Our Journey to Luke

The meaning behind the name and how we came to know that he was our son:  Simcha Luke-Thomas

To start you have to understand that adding another child to our family at this point in our lives takes a great deal of faith and trusting that we are doing what "Our Father" is leading us to do. 

Joe and I came to the decision that we would only adopt one child, a daughter this time around, our beautiful little girl Olivia Hope.  Weeks went by after making that decision and one evening I started looking through the yahoo groups and came across a post about Luke.  (I had previously stopped looking at the special needs children because it was so heartbreaking to see the faces of the children.)  but against my better judgment I went to the Orphan's Wish site and saw his sweet face and read the information they had written about him on their blog.  I loved the description of him and how they called him Mr. Happy.  I had a sudden sense that this was my child.   But NO, Joe and I had decided on a daughter, just a daughter, not two children.  I could not get Luke out of my mind that evening, I prayed to God to allow Joe to know of Luke without any mention from me if he was meant to be our son.  That feeling was there though, the same as with my other children, I knew with each child that they were mine.  God would have to lead Joe to Luke though.  The next morning I awoke with Luke on my mind.  Still I refused to say a word about him to Joe, I had to trust that God would show Joe the way to Luke if he were meant to be our son.  That morning after the children had gone out to play and our youngest was down for a nap, Joe and I were sitting and talking catching up on the previous week.  He was telling me about work and I was telling him about the kids and things they had done while he was working, when all of a sudden there was a silence. Joe looked up at me and out of the blue said "If we adopt a son, we will name him Simcha"  WHAT!!!  I was kind of in shock.  I said "Joe, what do you mean"  He said again, "If we adopt a son, we will name him Simcha"  Okay, why are you telling me this..... I then felt that this might be the sign from God I was waiting for.  I sat and told him about Luke...I told him all I knew and that he was called Mr Happy and what a joyous child they said he was.  I told him that I was not going to mention Luke to him unless I had felt that God was leading him to Luke as well. Without speaking Joe got up and left the room.  I was not sure what he was doing.  After a few minutes he came back to me and said "Luke is our son"  I then asked what he had been doing.  He told me that he went and looked up the meaning of the name Simcha.....it means JOYOUS and HAPPY!!!!!!  For us, this was that sign from God.  Now Joe felt what I had felt the previous night, Luke was our son. It became so clear to us and that is when we started praying for God to lead  us in finding a way to bring Luke home.  At that same time, we also started reviewing the files of other little boys because we knew that Luke's file was not available, another family was reviewing it and his file was with a different agency than the one we were using to bring Olivia home.  So many obstacles were against us.  With every file we reviewed we found son after son who we thought were precious and would fit within our family.  BUT, God kept nudging and we knew that nudging meant we would wait this out with Luke.  Surely, God would not have led him to us in this way if he were not meant to be our son.  So we waited, we prayed, we waited some more then the most incredible thing happened.....I got the email :  SEE UPDATE JANUARY 22ND POST

I had never heard of the name Simcha but we both believe that is the name God chose for us to give Luke.  So we are naming him Simcha Luke-Thomas Church.  We will call him Luke, and  the name Thomas is after the husband of the couple who had Luke's file with the other agency.  This family found me through an amazing set of circumstances and reached out to us.  They love Luke very much and  will remain a part of our families life.  They are both a part of our journey, the path to Luke and we want that recognized. 

So that is our story:):):)