James

We have two youngest children.

It is not a Larry, Darrell, and Darrell sort of thing. It is rather an interesting story of the heart. One might say that my wife and I had a heart attack at the same time.

My wife Anna is an Amazing woman. It is widely held that many men marry up, but I freely admit, I got a 12 foot ladder to reach her and climbed all the way to the top. At least that what her step-dad thought. He though I was as far down as I thought she was far up. Over the years, Anna has endured so much suffering and tragedy, yet she has allowed it to shape her into a lady of unusual grace.

When we married, she worked for the Welfare Department while I finished seminary. We moved to the first church and she never finished her Masters. When we moved to Abilene, I asked Anna to go through the counseling program with me and(and get this, I promised) if she did, I would carry her books. Lame, but we were already married so one doesn't work so hard on one's pick-up lines. We graduated with counseling degrees--she did better than me.
And then she went to work. She worked with some of the hardest people in the world to work with--poorly motivated mothers who are about to lose their children for abuse or neglect. From there Anna went to private practice where her clients were foster children, shelter children, and a few odds and ends for good measure.

At the time, Anna and I were practicing out of the same office (yes, at different times)in a small practice. Anna was seeing this child whose deepest desire was to have a real home. CPS's deepest desire was to dump him on someone, anyone who would take him and they thought they had a taker. Against policy and good judgment, this child was making home visits and had begun to bond with the family when the wife called the adoption off.

Anna and I were eating at a local restaurant when she got the call the adoption was off and like the bungling CPS that they are, Anna got to tell the boy. She broke into tears. "Mike, if you could see this boy, and hear him talk about what he wants, it would break your heart." We sat in silence for just a while, as I dipped chip after chip in hot sauce (nothing like chips and hot sauce to put things in perspective)"Well" in a voice that sounded strangely like mine, "we could always adopt." She looked up at me and said, "You would do that?" (Now talk about a pick-up line) And that's how it started.

This blue eyed boy and I met in a casual way at the office. He was coming for his appointment and I made a point to be there. When Anna gave the sign, I opened the waiting room door and looked down. The chair by the door was occupied by my future son. He stuck out his hand and said, "Hi! I'm James!" I said, "Hi, James, I'm Mike" He said, "Yea, I know."

And that is how we got two youngest sons.