Live from the Pathway Studios in Johnston proper. You are

live from the path..com. Thanks for I don't know. I don't know what's going on around here. Feel like you should start by saying we're live, not just starting it and then me talking. Sorry. There's nothing I can do about it. The the show has already begun. Hey. Welcome to you guys on the YouTube. Thanks for joining us, here on the program tonight. So, here's what we got going on, on the show. First of all, Boova Boova's back in the studio. Hey, Boova. Hey. Okay. Good. It's good to know. See, you've been working on that for a couple months? Yeah. I really wasn't sure what I was gonna say to, like, come back, but I was like, no. Hi. Nah. Hello? No. No. Hey. Hey. That that felt like what the thing I wanted to land on.

Okay. So, anyway, we're gonna you guys are gonna gonna be able to hear the story of what Boob has been up to, like, in in his absence Crazy. What has been going on. Lots of stuff. Yeah. Are we gonna talk about what I was doing while Boob was gone? It feels only fair. I'd love to hear that fourteen second story of back and forth between work. I went to church. Yep.

Yep. Then then I'm about to do it. Stay away from them gators. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. That's fine, Mike, if you wanna share your experience. Okay. Good. Thank It's fine. Also, we have a we haven't asked the pastor. It's just related to the story of Joan of Arc. Oh. Are you familiar with Joan of Arc? What part of that bible's that in? It's not in the bible. Jonah of Arc? It's no. It's Joan of Arc. Oh, Joan how is Joan involved with the ark of the covenant? She's not. Ark is a location. I don't know about this ark situation. Yeah. So what we're gonna go through it has to do with

will god provide direction for you to do say violent things? Oh. And I think we got biblical precedence for gonna say a whole bunch of it. Yeah. Right. So post Jesus, like, that this is one of the questions Okay. Is is how do we think about this particular direction? So we'll get to that. Okay. And then we'll also talk about

some advice on dear life in the Yeah. I think that's gonna take up our, most of the most of the show right there. That's probably true. Okay. Okay. So, you know, interestingly, Moova has, like, disappeared into the the thinnest of air.

A fat joke. I wanna say, hey. Hey. Oh, the air's thick again.

That was a burrito. And so so in Moova was was absent for, like, super awesome things. Now what I'm not sure is, like, how broadly to to tell this story, Moova. Like Yeah. You could start quite so, like, make think think about, like, what do people need set up as to know Sure. Why Buva was gone, how what delight and interesting things happened there, and then how do you think about the future in forty five minutes or less? Okay. I can probably do that. Okay.

Well, hey. Hey. Hey. I'm back. At this time, I didn't move. I feel like Mike made mention that we we did a welcome back boova a couple of years ago when I moved to Pennsylvania, stopped showing up on the show. I think I randomly sent in a a video of myself one time

and Ben probably didn't never even played it, to be honest with you. And then I showed back up after a couple years, and I was like, yeah. Moved to Pennsylvania and got married. Now I'm back. So as you can tell, when I'm gone for extended periods of time, things happen in my life, and it seems crazy. I'm glad it's not like Buva and Ben had a falling out, and then he just left the show for a bit, and now he's back. I should've I should yeah. I should've set that up, didn't Listen. There was zero gossip on the Twitter or Instagram or any of the socials on what had happened to live from the past. You know, I I I can appreciate that nobody was like, hey. There's a there's a felt absence when Boova's not on the show for months at a time. Hey. That's not even you specifically. The the podcast has been down as far as I can tell for about four days,

and no no one mentioned it. No no one said, hey, babe. What's going on? I'm saying if you go to if you go to a BTS concert and Jung Kim looks funny, just at the guy in the front row just looks a little off. Uh-huh. And it looks to the right at one of his band aids, people are like, things aren't right in the BTS Yeah. They're going back into the Korean army. Inscription again, friends. That's true. No one even notices if we just stop. I feel like we we should take a vacation. I don't think anyone would notice if if we went gone for for about three months. Yeah. Evidence by me being back. Hey, I'm back.

So, I I suppose the the easiest way to kind of set the the the ground of of what happened is my wife and I have been out of town for a couple of months because we were in a different part of the country adopting our first daughter. And so

that is a huge situation. It is our first child and we are we are so excited that that god has walked us in in such an amazing way like his faithfulness is so so true and good that like I'm a dad now and that's that's absolutely wild. To kind of give a little bit of a backstory though. So, my wife and I about

a year and a half ago decided that we wanted to get into the process of adoption because we had felt like god had told us that we were going to be growing our family. We always knew that we wanted to adopt. It was actually

funny enough in the the first date that my wife and I had. She basically asked me, do you wanna adopt? Because if you don't, then I don't see in any point of us continuing this relationship. It was very point blank like that. She was very socially awkward. Yeah. And thankfully, responded with, yeah. I mean, I wanna adopt kids. I'm totally in for that. So we decided to go on a second date, and now we've been married for almost five years. And so it worked out. If if if a person asks you that kind of question, it's it's a real it's a real yes or no situation that that relationship probably isn't going anywhere else. Yeah. If you if you give the wrong answer. And I did follow through with it. We did we did adopt, but we we always knew that we were going to adopt,

but we we attempted and started the way of of of making a family the the usual way, and it just wasn't going our way. And I just felt like god had kind of put it on my heart that we had this thought that we were going to go that way and then eventually, we're going to adopt and so we hadn't looked into the adoption process at all and it just wasn't a part of our our our thought process really and then just one day, I just got hit with this, you know, side of the head smack that just goes, hey, you know, I never told you that that this was going to be the way that we grew your family like you get get in this process now. Like, and so, I remember telling my wife at a at a a restaurant. We were sitting across from each other just to, you know, having a small date night and I looked at her and I said, hey, I think I think we should start figuring out the the process of what it would look like to adopt. And so we did and we got started. Hold on. On that on that particular point, like, how did that was that difficult was that difficult for you? So, like, you're talking you know, you're trying to trying to start a family and it wasn't going the way that you would otherwise hope to do. Was that a difficult transition to come to that or like was there some relief to coming to that position? Like, how was that how did you feel about that? That's a great question. I think at first, it probably was pretty difficult just because if if I'm being totally raw and honest about it like it felt like a failure. It felt like I had failed at at the some of the basic biological stuff of of starting a family. I just felt like I had I had I had failed as a man and I had failed in this way of of being able to to give my wife what she ultimately felt like god was calling her to the whole time. She's wanted to be her mom. I mean, since she was like 12,

she truthfully felt like her calling was to be a mom and I felt like I was holding us back from that and it was devastating And so the very first few weeks probably was, I mean, sadness and anger and and feeling like I had failed. Yeah. But thankfully,

like, I I I was continuing to and growing in this concept of like really allowing God to be the one who wrote our story and, like, it was for his glory and our good. And it was very obviously a blessing to us as we started looking into the adoption process that that was absolutely the right move. It was the right way to be doing it. It was the right timing of it and

all of those parts of that story that really felt messy at the time. I mean, I'm when I look at my daughter today, I mean, it it's not messy at all. Right. Right. Right. Right. It's it's it's gorgeous and I mean, it's just, I'm so happy that if we would have gone any other way we probably would not have our baby girl. Right. Right. Not to not to jump ahead so far but like it really has redeemed itself and like god has god has written a beautiful story and I know that the story is just starting which is the crazy part But, no, I think that's a totally fair question. It was it was sad and and heartbreaking at the beginning, but, like, god really

was faithful through every bit of that and showing me and, like, growing growing my faith to match in step with what he was doing in our lives, I think, was such a big thing for me. Because, like, if I look back at where I was when we first had that conversation to where I'm at now, it is just night and day difference and

I feel like I have grown, my wife and I have grown together, she has grown in many ways and it really was like God has equipped us more and more every day through this situation and it wasn't some like he reached down and like turned a switch on in our brain. It was through hard fought things that like he continued to grow us and absolute refinement in the fire

and it it's been such a blessing and such a crazy experience so far. But, no, that's a total fair question. So so tell me so then you decide you're gonna adopt. Yep. But but, like, you're adopting uniquely. Like, you chose specifically, to do a special needs adoption. Yes. Yep. That that, why? Like, that's something that I think you could you especially as a a first you'd be first time parents adopting into this,

and it's, like, notoriously, an underserved adoption market so what what do you feel like drew you guys into adopting a special needs child? I think that that hits a big part of the nail on the head to be honest with you is because we recognize that in the adoption process there are probably 10 to 15 times more people in line for a typical adoption than there are for a special needs adoption. There are just so many more families. I think like the statistics right now there are on average like 15 to 20 families waiting for every typical adoption that comes through most adoption networks versus special needs adoptions it's much lower one to one to five I think is the smaller number there. Yeah. We

felt as though one both Gianna and I have come from families where special needs adoptions have happened. Yep. So I've got my family members that have our special needs adoptions that are just such a blessing in our lives and so you know seeing that firsthand and then Gian is the same way. She has family members in her family that are special needs adoptions and are wonderful and like she can't imagine her life without them the same way that I can't imagine my life without some of my siblings that were special needs adoptions. And

with the the concept of the the lower list or lower amount of people in the waiting line, The concept of like it was prevalent in our lives already. And then thirdly, we felt uniquely prepared. And and able to step into that role.

