Jennifer Grace

From time to time I am going to feature one of our kids in this venue. Not as much to honor them, but to tell of God’s marvelous grace in their lives. With that in mind, let me introduce you to Grace, Jennifer Grace that is.

Jennifer was born in the Russian Far East, in the Amur Oblast. Her parents died when she was young and she went into orphanage around the age of nine. There she stayed with her two brothers Sergei and Zhenya. Jennifer did what she could to keep their family together. This was not always easy as Sergei was, shall we say, not the best of little brothers. Hanging out with the older boys he seemed headed for real trouble.

During this time she met a Russian believer named Tanya. Tanya worked with the orphans and Jennifer formed a real attachment to her. Jennifer started asking Tanya to help them find a family. I say ask, pestered is probably a better word. According to Tanya, Jennifer called almost every day asking if she had found a family for them.

Tanya knew of a couple in America who had been medical missionaries in the region. This couple had been helping the orphanages to find homes for some of the children in America. Tanya got in contact with them to see if they could find a home for Jennifer and her two brothers. Not many people want to adopt an older child, even fewer want to adopt three older children. Still the couple (Barbara and Darwin Olsen) said they would try.

This is where we first entered the story. We had adopted a brother and sister through the
Olsen’s a couple of years earlier. In the process we had become one of their prayer partners for their work with the orphans. They asked us to pray for these three. Some time after that a couple came forward who wanted to adopted them. After several month of working through the process, a snag occurred. The wife became pregnant even though they though they could have no more children. The child would be due about the time the adoption would be completed and they decided that they could not manage both.

We were heart broken. We had come to love these children even though we had never met them. At this point, we asked a simple question: “Could God actually want US to adopt these three children?” The question sounded almost absurd. At the time we had five children, a very large family by most people’s standards. Could God really be asking us to adopt more? We did the only sensible thing that someone in our situation could do. We tried to find someone to talk us out of it.

So we went to the elder board of our church and asked for their advice. They asked us a number of questions, listened to our replies, and as we had hoped rebuked us for our foolishness. NOT! The actually offered to help including the finances. OH, MY! At that point we were kind of stuck. Funny how, when you are unsure of whether you are following the path He has set before you, God often confirms it through the unified voice of His people.

Well after that, things went perfectly smoothly; sure there were lots of bits of paperwork to be done, and things to arrange. But God was in this so there couldn’t possibly be any thing bad that could happen along the way. If you believe that, you need to reread your Bible. Has it ever occurred to you that when Jesus calmed the storm, it was God that brought the storm! God brought the storm so that the Glory of Christ could be manifested in the calming of the storm. On July 31, 2001 our storm came.

I went into work that Friday, just like any other Friday. However, that day we were notified that the company I worked for was closing the Tulsa office and we would no longer be employed. If you were thinking that might be a problem, you were right. Not only was I out of a job, we were due any moment to get the call to go to Russia. As you might expect, not having a job would disqualify us from being able to adopt these children.

So we prayed, and I went to work looking for a job. Unfortunately, I had been working in the telecom industry, and we were right in the middle of the telecom bust. Since telecom was a major industry in Tulsa, needless to say there was a glut of talent and a dearth of jobs.

One week after I lost my job, on Friday Sept 7, 2001 we received the call to go to Russia and we had to be there in less than two weeks. Any of you who have ever traveled to Russia know how hard it is to get your Visa’s. When you adopt you do not get the letter of invitation to get your Visa’s until the court date is set. So we had six days to get our Visa’s and get on the plane to be in Russia in time for our court date, and I did not have a job.

At this point we did the only sensible thing a couple in our situation could do we panicked. After a few minutes we settled down and I went to pray and my wife called our church to ask for prayers. She got a hold of a wonderful man by the name of Jim. Jim is one of those men who knows from whence he was saved, and always exhibits an annoying amount of faith when faced with a crisis. Fortunately, for Jim he was on the other end of a phone when he responded to my wife’s panicked plea for prayers with “I can’t wait to see how God works this one out!” She probably would have wrung his neck. You see she was in the mode of “If you can keep you head, while others about you are losing theirs, you probably don’t understand the seriousness of the situation my son.” Still, I think Jim introduced a much needed godly perspective to her.

About, this time I came back from praying. While praying I had decided that I would do what I could and leave the rest to God. At that point there was one avenue I had not pursued with regard’s to looking for a job. The first week had been spent looking in Tulsa since we really did not want to move. I had one quick possibility left, but that required us possibly moving. I took it.

I called an old friend in Huntsville, and asked if he knew anyone who might have work for me. He offered me a job over the phone! Less than two hours after receiving the call to go to Russia I had a new job in Huntsville, Alabama and we were on our way to Russia again. Things were hectic the next couple of days, we got the Visa paperwork FedExed and made a run to Oklahoma City on Monday to get the last of the paperwork apostilled.

On Tuesday we were packing and waiting for the FedEx truck to arrive with our Visa’s when a friend of mine called. He asked if we were watching television. We turned on the television just in time to see the second plane crash into World Trade Center. The date was September 11, 2001.

As the day wore on we realized that all planes had been grounded, including those to Russia. The FexEx guy delivered our Visa’s and the last of our needed paperwork. He said we sure were lucky that our stuff had gotten in before everything was grounded. We explained to him that luck had nothing to do with it. Still all the planes were ground, including the ones to Russia.

To be continued…