A Mother’s Love Knows No Bounds
By: Raychel Chumley
Last Sunday we celebrated Mothers Days. You did celebrate your mother, right?! Today, I want to share with you one mothers story. She is a young mother to a one year old little boy and her and her husband are in the process of adopting two special needs children. She is an amazing woman with an amazing goal. Her story is the perfect example of a mother’s love knows no bounds.
Natalie Maxwell is an amazing young woman who I have had the privilege of getting to know over the last year. Less than a year ago, a few months after having their first born, God called them to adopt. Not in a few years when their baby was older, not someday when they owned a home, NOW! Instead of running from what God was asking them to do, Natalie and her husband Ryan accepted God’s call on their life and have taken the steps to bring home TWO sons. These are not “normal” children according to the words standards. In fact, their sons are considered rejects and unworthy because of their disabilities and the color of their skin. That didn’t matter to Natalie. One look at their brown eyes…and their mom was hooked. This is a mother who understood that love knows no bounds. I want to share her story in her own words of how God has brought their family together…
TWO clicks
Will you love me?
My heart broke for this child and I knew I had to know more about him. I contacted RR and they told me where Ivan lives and that he is in danger of being transferred to a mental institution very soon. They sent me all of the information for an adoption from his country and to my astonishment we met EVERY requirement and it would be less then half as expensive as a Russian adoption would be. My heart was still set on Russia, but I just could NOT get this child’s face out of my mind.
Lord is this you?
Ryan and I began praying about/for Ivan. We began researching orphanages and institutions in his country and what we found wrecked us. The abuse and neglect of children with special needs there was unspeakable. I knew that God was giving us our answer with every horror story we read.
We had NO choice.
We had to do everything we possibly could to rescue Ivan.It seemed like God was growing my heart for the children of this country by the minute. In only a couple days of praying for Ivan, he seemed like a member of our family. Our hearts longed for him and my heart was breaking more and more knowing the hell he was living in.One night I couldn’t sleep. All I could think about was our Ivan. So I did what I had been doing none stop for the past two days, I went onto RR and found his picture. I stared at it for a long time and then I saw something that would again change our lives and hearts forever… Orphanage 42CLICKThe next image I saw was a little boy with dark olive skin sitting in a bumbo chair. I read his profile and my broken heart somehow found a way to break even more. He was 5, just a couple months younger then Ivan. He was diagnosed with CP just like Ivan. He was in imminent danger of being transferred to a mental institution just like Ivan, but when I read that because of his skin color he is completely ostracized by the staff at the orphanage and never interacted with,
when I read that after only a couple days of another mother playing with him he could clap his hands, when I read that he had a twin sister who a family had chosen to adopt, but had left him in his prison, my heart BROKE!
It shattered!
I couldn’t take it, so I scrolled down to find Ivan’s picture, but something always drew me back up to the other boys picture, sweet little Simeon.
I finally fell asleep that night, but I awoke early in the morning and hurried to my inbox to find the email that held the information on adopting multiple children from this country. I had skipped over it before because we had no intention of adopting more then one child, but something in me had to know.
What I read blew my mind!
To adopt another child from the same orphanage was only $5,000 more! Simeon already had $4,000 raised for him through RR.
Lord what are you doing!
God, seriously are you crazy!! TWO!!
Ryan had just really accepted moving forward with an adoption. How could I tell Him that God wants us to adopt TWO!?! So I did what any brilliant wife would do, I waited until he was in the shower and I couldn’t see his reaction through the shower curtain. I spoke quickly, “Hey babe, I think God wants us to adopt two boys. There is another 5 year old boy in Ivan’s orphanage who is almost completely funded. I don’t see how we could go to adopt Ivan and not try to adopt him as well.”
I left it at that…
Ryan eventually got out of the shower and came to find me…. “Can I see his picture?”
I showed him… and the rest is history 
We had found our boys 
Two days later we were speaking in church about the pillow pet project and in between services the church secretary came up to me and gave me a check for $1,000 from someone in our congregation. I asked her if they said what it was for and she told me that she thinks they wanted it to be used when we adopt someday. NO ONE knew about the boys.
God knew
In that moment we knew that this child was our Levi. It just made sense. Months before this ever happened Ryan and I were praying for our future child. We would pray for God to give us his name so that we could pray more specifically. Then one day I woke up from a nap with the name Levi so clearly written on my heart. It was a name we never would of chosen. I was brought to tears when I looked up what it means. Levi is Hebrew for “joined in harmony” “attached” “combined”.
At the time I took it as God’s confirmation that our adoption was going to be okay for our family, that our child was going to be joined in harmony with us, but now I know, at that moment, months before we would see his face, God gave us the name of this precious child who had been rejected by so many in his short life. His country looked at him and called him “cursed”, but God looked at him and called Him Levi. God knew that someday he would be joined into a family that would love him like crazy.
God sustained him for such a time as this. Please pray for our Ivan and our Levi. It will take a miracle for us to require the funds and be approved to bring them home. Please join us in believing and praying for our miracle.
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