Because we had both gone through those kind of things and because my wife has been in some form of childcare doing nannying things like that for most of her, I mean, all of her adult life and then some of her her life as a teenager. She was doing care for for children with special needs. We just felt like because she's retired and she will be staying at home as a mom and the flexibility of of

the work that I do. I work from home and we're able to to to be a lot more not necessarily present but kind of present is the way that I would put it for a child that has special needs like we just knew that our scenario was different than a lot of of families especially because other families that have multiple kids,

all of those children's are children are blessings but like that's that's resources and time away from a special needs child. Yeah. And it just there's there's all kinds of variables to that. We just felt most importantly like god was very specifically leading us down that path. Interestingly enough we had we had talked to one adoption agency kind of a high profile well known nationwide agency

about wanting to to start the process and like Gian had set up a phone call with this agency and was waiting for like a week before someone called us and then when they called us Gianna I was working so Gianna took the phone call and was starting to just information gather and the guy hops on the phone and just goes okay so what do you want to know And like that felt super like dismissive and nonchalant for someone that was going, hey, everything is what I wanna know about what I'm doing when when adopting a child. Like how how does your network work? What do we need to know about that kind of thing? And so I felt like the dude was doing the work that a website FAQ could have done. Yep. And it just felt super standoffish and she she just came away from the conversation.

Almost hurt because like she was super just excited about the process and all this different stuff and then this dude after week just goes, so what do you want to know? Yeah. I guess I'll just send you a pamphlet and then if you don't have any specific questions like this is what you got. Yeah. So she gets off that phone call and she she text me and it's just, I mean, just downtrodden and so I go I'm so sorry love it that sounds awful like let me know how I can help you I'm I'm so sorry and then she texts me about an hour later she goes actually I hopped on and googled another agency and decided I wasn't going to wait for a phone call I was just going to call them. She calls this agency and this this woman answers and it's such a lovely conversation and she's talking to her for almost this whole hour and getting good conversation and information from her feels so much better and when Gianna kind of ends the phone call and and is like you know and I didn't catch your name like who are you? It turns out that the person that answered the phone wasn't someone at a call center. It was like one of the higher up executives of the company of the agency and

she goes oh no I just was near the phone so I picked it up. Nice. And like this gal is, like, named on the website. She's not just customer care network Jennifer. Right. Like, she's literally like somebody that, you know, is is higher up in there, but they cared. Like, they're just that personable. You know what's funny? Is is, like, as you're telling that story, you think, like it feels like God's hand is in this thing. Right? Like, God is helping direct know, getting you directly to the right space, which means when when you set up the call the first time, like, I granted this is coming from a Bensman talking about Revelation of Daniel. Sure. Yeah. But you you get kind of the sense that god's like, hey. They're gonna talk to the first group. Send out the jackwagon. Yeah. Right. Yes. Yeah. Send out the dude that's gonna seem like a pamphlet, like, in that we don't wanna read. Like, that's rough living. And that's totally yeah. That's totally fair. Yeah. Exactly. And so and she's on the phone with this this agency and and the reason why we also feel like it was specific that we were in special needs adoptions was because after this long conversation and super excited about all this different stuff, the the woman asks where we're from and we said Iowa and the gal goes oh no we don't actually do any adoptions in Iowa.

It's just not a part of the network that we're in. We just don't work with anybody there. We don't have any presence, all this different stuff and so Gianna's like oh my gosh well thank you so much for the information we really appreciate it and then the gal comes on and goes I mean unless you're thinking of a special needs adoption in which case we work with all states and we're willing to do a little bit more extra and Gianna goes that's literally exactly what we're looking for and she goes oh amazing then let me get you in contact with our special needs adoption coordinator and we'll get stuff figured and so the agency that she was super attached to was super excited about literally wouldn't have even been able to do a typical adoption with us. Yep. They just don't do it in Iowa. So, we we the only way we could work for with them would have been through a special needs adoption and

so we start that process and we go through and get a bunch of the training done through the the adoption agency and all this different stuff, and then we start what is called a home study. What's the what just real quick. What kind of it feels it feels odd to think you can prepare for it.

Especially like, there's just a wide variety Totally. Of special needs. Uh-huh. Yeah. And so it feels like it's not like they can run you through all the different Right. Unique needs. Are they like, what are they preparing you for? Like, when when it comes to a special needs adoption. So there's there's two tranches that you're in. Right? So you're in the the everybody's like this is, know, circle

bigger circle is all adoptions go through these kinds of trainings. Okay. Yep. Which was interestingly enough for us, the agency that we're going through, it was a it was a Jesus training. Like, it really was like scripturally based training on what it looks like to be in a safe marriage and like what it looks like to be in a safe home and like love children the way that Christ calls us to love them.

And it was much less about the the special needs of any child and more just like, hey. Here's what god wants for families and, like, this is what god desires for for the children of this world and this is what adoption should look like and stuff like that and so it's a really cool bit of training. Now some of it I mean admittedly I was like it was 90% good some of it was

right scripture wrong application. Yep. Yeah. Yeah. Admittedly and some of it was like I I appreciate that you saw the word adoption, and then went, yeah. That's totally about this. That's not what that's about Right. At all. Actually, as a matter of fact, that's more talking about the the nation of Israel, being adopted, or the people outside of the nation of Israel being adopted into the promise of the covenantal Israel of of what we're talking about here. Right. That has nothing to do with god going, hey. This this family had some trouble, and so I need people to step in. Right. So some of it was like, oh,

I could see where you're coming from. You're coming from the wrong place, but I can see it. But anyway when it came to the specific special needs stuff it was more about like here is some of the expected

pitfalls and I hate kind of using that word because that's probably the wrong way to put it but things that you can expect when it comes to a special needs adoption when it whether it is how to advocate for the needs of your child. Yeah. That may be more above and beyond what a typical adoption may look like. Research into the facilities that exist in your local area, your hospital network, your educational network, things like that of how to

look into early intervention for kids because special needs adoptions are most likely going to need early intervention from the state when it comes to physical therapy speech therapy occupational therapy and things like that. Yep. So it was a lot of real world hands on hey call your local school district and ask them what they have in the ways of helping children with special needs and so it's super informative because one we would have never thought to really ask that question especially as we're looking at infant adoption. We're not we're not in the adoption program for anything above a year old actually and so to talk to a school district and go hey I have a child that at this point in time is is immaterial. I have no idea who they're going to be. I have no clue what their needs are going to be. Yeah. When I get them, it's gonna be years before they're in your school district but

if I were to adopt a special needs child right now, what what do I need to know about what your district can offer? Yeah. And so we were expecting awkwardness of that kind of conversation to where we were anticipating that it'd be like, if we don't know anything about what you're talking about have a ramp. Right. Yes. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. We're ADA. Like, we're we're, you know, we're we're good for if they have a wheelchair, we can get them in. We Montessori. Yeah. You know? We have an elevator if they need to get to the 2nd Floor. It's it's interesting. Like, I just I would not have

thought about it is is that the it's it's it's it seems right to to think that, like, well, the world the world is not built for people Yeah. For special needs. Right. It is fair. Right? It looks like most people are like, this unique set of needs, the whole world's obviously not gonna be set up for That's why they're special needs. Yes. But but that also means that it it probably more than, I think, if someone who's not going through it would consider, it needs to be advocated for Yeah. In such a way that, like, you you don't get to turn the world upside down probably. Right.

