Entries Tagged 'Adoption' ↓

This is an amazing story of God stirring a U.S. soldier’s heart to adopt a boy with cerebral palsy from Iraq:
Click here to read the article.

Here are some quotes from the story:

Southworth prayed and talked with family and friends. His mother, who had cared for many disabled children, explained the difficulty. She also told him to take one step at a time and let God work. Southworth’s decision was cemented in spring 2004, while he and his comrades watched Mel Gibson’s film, “The Passion of the Christ.” Jesus Christ’s sacrifice moved him. He imagined meeting Christ and Ala’a in heaven, where Ala’a asked: “Baba, why didn’t you ever come back to get me?”

He had no wife or home; he knew nothing of raising a disabled child; he had little money and planned to run for district attorney in his home county. Just as important, Iraqi law prohibits foreigners from adopting Iraqi children. 

Everything seemed to be in place. But when Southworth contacted an immigration attorney, he was told it would be nearly impossible to bring Ala’a to the United States.

Police found Ala’a abandoned on a Baghdad street at around 3 years old. No one knows where he came from. “We crossed political boundaries. We crossed religious boundaries. There was just a massive effort — all on behalf of this little boy who desperately needed people to actually take some action and not just feel sorry for him,” Southworth said.

He mailed the packet on Dec. 16, 2004, to the Department of Homeland Security. On New Year’s Eve, his cell phone rang. It was Ala’a. “What are you doing?” Scott asked him. “I was praying,'” Ala’a responded. “Well, what were you praying for?” “I prayed that you would come to take me to America,” Ala’a said. Southworth almost dropped the phone. Ala’a knew nothing of his efforts, and he couldn’t tell him yet for fear that the boy might inadvertently tell the wrong person, upending the delicate process.

But Ala’a — who picked out his own name, which means to be near God — knows he’s where he belongs. Southworth always said Ala’a picked him, not the other way around. They were brought together, Southworth believes, by a “web of miracles.”