Noah arrived at our home at four months suffering from pneumonia and looking for love and attention. We welcomed Noah into our family and we soon saw fast improvement in his health and responsiveness.

Noah’s birth parents were struggling with many issues including drug and alcohol abuse, physical abuse, job problems, and trying to maintain a home life for themselves. We began bringing Noah to visit his birth mother and after four months, Noah was allowed to go back to his birth mother. He stayed with his birth mother for about 6 weeks and was returned to our home again. We continued to work with the county social services department to bring Noah to his birth parents for visits, but the parents made little progress toward being responsible to provide a stable home life for Noah.

Noah grew and developed quickly with an outgoing personality and active lifestyle. He attended many athletic activities for our older high school aged children. He was always able to draw attention and many laughs. After about 2 years with us as our foster child, we were asked to consider adopting Noah. It was an easy, but yet challenging prospect. We had come to love Noah and considered him to be part of our family, but we also realized that we were getting older and that there would be a large age difference between Noah and our biological children who were 14 – 21 years older than Noah. After much prayer and discussion, we said yes and the adoption process was begun.

Our paperwork went well, but the termination process with the birth parents was another story. It was 2 years before it was finalized. Noah was 4 years and 8 months old when the adoption was final. Noah is now in a 4K–kindergarten class and loving his new friends and teacher. His love of life is contagious. His strong will provides us with both a challenge and an opportunity to train and guide a young boy into a mature man who will grow up to love life and give enjoyment and pleasure to his family, friends and community.

We thank God for Noah and the many other foster children that we have had the opportunity to share life and to love. The greatest gift we have is to love and cherish our families and friends while we are able. May God bless all foster and adoptive families as they work to do their best to care for their children.