But there is a lot of actively, like It's intentional. Yeah. Everything is way more intentional. Yes. Undoubtedly. Yes. That's that's what I was thinking is that, like, you can't it's like things that just, like, if you've got a kid who doesn't have special needs, well, then they just they get in the line, and they follow all the things. And and, like, it's it's fine. But, like, so many of the things that you take for granted as being just normally taken care of or handled probably require

foresight and and to some level of advocation, and you just you just don't think about it. Oh, yeah. Totally. And it was funny because we get on this phone call and literally the person that is talking to my wife conferences in two other people because they were so excited to be on the phone with her. Like they were so excited that Gianna was calling and asking questions even in this point in time is legit is purely hypothetical. Yeah. Like we do not have any real situation. We're just going, hey. It's part of the education

of our adoption agency to learn this stuff. We don't even have the kid yet and might not for years. Yeah. The people that were, administratively in charge of the situation within the school district were ecstatic to be on the phone with her. They were like, actually, he this is who I am. Let me get it. Let me conference in the person who's who's in charge of like early intervention which is zero to three.

Let me get the person on for preschool that can talk about this stuff and talk about where we're at with that. I run like elementary level stuff and then if you want more we can get the middle school and high school involved too because we'd love to talk to you about what our program looks like and how we can help you advocate for your child and how we can help you step into this situation. We were completely blown away by like the passion and compassion of these people and how excited they were Yeah. Just to be on the phone with somebody who cared Yeah. And who was interested in what they like devote so much of their time and attention and passion to. And it was it was it was yet another thing in a long list of encouragements that we were given in this situation. We just go like we're in a we're in a such a great place geographically. We're in such a great place when it comes to the school district that we're we're going to be a part of potentially at this point in time because who knows? Like we by the time our child is five, six, seven years old, we may be in a totally different space. We have no idea. But it was amazing that like even in that hypothetical situation

that that institution was super excited just to be on the phone with us and to give us all the information we could and so that was a that was a big part of the specifics of the special needs adoption program. Some of them were more trainings about

the typical things that they would expect in a special needs adoption like very similarly Down syndrome is a very common one so we learned a little bit about Down syndrome, we learned a little bit about like fetal alcohol syndrome is another similar set of diagnoses that end up in special needs adoptions because of

a lot of the times that's just the story of the birth parents is there were drugs and alcohol involved in the pregnancy and that's one of the reasons that they aren't or are in a place where they needed to make an adoption plan for their child because they're going to have medically complex lives and so that's just an a typical situation and that's what's learning a little bit about that which was very interesting and and and impactful and it's not it's not the specific situation we're in, but it's good that we know that now. And so it was that kind of stuff with that that special needs training that we were involved in. Do they do they

do they touch on what it means for, like, your marriage to have a special needs child? Like, maybe maybe just a little bit about that. Yeah. Sure. I I think it was it was less the specifics of a special needs adoption and just adoption in general. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Because the the agency that we went through is is a very faith based agency, and they one I mean, one of the things that you have you have to be married and have to be married for a certain amount of time. I think you have to be married at least, like, three years

before they'll even accept your application. Yeah. They're not looking for newlyweds and it's not to say that there aren't newlyweds that are gonna be doing a great thing and able to be amazing parents and things like that. It's just statistically they they want to have a proven record of like, hey, we've been together for a little bit. Right? And there was a large section that was all about like what does safety in your marriage look like? What does being in a Christ centered marriage look like? And how does that equate to being a safe parent and and being in a Christ centered family and those equations and it was it was super wonderful. I mean there were things that like it wasn't anything that just floored us where we were like you know we'd never heard that before Yeah. And that was crazy like you know what you shouldn't do is like you shouldn't be

you know cheating on your wife. That's just one of those things like you shouldn't It's not good for the baby. Right. It's not good for the baby if you're in an abusive relationship. Like obviously like it's it's not that kind of stuff but like it very much was this is what it looks like to serve your spouse and this is what it looks like to be in a situation where you're healthy from an emotional perspective and the other part of the adoption process that we were in in the very beginning one part was training and the paperwork and the finances and all that different stuff. Another big section was this thing called the home study, and the home study was literally just them going, hey, we need to know everything, like everything about your lives, everything about your past, everything about all the dumb stuff you've done before,

all the nitty gritty details about any trauma you've had, any drugs and alcohol in your life, and what they've meant for you, things that have happened that were traumatic between your parents and you, what did your family look like, how is your household today safe, what is your marriage look like, all these different things. Did that make you nervous? Oh gosh yes. Yeah. I mean we felt like we were in a fishbowl and in the worst way. Now here's here's the funny thing. My wife is wonderful and I'm not saying that sarcastically like I'm about to drop a bomb and go but she really no. She's amazing and her life has looked very differently than mine.

She has gone through traumas undoubtedly. She's gone through stuff with her parents undoubtedly. My story is a little bit a little bit raw

if you will. You guys have heard a lot of my story before of my parents and the stuff that I've gone through and things like that and so there were individual interviews that had to happen between us and our our caseworker for our home study and what Gianna's interview was was about fifteen minutes and it was hey tell me about your past and what you've done and all this different stuff. When I got on the phone and had my interview it lasted about two hours. Yeah. And so it's kind of telling of the differences in our stories where like Gianna was basically going hey I grew up in the church and I spent all my life in the church and I actually was the one who brought my parents to Jesus because they didn't want to come to church but I did and I kept getting grounded because I was spending too long at altar calls. Like that was her life. Yeah. And me I was like actually as a matter of fact I basically did all but kill someone when I was a child and

got in a lot of trouble, did a lot of stupid stuff and here's the long history of like drunkenness that existed in my life from the time I started smoking and drinking when I was 11. Right. And she's like, when I was 11, I watched Reba for the first time and I got in trouble because Reba used the b word and I'm like, my dad and I used to watch South Park together and that was our nightlife was just doing that and then playing a game called Diablo two. That was that was dad and I, and dad was a pastor. And so, well, became pastor. I'm not gonna talk poorly about my dad. He he found Jesus, and then when the second that that South Park started making fun of Jesus, we were no longer able to watch South Park. Like, I'm gonna give my dad a little bit of benefit of doubt back to making fun of them Hindus. Yes. He was like, you can make fun of any situation you want, but not my Jesus. Yeah. He got real upset about that. And it might his or his brother drug him through the mud on that and then got him a Jesus nightlight because he was like you're changing. This is who you are now. It was a real funny time in our lives. Anyway, but like it was just very different because like Gianna's

Gianna's history and story is very different from mine. Yeah. And going through this thing and talking about the very very nitty gritty details of our lives and I'm literally saying about how unsafe I've been in the past to someone that I'm then asking to turn around and go but you're good now. Yeah. And so you should have a baby. Like, you're you should you should we're gonna give you a child. And I'm like, are you sure? Because up until, like, seven months ago, I was in a complete hornet's nest of a life and everything was on fire all the time. You're, like, half you're, like, half an hour into this interview. You're like, heck. At this point, I'm not sure you should be able that. At that point going like, I don't I don't really know if I'm gonna be a good dad. Like, I just I'm not sure. Were you tempted to to wash that a little? 100%.

