Officially accepted....What will his name be?

Even though Dee and I feel very confident that this precious little Ugandan boy is our son, we still decided to get some opinions from a doctor, even though we know it would not detour us from accepting. A family friend and neighbor, Dr. Roe graciously checked out his medical records for us. He explained his condition when he came to the orphanage and how much weight he has gained since then. He is doing much better than he was doing when he was brought to the babies home a couple of months ago. He seems to be a generally healthy little boy under his circumstances. Oh..and Dr. Roe is actually going with Sixty Feet to Uganda in a couple of weeks...he said he could go by and see our child to check him out personally. How cool is that? I am thrilled that God has so orchestrated all these events perfectly already. He knows the big picture, even though we don't! Oh, we can so rest in his sovereignty.

Then on Sunday, we as a whole family ventured across town to a church that was offering immunizations at cost. The people at this church clinic we so excited to meet us and so encouraged that we were adopting from Uganda. They had a retired Infectious Disease doctor there who answered lots of questions for us and had a lot of experience in Africa. The missions coordinator offered to let us borrow a medical kit to take with us and some water purifying bottles for free. I think we save 350.00 on the shots too! Wow...what a blessing they were to us! ....Talking about shots....oh my goodness are my arms sore...no one told me I would not be able to lift my arms for 48 hours. Here are some pictures of us after we got our shots...we ate lunch and got some ice cream as a treat of enduring the needles....

That afternoon, I was able to talk to Jennifer Chambers, the International Adoption Clinic doctor in Birmingham. What's so cool is that I know her from the Lifeline Videos that I had to watch during my homestudy preparations. But, my real connection to her is, my parents. My church I grew up in is helping to start a church in another area of Birmingham and Jennifer Chambers husband is the pastor. What are the odds of that? And their church is full of internationally adopted children. So neat how God aligns things so perfectly. My parents are getting immersed with the beauty of adoption...so their hearts will be more open to our little one! So my mom sent  her the medical information about our referral and I was able to talk to her on the phone with out traveling to Birmingham to meet with her. She gave me lots of good information about his health and how the transition will go when he gets home. I have lots to learn and many books to read to get prepared, but I know ultimately it is about trusting God to love this adopted child.

After a weekend of lots of emotions and meeting with three doctors that the Lord graciously provided in our path....We officially accepted our referral yesterday!! This is so crazy and so surreal!!

Our social worker contacted the orphanage to tell them we are thrilled to become his parents! So I guess our picture will be put above his crib? So neat. Oh and this is the actual picture he will see of us. We had to take one of just the two of us up close. Taking these pictures forced me to learn how to use the timer on my camera! It is not the best picture, but it will have to do and he won't care. It is most important he knows that he has parents who already love him. (Oh, yes, I finally got my lense in the mail from Hong Kong, thank you Lord)

 I am working on putting together a care package to send him with pictures of us and other goodies for him and the other children in the orphanage. Any advice on what to send?


What is his name going to be?

 CHARLES TUCKER

Well, my husband is actually the one that came up with his name. For the last seven months we have been praying for Charles Tucker, talking about Charles Tucker our Ugandan brother, and telling bedtime stories with Charles Tucker very much apart of them all. Often Henry and Charles Tucker are beating up the bad guys and rescuing Mary Taylor, or Henry and Mary Taylor rescue Charles Tucker from Uganda and bring him home to our house to sleep in Henry's bed. So to our family, this child is Charles Tucker. It is also biblical to change someone's name when they are adopted into God's family in the Bible. Saul was changed to Paul when the Lord changed his heart and made him a new creation in Christ. Not everyone chooses to change the name, but we feel confident that his name is Charles Tucker.

More to come on the reasons why we picked this name! My husband actually might grace himself to do a blog post! I never thought I would say those words.

Continue to pray that we get a court date before the courts close on July 15th!!