Forever Family Day

Our second meeting with Joshua and his foster mother wasn't until 3pm on Friday so we decided to go to Seoul Tower that morning before the meeting. There is a tradition of couples going up to Seoul Tower and placing a lock together to symbolize their endless love. Among adoptive families it has now become somewhat of a tradition to place a lock at Seoul Tower as a symbol of their endless love for their child. I was so happy that John and I were able to do this on our actual Family Day.

The time finally came and we had our meeting with Joshua's foster mom. She and I were both crying almost the entire time. She left for a bit to see how Joshua would do without her. We ended up rocking him to sleep with John singing and me holding him on my shoulder.

Then the time came. We all gathered around and Dr. Kim prayed over both the children (there was one other family with us) and their foster families. Here is the English translation of the prayer:

Precious life, one of our many country’s saviors, we send away this life to a foreign country with scarred memories of his homeland.

Please forgive our sins and allow Korea to be a better country so that we will adopt children [someday] from other countries instead of us always sending ours away.

We send this child for care, so please protect his life.
And make it so that he can lead a happy life in his new home.

Please always provide him with grace and intelligence and lead him to live by the rules of Jesus Christ, To have all good fortunes, to help benefit others, and to return the glory to our Lord.

It is our sincere wish that this life will not forget his home country and the love of the people who took care of him.

Father, please remember all the foster families who work hard, whether in favorable or unfavorable conditions, to protect these lives. And bless them for the benefits they are provided with.

By Your blessings, this adoptive family will be full of love and under Your protection.

Now this child leaves. Please make his way as easy as possible and lead him to the most pleasant of lives.

In Jesus’ name, Amen.

After the ceremony, his foster mother took a few more moments with JoonSeo and then placed him in John's arms. I hugged her and gave her the flowers we bought for her. She then hid in the office while we walked upstairs to our room in the guest house.

Here are a first pictures with our boy:

Later that night we joined some of the other families in the kitchen and let the kids play together. This is when we got to see a bit of JoonSeo's personality, what one of the other families called "hurricane Joshua."

I still can't believe he is finally in my arms. I really never thought we would ever get to bring him home. I was sure something would happen to cause the whole thing to fall apart. For those of you waiting, know that those feelings are not real. Our children really do come home!

I can't get over how blessed I am to be a mom to such an amazing little boy.