Because they don't they can't they can't know. They can't corroborate the story in a lot of situations, and I tell you that was a very pointed conversation I had with my father. Like, the lord and I sat like, we we had a very quick, like, because here's the deal. In the past, my my my mentality is to put a shine on things. I'm a I'm a bit of a charlatan when it comes to trying to make myself look better. That explains that beard oil. Oh gosh. I mean really it just is like do you smell waffles? It's like high beams. And it's a here's it's the truth man. It's just masking it's masking lies. But in in the past I've absolutely been the person that like for my own what I thought was safety, was like I'm gonna keep everybody at a distance by lying through most of this. And

as and especially in my space where I was at where I was really trying to to truthfully turn a leaf in my walk with Christ at that point in time where I was talking about like where it really was deepening in that moment, I just felt this overwhelming sense of if you're gonna do this in Buva's way, it will fail. If you're gonna do this for Buva's name, it will fail. If you're gonna do this for Buva, it will fail. And I went, alright. If god has led us to this point, there's no situation in which god is going, okay. I want you to adopt, and I need you to lie

so that they don't know all the details and therefore are willing to give you a child. I'm just like, you know, I feel like I've read the good book a couple times, and I don't feel like I've walked away from it with that feeling like god's like, yep, just lie your way through this, and and that's how I'm gonna make this story great and glorify my name. And I'm like, crap. Okay. Okay. And I basically went to my wife and I went, I'm gonna I'm gonna say everything. I'm gonna say every little bit. And I was like, there's stuff that hurt you and I'm gonna say it and there's stuff that I've been broken for and I'm gonna say it and I'm gonna give all the gross details and she goes good. I would have it no other way and I'm like what a world in which I have a wife that is so loving that just goes everything I've ever wanted in my life is to be a mother But if there's any part of you that's gonna try and turn that story to be anything about you or anything in a way that you are are trying to make it happen by your own hand or your own power, I want no part of it. Mhmm. And I'm just like, deal. I married an honorable and a loving woman that is faithful and is is is true, to her father, and I I wanna I wanna honor that knowing that with my stuff too. There's there's some there's I was having a conversation with somebody some weeks ago, and I was like, there there there comes to a point where the people that follow Jesus are just different. Even the best people that you have in your mind that don't follow Jesus, there's certain points Yeah. Where it separates. Right? And you're like, only people that follow Jesus act this way. You could have told your story 50% deep, and it would been enough. Oh, totally. Yeah. It would have been enough. Right? And it would have been enough to show God's redemptive hand, and it would have been enough to show, like, a guy that's willing to be honest, And, like, it's just not what god called you to Yeah. And just not the way god said this was gonna happen. Totally. And, like, that smells so overwhelmingly like him that goes, look. They could hear 50, but they need to see me, and they're gonna see it through you. And you're gonna tell them all the stuff that, like, you don't even wanna bring up in a mixed company. Yeah. Okay. Let alone the person you're saying, I realize you're the decision maker for whether I get this kid or not. Exactly right. Yeah. And, like, you guys I mean, I've talked about this in the show before. Like, my mom's alcoholism was a big deal for my life, and, like, I told all the nitty gritty of that. Like, the stuff that happened with my dad and my mom was rough, and, like, I told all that. The stuff that I ended up doing when I was an idiot and still am in many ways, like, I told all that stuff. There's been rough stuff that's happened in my marriage, and I told all that stuff. And guess what? That was the scariest conversation. Well, second scariest conversation I've ever had in my entire life. The first one was having to be honest with my wife about some stuff. Yeah. Right. That real sucked.

But it honestly it it it I thought that would might have made it easier to tell these people that stuff. It didn't. It still felt crappy. But I literally like, I get off this phone call, and I'm I'm bawling because I'm like, I if this isn't god's hand, I just ruined our god. Potentially, it's failure number two. Exactly. In your mind. Right? Because I failed both ways that we would have made a family. I I screwed up and destroyed both of Yeah. And, like, I'll be honest, trauma brain Troy absolutely tried to say that. Like, my brokenness tried to be like, you screwed this up too. Like, you screwed another thing up, and now your wife has to wait even longer before she gets to be what what she knows god has called her to be, which is a mother. Yeah. You are the reason that this is a problem, and that was flat out lies that were being whispered into my ears or screamed at me at that time. Yeah. And I remember getting off that phone call and just going, god, this it's the there is there is no part of this that I can control that I just gave that level of information,

and I don't screw up. And so, like, if this happens, this is you. Yeah. This is 100% you because no one is gonna hear all that and go, you know, I feel like those two. Those two are the ones. They're we're gonna give them a child. Maybe if just the woman would have applied. Exactly. I think we we say no to any single situation, but I feel like if she divorced him right now, we'd probably be more likely to give him a baby. She she seems great. Yeah. Right. Exactly. I don't know about that guy, but she seems wonderful. She's got rough taste in dudes, but Her trauma was she watched Reba once. That's crazy. Like, that's a really good story. And so I'm just like, alright. And, like, I told my wife everything. I said, this is what I said, and she goes, good. Good. That's exactly what I would've wanted. She goes, I do not wanna be in a situation where I have to look at this and go, this only happened because Troy didn't tell the whole story. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And, like,

was not prepared for that, and there was a there that was one of the most, like, faith shaking things for me. I was like, god, I sometimes don't trust that you're gonna redeem a story like mine. I just don't. And I don't know how you make a good story gardens from graves when I'm the grave. Like I just don't know how you do it and like I gotta see it happen. Yeah. Like I I I have to see you work this. And

so I was totally honest and it was it was a very scary couple of days because finally we end up talking to our adoption coordinator and she goes so thank you for everything. She goes thank you so much for telling us the whole story. She goes the level of honesty that you gave

is not something that we usually expect because we feel like we get plenty of situations where people know that they have to manicure the story so that we want to to be in in works with them in this situation. It's very seldom that we walk through with someone

and hear that level of a story and just watch god work. But like the coolest thing was the fact that they're they're they're Jesus people and they just go, what a story it is when god redeems things, right? Yeah. And they go, yeah and I'm like, cool. We're in the clear. And I went, yeah. Hey.

I'm like, yeah, we're in the clear. Cool and they go, nope, not quite. They go, there's some hoops you've gotta jump through and I went, okay, we're in for all the hoops and so one of the hoops was they needed references from at least the last five years of my therapists because they were like, we need we need clinical references from people that have been responsible for your brain wrangling for the last five years. I appreciate your amateur opinion here. Right. Exactly. I'm like, I feel like I'm doing better. They're like, we need to hear that from at least three clinicians. I have a chart with stars on it and stuff. I feel like I'm nailing it. I'm telling you the last seven days, I've given myself a green sticker, and I had to pull the yellow card one time, but I did better. Teeth brushed, toilet seat down. I'm doing great, guys. And so they were like, no. We need references from from licensed clinicians over the last five years, which is real funny because, like, one of the dudes I hadn't talked to in four and a half years, and I had to email and be like, hey, buddy. Remember me?

I know we weren't on the greatest of terms when I left because I kinda just stopped paying my bill. But now I'm better, and I'm looking to adopt a child. What do you think? And like the lord worked that out because he gave a shining recommendation about like Troy was definitely in the beginnings of his healing but he was certainly on the way and I know that god can do wonderful things and I'm like, heck yeah. Yeah. That's a crazy situation. But so we had to get the five years of of of therapists that go like, yeah, we we would absolutely recommend Troy to be a father. We think he'll be great and they did. Like, all three of them were like, yeah, Troy, Troy has healed and has worked very hard to get where he's at in many ways and I'm like, wow. I did not expect that many people that were responsible for hearing about my nitty gritty gross stuff every single week for a long period of time to go, yeah. You should you should put a child in that man's arms. Yeah. And so like, yet another check mark for god going, I'm gonna work it out. So you so you get through you get through all the preadoption

business. Right. Got it like, but the expectation here is, once you get everything set up and ready, this could be years. Oh, yeah. Totally. This could be this could be few years because they're Expected years. Not even could be. No. Not even could be expected years. Yeah. Yeah. So Yeah.

Yeah. So the the the other hoop we had to jump through was a was a trial period. So like most people's home study does not take a long time. Ours took over a year because they went, we need to see you healthy for a year. Like we cannot in good conscience go having heard that whole story, yeah, we totally are in and with these recommendations we think we should give you a child. Yeah. They needed there to be a year of like just waiting around for for me to make certain that I didn't go crazy and

God worked that out. And so like the year ended back in May. It was we we were officially through the home study process and we got put to what was called the approved in waiting status. And so

they told us throughout this entire process that we should be financially prepared for an immediate placement of a child meaning like have all the money ducks in a row all that stuff but like emotionally prepared for this to take a couple years and what we had heard from our adoption agency was in 2024 the whole year across the entire country they had done one special needs placement in the entire country and we were not the first in line in 2025. So like we were basically told hey this is gonna take a long time like be prepared that this is gonna be a bit. So Wednesday of that week comes around and they go

you guys are officially approved and waiting. We're gonna start sending you info summaries meaning like when we have a child that like we we are trying to make an adoption plan for, this is the base level of information and it's the first bit of information that you get that you say yes or no to that we can start the process down. They go we don't even have any info summaries for this week and so don't expect anything from us. And this was the week before Mother's Day. So we get a very sweet email from our adoption coordinator

going, we know that Mother's Day is gonna be a rough day. Like, we know for anyone in the adoption process that this is a day that that sometimes hurts. Saturday is National Birth Mother's Day, so like please be praying for the potential birth mothers of your children or your birth mother of your child and things like that. So just some prayer prompts is all we really got in an email. And then going, we're gonna be silent over the weekend obviously because we know that this is a somber time for for women that are in an adoption process. Take your time, heal, go to God, we will be here for you. If you need anything reach out, we'd love to just talk to you and counsel you. Super loving. So I go okay we'll hear by next Thursday because that's when they send out these info summaries on Thursdays. Friday rolls around, it's been it's been two days that we're in the approved and waiting status and we get an email and it is an email

from our adoption coordinator that goes, hey guys, just a heads up. We got a kind of a crazy situation. There

is a couple that are looking to make an adoption plan for their child and they're not even a part of our agency. They reached out to us because they're in such a dire situation that they needed an adoptive set of parents to come in and make an adoption plan with the birth parents

that they're like looking outside of their network And so here's what information we have. It was a paragraph long and included in the paragraph was basically going, hey we need to make an adoption plan for out of network family.

