God’s Gift – Jackson Scott Howell

Today will forever mark not only our second wedding anniversary, but the day we first met our little son, Jackson. For over a year we have prayed and prepared for this little one and God delivered in full today. Jackson’s original Ukrainian name is Bohgdan, which in itself translates to “Given by God”. With that in mind and the significance of a day like this, how can anyone doubt our God had a hand on this adoption since before the beginning of time. We serve an awesome God and we are honored to have been blessed in such a way as this. Bohgdan (who we will rename Jackson Scott) is 2 years & 2 months old (26 months) and though small at 20 pounds he is healthy, happy, and very active. So without further ado, please meet our son to be:

Bohgdan was born premature much like me at about 32 weeks and weighed only 4 pounds at birth. From birth until he was 5 months he was in the hospital, when his grandmother gave up custody, because she is 70 years old and was not able to take care of him. Bohgdan also has two sisters, one 12 years old, and another 20 years old, who are not orphans because they live with their grandmother. The only thing on his health record was a heart condition, however it turns out a lot of orphans including Bohgdan were diagnosed with this same condition last winter after getting a sore throat. Take that information as you will. As well, a recent CWA child who was adopted also was given this diagnosis and nothing turned out to be wrong with the child. With all of that said, we are told he has been checked by a doctor recently and was given a clean bill of health. And all procedural tests came back negative.

As for our short one hour meeting with him today, Bohgdan was very friendly and happy to play with us today. He speaks a lot of simple words (in Russian) and was repeating simple phrases like during a game of “Peek-a-Boo!”. I will not lie though, he is definitely a boy! He was very active and ran around the play room, hamming it up for our cameras! He enjoyed riding a toy horse and running around pushing over this inflatable toy they had and laughing affectionately while doing it. However, it was good to see that once this guy was done showing off he did settle down a bit. We were able to sit him down in a chair for over ten minutes while reading a book and feeding him some cookies. 🙂

We return back to the orphanage tomorrow morning for a longer two hour period. After that we are praying and hoping to get on the court’s docket by next week at the earliest. After court, there is the usual 10 day waiting period. Please pray that Jackson will continue to bond with us as a family and that the U.S. approval on the medical records goes well. (The U.S. rarely gives the kid a good rating to any orphan, so we expect them to say that they do not recommend him. But as many adoptive families know, you just have to put your trust in the Lord and move forward if God is calling you  to adopt.) However, regardless we are in it now until the end and plan to do what it takes to bring our boy home soon! Here are some more pictures from today, as well as a video. Thank you family and friends for all of the support. We still need it to make sure things go smoothly and fast in the weeks ahead. God Bless!

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