This Is My Son Henry...
We just celebrated my son’s 6th birthday a couple weekends ago, the first birthday officially as Henry Thomas Rice. If there is one thing I want him to forever know - it’s that I will always fight for him!
I never publicly wrote about our adoption process. We ultimately waited 918 days to officially adopt our Henry but I never talked about the experience, until now.
It was extremely difficult both emotionally and physically.
We got involved with Henry’s life as my wife and I were traveling to celebrate our 3rd wedding anniversary in 2017. We called the Mouser family who were raising Henry at the time. They are an incredible family who rescued and raised Henry from a terrible living situation when he was only 17 months old. They informed us of the possibility of adopting Henry and to eventually transition him into our home full time. Over the next several months, we developed a really close relationship with the Mouser’s. We watched Henry once a week before we began the transition process. By the summer of 2018, we would take Henry with us on weekend trips to the lake and he would spend the night with us once or twice a week. By the end of fall 2018, Henry moved in with us full time. Honestly, it was tough, and dealing with our government’s foster system was draining.
We were scheduled to have our Fact Finding Court Case (to remove parental rights) for Henry on October 18th, 2018. After waiting in court for a couple hours, it was postponed to November…and for reasons unannounced to us.
On November 20th, 2018 we waited in court just to find out his case was pushed back again. They said they would reconvene on December 6th just to set a date sometime in January.
Fast forward to January 18th, 2019. I am at a church conference in Texas and my wife shows up in court to find out they would push Henry’s case to March. She called me furious. Not only do we have to take off work for these court cases, but it’s hard to help people understand how restricted you are in the foster system unless you’ve been in it. For example, we would need to get permission to do pretty much anything…Want to go on a date night? Your sitter must be background checked and approved by DCS. Want to travel that weekend? You have to get permission to leave the state. Want to make sure your foster son doesn’t look like a train wreck? You have to get permission from a judge to cut his hair. I’m not complaining about the rules…they exist for a reason…some make sense, some don’t but every aspect of your life has to be planned with a foster child in your home.
When I received that phone call, I remember where I was sitting in the auditorium. I remember the first song that was played that day…it was the first time I heard “Raise a Hallelujah”… I remember sitting there crying tears of frustration as I watched the musicians lead the room full of leaders in worship. I wrote this on Facebook after receiving the news that his court date would change again.
Today we’re thankful! We’re thankful for all those praying for our family. Our court case was pushed back again until March and although it’s frustrating to see a pair of 4 year old eyes longing to belong we know he already does! We sang a song this morning at the O2 Church Network conference and the lyric says, “my weapon is a melody.” In the Kingdom of God we don’t have weapons of violence; we have weapons of praise. We can’t control all the situations in our lives but we can control our responses! God is waiting for us to bring heaven to earth and it’s activated through our attitude!
I wrote that because I meant it but also because I was preaching to myself. As a pastor, I can’t tell people to trust God if my circumstances persuade me not too. It’s okay to be frustrated…it’s not okay to allow my frustrations dictate what I believe about God.
After two more months of waiting, we finally landed on March 20th, 2019 - Henry’s Fact Finding Court Case. 14 people testified. We learned many harsh truths about the reality of Henry’s early life as we heard story after story of circumstances and situations that our son was put through. For 5 hours, my wife and I just held hands in that courtroom as we wiped tears after each person took the stand. How could someone...? Why would someone…? I really just don’t understand. We left that courtroom with mixed emotions of deep sadness and anger yet were overwhelmed with joy to finally be able to begin the adoption process of our little boy.
Little did we know that because of many mistakes made by the state, his adoption day wouldn’t happen until April 9th, 2020, more than a year later. Little do people know how consuming parenting a foster child is. We had weekly commitments - counseling, art therapy, physical therapy, DCS check-ins, and weekly charts to be filled out. There was nothing easy about it.
BUT
We would do it all over again.
WHY?
Because of love…
Because of the Gospel…
Because Henry is my son and I always viewed him that way…
It may have taken the state nearly 3 years to recognize my sons identity but he is a Rice and a Rice he’ll always be...