And so the rest was three sentences about this child and it was very very little information and Gian and I look at each other and it it's a little bit more information about the financials of the situation and I just go, okay, I don't know if we can make that work because I thought we're gonna have a little bit more time to get some fundraising done but now we're looking at our bank account and going, this has gotta happen now. And I immediately go, no way. There's no way. There's no way I can make that work. And I just kinda looked at my wife as I said that, and I saw in her eyes and, like, I made a decision in that moment where I was like, yeah, it's time to to like make the business or get off the pot here in this faith thing. Yeah. Like, it's it's time to either say that I trust him or I don't because this is a real situation where this only works in his way and I just looked at her and I went, okay. Yeah, let's say let's say yes we want more information and that's all we're agreeing to at that point in time is just going we'd like to hear more, tell us more. Yeah. And one of the big things within the adoption process that they push on is

let your yes be yes and your no be no. Yeah. And don't feel bad if it's a no. Because like it's such a big commitment obviously to be like walking into this child's life and taking over in in this way, doing not necessarily a handoff but like walking in, right, that like it is so important for the conviction of the whole situation that parents are 100% certain that their yes is a yes. And if their no is a no, they know that they've prayed on that and they've thought through it and like it's heartbreaking to say no to any child but you shouldn't just be saying yes to all of them. There's one that god's got for you. It's important to be prayerful about that kind of thing. So Gian and I just look at each other and I'm like, yep. It's a yes. And she goes, think it's a yes too. I went, deal. Send the email. Tell them yes. And so we said yes to them and they go, okay. Great. Let's get on a call and let's talk a little bit more. So, we talked to the adoption coordinator from the other agency or from our agency first then the other agency and they go, great. We got your information because there's like a a one pager that we had to create as a part of the adoption process that goes, here's the boo of a family. Here's what you need to know about them or if you're wanting to make an adoption plan, they are interested in talking to you about your child.

And so the adoption agency goes, we looked at your stuff and we're very excited. You know, tell me more about your situation and you can ask me all the So we ask her all the questions and we get a good load of information and then she goes okay if you guys are okay with moving forward I'll wait for the weekend but then I will send your information over to the birth parents beginning of next week. And we go, great. Sounds great to us. So is this this seems a little bit unique that there's, like, as you're talking about adoption plan,

sending information over to the birth parents. I think a lot of times people think about adoption as, like, someone has given up a baby, left it at the firehouse or whatever, and then there's this group of people trying to place a baby. This this seems at least seems unique on the involvement of the parents. Like, what's what's going on with that? No. That's totally fair. I think that one of the biggest differentiators between, like, what we're involved in and what a lot of people think of when they're coming to adoptions is first and foremost the the agency that we are a part of is a pregnancy and and birth agency first before anything else and what I mean by that is we're firm believers that the safest and best place for a child to be is with their birth parents if it's possible. If it's possible for the parents to get to a place where they're economically able to take care of a child, where they're safe away from any drug and addictions, away from any alcohol situations, away from

brokenness in their home, reconciliation of families where like a child can stay with their birth parents. We are so passionate about that because like even in the best adoption, there's always trauma for the child. Like, there's always trauma for the child to have to have that question mark of, like, why why is my story not the typical story? Why is my story different? Why do I have two sets of parents? What happened or what's wrong with me that my parents had to make this adoption plan or gave me up for adoption? Right? That's the that's the common rhetoric we have. And so within the normalcy of of these agencies that we were a part of, these Christian agencies, what they care about is educating and getting parents resources

first and foremost. Prenatal care, getting them all the education they can get, getting them all the references and and resources possible to get safe. In the event that none of those things are possible, there's no reconciliation for the family, it's not safe for the child to stay with birth parents, whatever that situation may be. That is by third trimester, meaning they've tried all the way up to that point to give resources and build up the parents, birth parents before they make an adoption plan. If by third trimester they still feel like the best and most loving choice for a child is to look into adoption plan that is when they start that process. And so for a lot of that process most of the time by that time the agency has had a long established relationship at least with birth mom because she's called to get information about how to get prenatal care or how to get job references or even job training to be able to get work and to do get on better section or better housing and all that kind of stuff. In our situation, it was a completely different agency

that they the the birth parents of our child had never even made an adoption plan Yeah. Because they had every intention of of staying the parents of their child. Yeah. And the uniqueness of our situation was because of the certain diagnosis that led to this being a special needs adoption, her birth parents did not feel that the most loving thing they could do was keep her with them because they did not feel like they could give her all that she needs. Yeah. And so it truthfully is such a loving sacrifice that her birth parents made

in this situation. And so what we came to find out was one of the other contributing factors to why it was such a random they reached out to a different agency all this different stuff was because they had made an adoption plan with another family and that family had to back out last minute. And so they had already met a family, they had already worked through and met them and and made the adoption plan and they had already you know it started working towards this but then something happened with that adoption family that they had to back up

and back out and so now they're in a mad scramble going we have like a week before we have to have another family step in and and look into making this adoption. What was the pressure on on that? How the speed of that? So the big pressure on that was because, for our daughter, with her specific medical condition, there it is a it is a hyper rare genetic condition that like less than four thirty diagnoses exist in the world. And so what they were doing was trying to get an adoptive family to come to where she's from so that they could be the the adoptive parents could also be there for a care conference between,

like, 14 different doctors, a bunch of therapists and nurses, and all these people that have been taking care of the child in NICU to educate the parents on what their life might look like and what the baby is going to need. Yeah. And so, like, it was like, hey. This is the only time this is ever gonna be able to happen. This has to happen by next Thursday,

and we need a family here by Wednesday. Gotcha. And so that was kind of the urgency of that piece. And so Wait. Wait. So to reiterate the timing, you found out about the possible adoption on Friday. Yes. If this is a likely scenario, you need to be where that's at on Wednesday. On Wednesday. Yes. Got it. So approved in waiting by Wednesday, email in our inboxes by Friday,

had to be in the city where this child was in six days. Yeah. And, two of the days were just waiting because we were waiting over the weekend, and giving the birth parents a chance to kind of breathe before they even heard more information about the potential adoptive parents. Yep. So Monday rolls around. Our information gets shared with birth parents and they liked what they saw and wanted to talk to us. So adoption agency gets back to us on Monday and goes they

want to know more about you guys and would love to hop on a call with you if possible and we go fantastic sounds great to us we'll do that so we end up on a like a Zoom call with birth parents and the other adoption agency and we're sitting there talking and birth dad comes out and just starts like rapid fire asking us questions and just goes, okay, what do you know about her medical condition? And I go, basically nothing. And they go, okay, that's not good enough. You need to know a lot more. And I go, deal? I don't know how much to run with right now but we'll do our best to get to that point. Asking great questions about like,

why are you in the adoption process? What's this look like? What does your life look like? Even ask me like, hey. I see you live in apartment. Do you want a house? Because I want my child to live the American dream. And so, like, I'd like for you to own a house. And I'm like, I've been thinking about it and this solidifies that. So, yes. That's awesome. He goes, great. I want that for my kid. And I'm like, I can totally understand. And so, like, nothing but love. Nothing but love from this man just like in the rapid fire way trying to go, okay. If I'm talking to the man who's gonna be adopting my daughter, these are the kind of questions that I wanna ask. And it was a real nut up or shut up kind of situation where it was like, I'm going to ask you man to man and if you don't give good answers it's a no. I love this guy. I love him too. He's amazing. I love that man and so I give the answers we we go alright and he go and they go okay we're going to take some time to think about this and we'll get back to you and let you know. We said great sounds And so we get off, we are talking with the adoption agency and they go, honestly, you'll probably hear from us by tomorrow. So Gian and I hop off the Zoom call and we're like in tears just going, god, this is your way, like, just do your work. Like, this is all in your will and your way. Just do your work. And we go, let's go get emotional support ice cream because this has been a wild three days. Yeah. Like, four days at this point in time. This has been insane. So we get in our car, and we start driving towards the the ice cream place. And Ice cream or custard? Ice cream. The custard of comfort would have been Custard of comfort would have been awesome. That's fair. That that sounds like it belongs in a children's, card game. Yeah. The custard of comfort. Rare miss in this story, but I'm go ahead. Yeah. It it was it was the ice cream of indecisiveness.

