Samuel

Some of you may have been following our friends, the Armstrong's, blog about their journey this year adopting a little boy from Guatemala. Their story is an amazing one of hope and faith and may I say endurance! Emily moved down to Guat last year to be with their little boy Samuel until all of the legal stuff could happen to bring him home. She ended up living there with him for about 7 months. Jimmy came down a few times to visit but other than that they were apart. What a challenge. What a commitment. What amazing parents.

God is faithful and Emily and Samuel were finally able to come home to Kansas City a few weeks ago. Last week they came to St. Louis for Thanksgiving and we got to spend some time with them and our other sweet friends Katie and Nathan. Jimmy, Shane, and Nathan were college roommates and for the first time all of our little kiddos played together.

But before our play date I snagged them for a photo shoot. I couldn’t resist taking photos of the three of them finally home and together for good.

It was obvious that Samuel is very attached to his daddy even with all of the time they had to spend apart.

And I think he is pretty fond of momma too.


He is so adorable. Those cheeks!

Welcome home Samuel and Emily. In a world where you hear about so many negative things and sad things and scary things, it blesses my soul to see you three so happy together.

I’ll leave you with Emily’s own words from her blog because it sums up their story better than anything I could ever say...

I want to echo the words of Hannah in I Samuel 1:26-28 when she gives the Lord credit for her boy saying: "As surely as you live, my lord, I am the woman who stood here beside you praying to the LORD. I prayed for this child, and the LORD has granted me what I asked of him. So now I give him to the LORD. For his whole life he will be given over to the LORD." Hannah named her son Samuel which means "God has heard". Thank You, Lord Jesus, for hearing our prayers, for holding us through this adoption journey and for bringing Samuel home!