Happy Gotcha Day, James Melaku Thurman!

February 13, 2013---The day we got to pick James up from the orphanage. This is his "gotcha" moment. In this moment, he is ours forever. Where we go, he will go. Where we stay, he will stay. He is no longer under the care of the orphanage, even though we are standing in the orphanage. He is no longer under the rule of the Ethiopian government because he belongs to us.

Adoption is not without great loss, great pain.  For me to be this child's mother, a woman is without her son. A father, a grandmother, an aunt, perhaps a sibling. I can never think of this day without thinking of "them". I don't know why they chose to give him up. I will most likely never know, but I do know that God ordained that James Melaku would be our son. Of all the little boys in that orphanage, God chose James' paperwork to the paperwork that was completed, allowing him to be adoptable. God writes our stories. His the author of all life. He does not stop authoring our stories at birth. He continues to write them and He wrote this boy's story.

This is one of the nannies who took care of James while he was at the Tikuret orphanage. He loved her very much; he was greatly attached to her and would cry for her while we were at the orphanage.

He has no memory of her now. I show him these pictures and he understands that it is a picture of him, but she is a stranger to him now.

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The Tikuret orphanage where James lived while in Addis Ababa.

Saying good-bye to the orphanage and his nanny.
If you were to measure the time since we left the orphanage in days, 1, 095 days have past since that day. Three years today.

1,095 days of being a little brother, the best helper, the youngest Thurman boy, the baby SOT, a Son of Thunder, a friend to many, loved by so many.

To know him is to know energy, joy, big eyes and an even bigger smile. Three years ago, God chose Melaku and we are forever grateful.
Happy Third Gotcha Day!