But, so we we start driving towards towards the ice cream place and, we get a call and we see it's from the the the right, area code and so we answer and it's the adoption agency going, hey guys, it's blank and we go, hi. We weren't expecting to hear from you until tomorrow and she goes, I know and so one of the things that Justin, sorry, a birth dad had asked me was if we say yes, how soon could you be here? And I said, you say yes, we'll be on the road in ten minutes And so we get on the phone with the adoption agency and she goes, by the way, he says

be on the road in ten minutes. And that was the way that she told us that they had said yes to us. And so one of the other things that she said was it was down to two. It was down to two families. And

what birth mom and dad did was and it's more symbolically but it's still an awesome part of the story. They wrote my name down on a piece of paper and they wrote down the name of the other family, the dad in that family that they were looking to make the adoption plan. And they said they wanted their baby to be involved in the decision making process, so they held up the two pieces of paper and my child grabbed the piece of paper with my name on it. And I was not anticipating that and I started crying my eyes out and they went, she they wanted to make certain that she got to choose her dad. And they also said, we had already kinda chosen you, but like it really was like we just wanted it to be a thing. I'm like, cool. Good to know it really wasn't down to just like the random like hand grabbings of a three month old kid or a 0.5 old kid, but they the the child chose me. And so they go be on the road in ten minutes. And so

we start freaking out calling all of our people and going, hey. Like, this is happening. We're we we gotta be on the road tomorrow. And so we started driving and we we drove for about ten and a half hours on Wednesday and we got to the the hospital and the funny thing was is we were gonna be staying at the Ronald McDonald House but we had no we we had no heads up on this other than like a day. So hadn't we applied for Ronald McDonald House. We were gonna have to stay in a hotel, all this different stuff and then god just kinda winked at us because as we're driving towards the hospital, that's ten hours away. We filled out the paperwork to get a

a room at the Ronald McDonald House knowing that it was going to take about a week and we were going to have to buy a hotel. We got a call from the Ronald McDonald House on the way going, hey, we got a room freed up. If you guys can get here today, it's yours and I'm like, yep, we're on our way. We'll be there and so we got there. We were able to cancel our hotel and stayed at the Ronald McDonald House that night and the next morning, we went down to the Children's Hospital and we met our adoption agent and we started signing some paperwork And then we got taken back and we were able to meet her birth parents for the first time in person.

And as we walked up to them, birth dad said, hey mom and dad to us. And immediately I'm almost in tears and we're sitting there talking and we just got a chance to sit down and ask questions and meet and

it was really just kind of waiting a little bit before we went back and met our child for the first time and so the craziest part at this point well many crazy parts one of the crazy parts was we're sitting there talking and and I'm beaming and just talking about how great the lord is. This whole conversation. I'm sitting there going, wow. How good is god that this is happening and like he worked this way out and he did all these things and all this different stuff and like birth mom and dad are kind of just sitting there nodding at it and stuff like that and I'm just I'm I'm not shutting up over and over again about the providence and the wonder that is the lord's hand involved in all this situation. Yeah. And like they had asked for a Christian couple so I knew that they were Jesus people so we were just in kindred spirits with one another just talking about Jesus.

And so they just they said, you know, we're gonna go back and spend just a little bit with with the baby for a bit longer and then we'll come back out and get you and then we'll go and you'll be able to meet them. And so the adoption agency, the gal that was there looks at me after a birth mom and dad walk away and she goes nice job guys, that was awesome and I'm like thanks, that you're right. Yeah it was a good meeting And she goes, honestly, like we care so much about this being a gospel for both the birth parents and the baby that like you guys just were beaming so much about Christ and how amazing he is and like we that's exactly what we ask for in adoptive parents and like you guys were perfect in that. Thank you so much. And I'm sitting there like, yeah, we're all just talking about Jesus. Like we all know Jesus. Of course I'm gonna be saying his name and being like thankful to him and basically praying and praising.

And she goes, oh no, they don't know Jesus. They just asked for a Christian couple. And I'm like, wait. What? And she goes, oh, yeah. No. They're not Christians. They just they asked for a Christian couple. So, like, for you guys to be sitting there speaking the gospel at them in this real raw moment and, like, just doing such a, like, a work there was amazing. So what what that's interesting. Like, do you did you find out why a they're not there was something about their national are they from The United States? Yeah. They're from The United States, but they're Vietnamese. Okay. So the Vietnamese background. Yep. Not Christians Mhmm. But asked for Christian parents for the adoption. Did you ever find out why? Oh, yeah. It was right then because I was like, wait. They asked for a Christian family. Why did they do that? And she says, it was it was one of the craziest things I've ever heard, and I I hope that I never forget it, and I wanna like, I want this to change me forever.

They are nail techs, and they work in a nail salon. Oh, yeah. And it's such a simple thing. They said, Christian women talk different. Mhmm. That was the whole reason they asked for a Christian family was because they said when they're doing nails and working, Christian women speak differently than any other women. There is something about being a Christian person that, like, there is a peace and a joy and a love about Christian women that come in and say the name of Christ and then just act different. And that is the reason that that couple asked for a Christian family. That's beautiful. Something as simple as Christian women talk different. Yep. And, like, what I mean by I never wanna forget that is when you're anywhere, like, literally, if you proclaim the name of Christ and you're at a gas station, you better live it. When you proclaim the name of Christ and you're at work, you better live it and look different because that's what the gospel looks like. It is a message of your life and the way that you act and the way that your works

change things. That is how it's supposed to be. They didn't have to, like, preach a sermon at the nail techs. They just went and spoke differently about life, and that changed my child's life forever. Yeah. And it changed our lives forever. Yeah. And so, like, there is something beautiful about the infinitesimally small interactions we have that we have no idea what god will change and what ripples happen from how we interact with the situation.

Gospel work is not always grandstanding. Sometimes it is very quietly loving people, and it looks different. I I submit it's often. Often. Yes. Often. Yeah. Yeah. Rarely is it the former. Most of the time it's the latter. Yeah. That's right. Yeah. That's right. Exactly right. And so and so they asked for a Christian couple, and here we are. We step in and like we are in a completely open

adoption to where we signed up for yearly visits and weekly updates and conversations and all this different stuff because we want our child to know their banh ma which is Vietnamese for mom and dad. Yeah. And it worked out that way because we were we're mommy and daddy and they're banh ma. And we get to walk with them and like one of the other things was during this process, we kept hearing about so many situations where

there's a birth mom involved but birth dads are rarely ever there in adoptive situations because like that's just not how the family dynamics often look. Like a lot of the times it's it's mom and dad out of wedlock, and, like, dad has walked away or doesn't want anything to with the child or Feckless turd. Yeah. Like, something happens, and, like, that's why mom is making an adoption plan because she can't take care of the child. And so we were praying specifically for a situation where we had a birth mom and dad because we knew that part of what we were walking into was was being able to be gospel for our child. But another big portion of it was we wanted the birth parents to know how much Jesus loved them. We did not want it to be a handoff where they just, like, gave us a a child and then walked away from us, and we just got to feel great. Like, wanted to walk with the birth parents too.

