The Bugby Family

3 years ago, we were chosen by a very loving mother to be able to parent her children and give them a forever family. This was very unexpected, but when we saw their sweet faces and heard their story, there was no way that we could not honor this mother‘s heart and her sacrificial love. That day, thinking that we were going to be just providing medical care and a safe place for a few days for these boys, we made a commitment to this Mom to love these boys forever and to raise them as our own. We promised to honor her wishes to give them a happy and a safe life. Neither of the boys spoke any English, and we were not aware of this at the time. We just thought that they were very shy or were traumatized. We learned during the first couple of years how to show love and communicate with things other than language. Josh and I learned how to communicate, safety and love through affection, dancing, being silly together, cooking together, making messes together, being outside in nature and just being present. Our church family fully embraced our sons, and church became a place that they recognized as home as well. They may not have understood all of the things that were said to them, but they recognize the loving and tender, embraces, they recognize the cheerful,hello’s & goodbyes & they also recognized what it was to be a part of a church family. Bonding with adoption was not always easy and it did not always come naturally with our youngest.

Our homestudy writer and our adoption attorney with Gulf Coast Adoptions both mentioned to us that we should reach out to Oath Fund. Little did I know that those that were in charge at Oath Fund had already crossed our path years prior. We were able to fill out the application process and in a humongous outpouring of love and support for these boys and their story! Oath Fund was able to raise over $5000 toward our private adoption fees. We were still needing to raise another $11,000! I knew that if the Lord could raise $5000 and just a couple short weeks, that the $11,000 was nothing to him. My husband, very boldly proclaimed at church one night that we were needing a miracle financially, and that we were needing to raise the rest of the funds that we would need to secure these boys future and to allow us to adopt them and give them the family that they were deserving of a family that would always love them Unconditionally and give them every opportunity at a life where they would never know anything other than love.

During the first year, so our oldest son was the only one that our youngest adopted son would bond with. I found myself grieving for a relationship that I did not think was ever going to happen with him. I did not have reciprocated affection, but I never gave up. About a year and a half in, we were at a trampoline park, and he fell into the foam pit. He reached his little hand up and looked me right in the eyes and said “Mommy”, and I knew that day that I was more than a person to him, but I was someone that he recognized was there to protect him, to pick him up when he needed me most, and that relationship has since grown into a deep love, which we both feel toward each other. When we were first presented a few days after having the sweet boys into the idea of adoption and becoming there forever home, we realized the financial burden was more than what we were able to bear. Private adoption is an extravagant cost, and I cried out to the Lord, and we made a promise that we would devote ourselves to these boys but that we were going to have to have a miracle.

Very shortly after we went up to the altar for prayer for this financial miracle, we were approached by our pastor, and he handed us a check for $11,000 and said that God had spoken to someone and that they wanted to provide for this need. This was the first among many miracles and many confirmations from the Lord that these boys were to be our signs, and that the Lord was going to provide for all of their needs. Adopting these two boys into our family when they didn’t speak English, and came from a completely different culture and also at the tender ages of two and three was not easy, it was unexpected, but I cannot even remember my life without them in it. Adoption has forever, changed our lives, it has changed our family for the better, it is given us a deep and rich perspective that we didn’t have previously.