as we plan ahead for the next rounds of paperwork that are to come, as well as the funding needs we still have. We are in the process of applying for grants to help us pay for the adoption costs and planning future fundraising events. These costs can seem so daunting as we look at them on a detailed spreadsheet, but we have already seen the Lord's faithfulness in supplying our needs thus far, so I don't even doubt His next move!

Thank you all for your ongoing support and encouragement through this process! We can't even begin to tell you how much your phone calls, texts, emails and in-person conversations mean to us!

Blessings to you and your family this season - we will update when we have more details to share!

-Josh & Heather

The beginning...

Our first official blog! And as you can tell from the title, we have some news...

But not the same exact type of news we have shared the past two times. This news does announce that we are excited to become parents again, by way of adoption.

For the past couple of months, we have embarked on the exciting journey of international adoption, and are pursuing Korea as the home of our child. We are beyond excited to share this with you, our family and friends, and keep you updated along the journey with us!

We are in the very early stages of our program, still waiting for documents, visits and evaluations to be completed. Our hearts (and minds) have been challenged greatly over the past several months as we have chosen to pursue this avenue of expanding our family.

Sometime late last year (among the other big decision we made to pack up and move our family to a new ministry endeavor), we began talking about adoption, again. I say 'again' because we have always approached the subject since the beginning of our marriage. It was something we hadn't necessarily said yes to immediately, but was always in the back of our minds. Through various experiences, we learned more and more about the adoption process; about its frustrations and its joys. We were elated for our friends who were in the midst of those adoptions and enjoyed sharing every moment with them! We welcomed their new precious children home, without a thought of what God was doing with those moments.

We continued building our family as God richly blessed us with two wonderfully amazing little boys, who make our life completely chaotic and joyful, all at once. (If you have little boys, you completely understand...chaos is no understatement!) But through the many changes God was bringing about in our lives, we couldn't help but feel this new burden. Sure, we ignored it for a while. (I mean, come on, God...you asked us to move and we did that already. You can't possibly be asking anything else right NOW, can you? I just figured out where the Wal-Mart was yesterday and now you're asking us to bring another child into our home???). Yes, folks, that's totally where my head was.

And then it hit me, in the midst of a Bible study I was doing with a sweet group of ladies from my church: It was all about experiencing a God who goes beyond our imaginations and creates for Himself glory by asking us to step out of our comfort zones to live a life that He has called us into...a life that challenges our comforts, but blesses His name greatly and lives out Scripture. I became broken before him and through much prayer and discussion, we said "Yes, Lord."

Now that we have said "yes," our burdens are that much stronger, but in a good way! We are excited to welcome a child of God into our homes, to teach him/her what an honor it is to serve Jesus and what it means to love and be loved. We pray that as we go through this journey, you, too, will be able to see our hearts, but most of all the power and precious grace of Christ through it all. It is by His plan that He has put this on our hearts and that He is already preparing the way for us to bring this child home.

We do not have a time frame for anything yet, other than we are anxiously hoping to complete our home study very soon and be ready for the call that will change our lives. As we begin this journey, we obviously share this news with you to share the goodness of God and His plan. But we also share with you, asking that you be in prayer for our family as we go through this process, that God will teach us and prepare us for what we are about to experience in not only the adoption, but also in integrating another culture into ours. We look forward to sharing this journey with you all.

In His Love,
The Hensleys
Josh, Heather, Aaron & Benjamin