We wanted to be able to show them Christ. And so we were praying specifically for a birth dad so that I had a man that I could get close with and, like, show him Jesus in this situation. And that's exactly what God showed up with. Yeah. Was a situation where I now have my child's ba that I get to show Jesus to and I talk with them constantly and like god's already doing amazing work in that. I'm so excited about that but

so we we get done with this conversation. They come back and get us and give us the pass and we go back there and we meet our child for the first time in the NICU. And the cool part of this is there's there's a picture that my wife showed me a couple weeks ago that was me in a twenty four seven prayer room and I was on my knees and I had my hands raised towards the wall and I was praying for our child because we were in the adoption process but we weren't very far in it yet. We hadn't really known anything specific

about this. We were just working our way towards an adoption and I'm praying like on my knees, hands in the air, eyes closed, praying and asking God to bless our child whatever they look like, wherever they come from, all this different stuff. And

she shows me this picture and then she shows me a picture of me holding my child for the first time. Mhmm. And I've got my baby in my arms and I'm holding my arm, my my other arm up and I'm praying a blessing over my child and she showed me those pictures side to side, and it changed me at a molecular level. I'm I'm a firm believer in. It's one of those moments that I hope to cherish forever,

that will absolutely be a rock that's a part of the altar that I give and and dedicate to my father constantly, which is, like, I saw God do a thing that he said he was going to do. And I saw God faithfully make a thing happen that he promised me he would. And, like, if there's ever days where my faith is shaking or ever days where I doubt

my god or where I'm at in his hands, I need to remember those two pictures. Yep. Because it is very much before and after a promise is fulfilled. And like that kind of faith, I wanna hold on to forever because that faith is in the god that said that was going to be true and that faith is in the god that said that he was going to send his son and did and that Jesus is the one that died on the cross so that I get to stand in in the righteousness through that faith and justified in the courts, and I get to look at my father someday and, like, be in his throne room. And I'm so excited for that, and, like, those are the moments that I need to remember forever. And, like, when my kid is screaming throughout the night, I get to hold them and go, this is a promise that God fulfilled, and he's gonna keep doing. And so

the reason I've been gone for a couple months is we've been in the NICU with our baby. She has all kinds of of special needs and there's all kinds of things that we have to figure out. She's got like 14 specialist doctors and we're back and forth from specialist hospitals and we got home care companies bringing us supplies for her and all this different stuff but like, man, it just is it is a testament to the fact that we serve a big big God that makes ways straight and makes paths straights. And like you show me a broken path that is rocky and jagged and is scary and is in the dark sometimes and I don't know where I'm going, and I'll show you a God that will walk with you through that. And like hold my hands and lead me father because like I don't wanna be any further away from you than I ever am. Like I wanna be next to you and being led because like that's that's what it's looked like in the last three months. Yeah. And

I am so hopeful and so excited for what the next twenty years looks like. Like I get to I get to be in a situation where at one point in time I didn't know what it looked like to be hopeful for tomorrow. And I get to look and go, god, I can't wait for fifteen years from now. I can't wait for twenty years from now. I can't wait to see

in your throne room someday and just see the population of people that got to watch this story. And I get to watch God make wonderful things happen, and like, my child will know the love of Christ because she was adopted into our family, and her birth parents will know the love of Christ because they're near us. And we can't stop shutting up about or we can we never shut up about him. And, like, our life looks that way, and we can only hope that in the simplest views that we just are like those Christian women that just talk different.

And just, before we let the story, fade in in into, or explode into what it will eventually be Yeah. When you're talking about making paths straight, so, like, I think that's that even even after that meeting, you've continued to see God do that.

Over and over again. Like, I recall, the time it it was thinking specifically around timelines. Yeah. How fast things are supposed to happen and then how fast they end up happening. And so even even being able to come back home or how long the transitions and stuff was just maybe share that real quick. Sure. Yeah. So in one,

everything that a human has told us was going to take a certain time is a laughable statement to my father. Like, anytime that somebody says, this is gonna take a really long time and it's never happened before. If god wants it to happen, it will and so specifically, our child we got we got we got medical power of attorney for her and we're able to see all of her medical records within twenty four hours of requesting and that has never happened in that hospital network before. Yeah. We got the Ronald McDonald House day of. They told us it was going to take weeks.

We end up in a situation where they told us that we weren't going to be able to start a medication for her for eight months. We got on it within six weeks and it's been completely taken care of. Another situation in which we were told that once we got discharged from the hospital, there was something called an ICPC timeline which means that the state where my my child was born and the state where we live right now had to communicate with each other and and, agree that we could leave,

their birth state and so what that means in practicality is there was going to be an extensive period of time where we had been discharged from the hospital. We were going to have to stay in that state and could not legally leave or we would be federally in trouble with the government and getting getting a lot of guff a for it. Yeah. That paperwork doesn't get filed until discharge. That's the that's the law. And what ended up happening was they told us that, like, at a at a conservative, estimate, it could probably be a week to two weeks, more likely closer to a month. What that was going to look like was me paying for an Airbnb for a month, and having to trust god with my bank account. What I thought I was walking into it was, god, I trust you with this bank account because you have made a way in all the ways.

What ended up happening was a day and a half before we got discharged from the hospital, we got an Email from our case worker going, this has never happened before and we doubt it's ever going to happen again but both states actually approved you guys to leave today. And I go, wait a minute, we're not discharged yet. They go, we know. That's the law but they decided to make an exception for you guys. You guys can leave the state immediately and so, what I thought I was trusting god with was my bank account. What I ended up being able to trust god with was he goes, I don't care about this timeline. Like, I do. I do. No. I'm not waiting a month. Like, no. There's no situation in which you have to sit around. So we were able to leave the hospital the next day, and we were able to leave the state and get her on the path to get her back home within about a week of of being discharged from the hospital and so what that meant was we were never in a place where we were like sitting around just hoping for paperwork to be filed and for people to to do their jobs. Two state governments,

acted and worked technically what we thought was gonna be a month ended up being negative one point five days. Right. So There's still pictures of Obama in the Hamilton County Courthouse. You know what I'm saying? That's how fast the government moves. Yeah. And, like, this was this was coming up on July 4. Like, we were anticipating that people were gonna be taking, like, a week vacation beforehand. It was gonna sit on somebody's desk, and then it was gonna take forever. It took negative a day and a half, and the agency goes, we've never seen this before. The state you're in has never done this. And we've been an agency for twenty years. Yeah. We've never seen it happen. And, like, one state responded at 03:30, the other state responded at 05:30. So like in a two hour period, both states looked at the paperwork and approved it and we were able to leave. And the other crazy thing is we so my daughter's on Medicaid because of the special needs that she has. We were in limbo for insurances for a period of time and we were told it was going to be forever that before we were able to get her approved on that stuff and get a couple of the the necessary services for her figured out and we were going to have to wait for that. Our adoption agency goes, I've got a call with Medicaid tomorrow.

I'm going to beg them to get you a caseworker And I go, okay. What does that mean? She goes, it's gonna take a while. And, like, it could take a long time. That's just that's asking them to expedite just getting someone to look Yeah. At the paperwork. We get an email the next day. She goes, I I don't know what to tell you. You guys are already approved, and they backdated it for the whole month. And I go, what? And she goes, yeah. You were already approved. The the person I talked to that was supposed to just be like a begging conversation

to get on the list to talk to, looked at the specific situation and then went, oh, yeah. We're approving her right now. She's approved and we're gonna backdate it to the beginning of July. And that all came about because we were turned turned away at an appointment two days prior. Uh-huh. We had a an appointment set up and they go, if you don't have insurance because our private insurance hadn't picked us up yet for all kinds of weird reasons that god ended up working out. If we would have been able to go to that appointment, it would not have been as compelling of an argument for us to immediately get put on Medicaid. Uh-huh. Instead, the the the

doctor's office we were at goes, it's going to be a thousand bucks out of pocket today at least and I go, we don't have that. I can't do that. If this isn't vital, we'll come back next month. We got this figured out. Our adoption agency turned around and told the Medicaid worker that and she goes, if she's already being denied at appointments, I'm approving it today and we're going to backdate it the whole month. Yeah. And so what that ended up being was, not only did she get approved, I got refunds for the things that I had paid for in the last seventy two hours because I had people contacted me going, hey. We just got her approval for Medicaid and insurance. We owe you money. Right? And so I went, cool. That'd be great. Here's the card number to put it back on, and they went good, and they did it. And so I got refunds. Gosh. What if it doesn't happen? Right. Right. God goes, send the jackwagon and refund the time and the money. Literally. This is the story. Yes. And so every single way that we were like, oh, man. God's gonna make a way. And, like, what we were asking for was the smallest things. And god goes, you don't even know what to ask me for, but I'm gonna show you what you should be asking for. When you come to me and say, lord, I trust you with my bank account, just go, god, can you make it so this isn't even a thing at all? Like, can can you make it so that it's just you and only you fulfilling all of these pieces? Then here's the deal. The reality of the situation is every story isn't gonna be like that nor are all of our stories. Oh, sure. There's plenty of situations where we're gonna have to walk through muck and mire undoubtedly.

And, like, even in the hospital, I mean, it's not like you didn't have some difficult situations. Yeah. Over and over again. We dealt with incompetence in certain situations, craziness in others. I had to fight tooth and nail, but, like, god prepared us and walked us through all of that. That's right. Never a situation where even if we were a place where we felt like we were in wilderness, we were provided for. Yeah. Like, we were taken care of the entire time. God walked with us and walked before us in many ways and in ways that we didn't even know to ask, and he just goes ask for more and trust me. Stop asking for the things that are safe because I love you, and I may not say yes every time, but you'll be astonished when I say yes and and make something even bigger happen. Yeah. Hey. You listen to live from the path. We will, catching up with Bubba. And, just a a lot of,

one one, like, I don't know, Mike. I don't know what you're feeling, but, like, what a cool what a cool deal. Like, this has been, it's been an interesting road, I think, just just for you. Yeah. And and I I probably would be would be wrong to say

that I get the the same joy and elation that you're getting watching God fulfill promises in your life. But doggone it anyway. Like, super excited. Yeah. Not not only like, obviously, with all the the things going on with with you guys as parents, and the the I'm I'm excited for her life and like what your daughter's life looks like going forward.

But in this kind of the same way as as you were talking about, like, it's just you get to be you get to be reminded of God's faithfulness of just hand just doing things his way. Yeah. And going and trusting,

like, whether it comes with its complications, whether it works out in some of the ways that you're talking about. And in other ways, where it's really difficult, like you're you're being prepared to be able to recognize that God is still good and still with you in times of difficulty. Yeah. Because he made it so directly obvious that's like even even when there's there's times where this is gonna be hard Oh, totally. I want you to remember, like, I I did all these things so that you could recall that I'm with you. This is flat out like I I was just recently in Daniel two and the buddy but if, but even if. Right? That's right. The Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego thing. Right? Like, but even if. God, if you don't save us from this, it was a privilege to be your child. Yeah. Like, even if you don't walk us through this in a way that is miraculous and everything, like,

makes sense that it all worked out for for good and there was no struggles, like, even in those days that there will be absolute hell. Yeah. I will remember that god made these ways straight. And, like, the next time I'm on a shaky path, my my hope is that I remember to look back at a at a path that was once shaky, that, like, god walked me through and made straight. And, like, I don't know what the next ten years are gonna look like, but I promise you God's gonna be there. Yeah. It's like it's like people going, hey, was I was twenty years, thirty years, forty years after the fact, they're like, I was front row at Hedrick's one time. Right? You know what I'm saying? Like people's experience with God I was having a talk with a kid earlier this week and like I felt so I was praying for her because she felt so disconnected from God. Yeah. Because she's like, I just don't feel His presence. I just don't feel

like that it's part of me or it's part of anything. Like, I believe God is who He says He is. But like, she never sat in the front row at Hendrix. Right? Like, she might have sat in the back row or she might have heard someone tell about the concert and say, These are all the things, you know? And then but there's something about sitting in the front row when God does a thing, and then He invites you up on stage, and you're like, I'll forget

this moment. Yeah. This is like a thing that just buries deep with inside of you, and you're like, let me tell you about this time I was on stage with Yahweh. Like, it was it was such a thing, you know? And and like, to that point, right? Like, those those memories and those truths sustain,

you know, when like, you're not at that concert anymore. Right. And then all of a sudden, your car is broken down and it's cold outside and you're waiting for a jump and like you're flat tire and you're like, man, remember that one time I was on stage with Yahweh? That was way better than this. You know what saying? But like, it it just changes the way and like it and like what I love so much about that story is not it it wasn't just a feeling that God was there. You know what saying? It wasn't just like because people do this all the time. They're like, I just felt like God was there or like, you know, Or like, and there is nothing wrong with that. Right? There is nothing wrong with feeling like God gave you a hug in a situation. But like, that is not that story. God has been waving He has been weaving this tale like in your wife for twenty Decades.

Right? He's been weaving this tale in you for twenty years. Right? And, like, everyone else is watching it, and you're watching it unfold and, like, and be stretched and molded and and made into all this, and, like, god are he already knew it was gonna be there. And so he reacted to you differently fifteen years ago Totally. Knowing just exactly what he was going to do. Yeah. And, like, it's so hard to keep this in mind on a day to day basis. Oh, totally. Yes. So, I mean, like everyone should struggle. I struggle with this so immensely because I remember being at that concert. I remember being on stage with Yahweh and I remember how great it was. But right now, that is not where we are at. Right? And so like, it is just so it's so hard to fathom how good and gracious this God is. Oh, totally. And so like amazing

that he would allow all of that to be seen not only by people that would recognize it, but by people that are just recognizing it. Yeah. And, like, it just makes it such a cool story, and then you get to meet the kid. And the Right. Is amazing. And I, like, I I the kid like, the whole story went away, and it was just the fact that this kid exists. Yeah. It's still a beautiful story. It's all kinds of beautiful. Right? And so, like, it's just being like, it's just so hard to remember to be so thankful Yeah. And amazed.

Yeah. By the god that he is. It's interesting because, like, one of my favorite things is already the fact that I I constantly find myself in situations where I'm telling this story, and then, like, I'm looking into the faces of people, not you guys, but, like, people that are other people in my life. And, like, they just look at me and go, man, that is really cool that that's the way that god works for you. And, like, that's really cool that god loves you that way. And, like, I flat out feel in that situation where I just get to go, yeah. But do you realize I suck? Like, I'm terrible? Like, I'm a horrible human? Right. And, like, you remember the fact that, like, I I basically thought I botched our adoption because of how much of a piece of crap I've been? I get to look at them and go, yeah. But there's it there this isn't a boobah story. Like, there's nothing about me that made this story possible. On purpose. On purpose. Right. Exactly right. Like, there is no part of this that I get to boast in and go because of what I do and because of how I act and because of what I've done, God did these things. I get to go in spite of the fact that I am a complete and total fool and have been through 99.9% of my interactions in life. God is loving and redeeming

and restoring in beautiful ways, and I get to look at my daughter and be reminded of the fact of, yes, I have no means to boast, and I have no reason for boasting. But what I will boast of is the fact that my god is a good and righteous and faithful god, and he will make these kind of stories in every single life if they walk humbly with him and obediently. And, like, not perfect obedience because I still suck in certain ways, but I am saved by the righteousness of my father and the justification of my faith through Christ and Christ crucified and I get to look at this story and go, I was a boob but

god was faithful. Yeah. And beautiful and just and kind and merciful and loving. Yeah. And like that's the story that I'll tell because I told you before, at one point in time, I would have done everything to make this story about me so that I had a firm foundation to stand on that I felt like I deserved anything. But now at the fact that I get to walk humbly and stand on the foundation of the love that is Christ and him crucified, I get to go, I deserved none of this. As a matter of fact, I deserved the exact opposite. But because of what my god is and who he is and what he does, I get to be a part of a story that glorifies him. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, I tell you what we're gonna do. I I think I think we're gonna let the show with that. So we're gonna pick up we got Adir we're gonna ask the pastor on on Joe Navarrok, and did god tell her to commit to violence? Oh, boy. And was that fine? We're gonna pick that up. I think I think we're back next week. We'll see how the day rumbles. So we're gonna pick that up next week. I'm gonna give you I think may I can't think of a handful of times where we've not done a Dear Live From The Path, but I'm a let them sit. Yeah. We can pick that up next week as well. And so thanks for hanging out with us here on Live From The Path. Very much appreciate it.

I I'm gonna stick I I think this this thing we end the show with every week, I think, continues to reign and rule, in the story that was just told, which is be faithful in the means, and God will handle the ends. You've been listening to Live From The Pack.