
*All donations to the Coombs family are tax-deductible
Travis: I can’t put my finger on the exact moment that led us to adopt. When we were dating, I think Laurie and I always had a mutual understanding that adoption was a potential option for us. Laurie experienced very difficult pregnancies with our two oldest daughters. After our second daughter, Avery, was born, we both knew that Laurie shouldn’t experience another pregnancy. It was also around this time when the devastating earthquake struck Haiti. I remember a strong feeling of sorrow for all of those children whose families died in an instant. It wasn’t much longer after that we started talking about growing our family through adoption. I’m one hundred percent positive that this was just God’s plan for us. He led us down the path and we were fortunately brave enough to follow. Our third daughter, Joy, is adopted from Uganda. While her adoption process was emotionally and financially very difficult, we wouldn’t have it any other way and we would do it again in a heartbeat.
Laurie: God planted the seed of His call to adopt in me long ago. I remember asking my parents to adopt a child when I was young. They didn’t end up doing so, but I think that’s about the time I began to think maybe I would adopt a child of my own someday.
Travis and I began talking about the possibility of adoption before we married while we talked about what kind of future we wanted. However, it wasn’t until I came to know Christ that I was able to see adoption for what it truly is––a picture of the Gospel. Scripture tells us that as Christians we were once orphans, but have been adopted into the family of God as sons and daughters. Ephesians 1:4-5 says, “In love He predestined us for adoption to Himself as sons through Jesus Christ…”
Adoption is hard, but our children are worth it. They’re worth all the prayers and work and tears it takes to bring them home to a place of redemption and belonging. I can’t help but think God feels the same about us. We’re messy. Adopting us and then reconciling us to Himself and redeeming our lives was ridiculously hard and costly to God, but it was somehow worth it to Him. We’re worth it!
Once a child comes home to their forever family, they are grafted into the fabric of that family in such a way that there truly is no distinction between a child given through adoption or by birth. Just as there is no distinction within the family of God. These children are ours and we are His. What an incredible truth this is!
What Brought You Together?
Laurie: Travis and I both grew up in the small town of Carson City, Nevada. We have been married for sixteen years. Our lives have been somewhat intertwined since late childhood. We went to the same middle and high schools, but with Travis was two grades ahead of me. We didn’t start dating until we were seventeen and nineteen years old. We were married after attending two different colleges and started our family four years later when our oldest daughter, Ella, was born followed by our second daughter, Avery. Two and a half years later, we began seriously considering adoption and embarked on Joy’s adoption later that year.
Why Adopt Now?
Travis: God’s timing and plan can be rather comical sometimes. After our adoption experience with our third daughter, Joy, I was emotionally spent! Pursuing another adoption was probably the very last thing I wanted to do. I thought we’d settle our family of five into a nice routine and start enjoying a nice leisurely life. It turns out that God had other plans for us as he pulled our hearts to a beautiful little girl whom we met when we were in Uganda for Joy’s adoption. Laurie was entirely convicted that God was calling us to adopt this little girl, but I was resistant at first. As the weeks passed and prayers were said, my heart softened and I began to see that our family wasn’t quite done growing.
Laurie: This is our second adoption. Our newest little one is an incredible four year old little girl in Uganda who has been through more than anyone should have to experience. The adoption climate in Uganda has become increasingly difficult since bringing Joy home, but we have felt the Lord tell us to fight for our little girl. Our little girl needs redemption and a family to call her own. She needs to know the unconditional love of a mother and father who are for her and who will protect her no matter what may come. So by the grace of God, we will do all we can to make that happen.
Is there anything else you’d like to share?
Laurie: When we began our first adoption in the fall of 2010 we were full of excitement, hope and faith. What we thought would be a one to two year process quickly turned into a crazy long, wonderfully messy, immensely beautiful and difficult five and a half year long journey to bring our little one home from Uganda.
It was a hard road to walk for all of us, including our oldest two daughters who were three and five years old when we began to adopt. We hit roadblock after roadblock as we pursued our little one but always felt the Lord tell us to keep going. We wrestled with the wait, with the challenges, and with receiving and then losing a sibling referral, but as time went on we became thankful for all the fruit that was coming out of this season of our lives. Our adoption truly had become the soil in which our seeds of faith would grow as a family.
Then we were given Joy, the child God had ordained to be ours from the beginning of time. It was the grace of God that kept us waiting and that brought us to our little Joy. Our little girl finally came HOME!
We stood worshipping our God at church one day months after she had come home. As I stood next to them, I couldn’t help but see the grace of God poured out upon us. Later I said to Travis, “Let’s do more hard stuff,” because it’s in those hard places that we can truly see God work in ways we cannot even imagine. Now we’re adopting again. We know the road is long and hard (though we hope we’re not in for another five and a half years!), but in that hard place, we know we will see the faithfulness of God once again.
Laurie
Growing up in Carson City lent itself to a love of the outdoors. My mom, dad, brother, sister and I were continually outside camping, hiking, fishing, hunting, snow skiing, and boating. I truly did have a wonderful childhood. Though I had some tough things to go through as I entered young adulthood, I have seen God’s redemptive power work all things for good in my life.
I have truly been blessed by the grace of God. I am a saved and redeemed follower of Christ, a wife to the most amazingly loyal husband, a mommy to three (four!) beautiful daughters who make me smile. We live in Reno, Nevada with our three daughters and cannot wait to bring our fourth daughter HOME! I have been called to share God’s Word through writing and speaking while I raise my girls at home.
As Travis said, we were called to partner with the children’s home who cared for both Joy our fourth little girl. It gave birth to A New Song International which works to transform the lives of orphans and children living in poverty in a small town called Wobulenzi in Uganda. Our mission is to renew the hope and love of Christ of these incredible children. We partner with Happy Times Childcare Initiative to provide food, medical care, an education, a nurturing family-like environment, and to build a self-sustaining infrastructure that will benefit not only the children of Happy Times but will provide assistance to the surrounding community as well.
For more information, please visit www.anewsongintl.org and www.lauriecoombs.org.
Travis
I was born and raised in Carson City, Nevada in the prime time decades of the 80’s and 90’s when a kid could go explore the surrounding neighborhoods with his buddies and the only “rule” was to be back home in time for dinner. Thankfully I was born before the era of social media and smart phones! I grew up skiing, playing soccer, and enjoying all that the great outdoors has to offer with my family (Mom, Dad and two older brothers) and friends.
My dad secured me my first “real” job the summer I turned fifteen working as a laborer for a General Contractor friend of his. I’m not sure if it was the hard work, the camaraderie with the other guys on the job, or what, but I kept going back every school break to that same job and gradually developed some mediocre carpentry skills and a general appreciation for the construction industry. I currently work as a Project Manager for a national general contracting firm whose values are founded in servant leadership and Christian values.
God has blessed me abundantly in all aspects of life. The one I cherish most is my family. I married the most beautiful woman who is well out of my league, and together we have three daughters – Ella (12), Avery (10), and Joy (2) – and we are pursuing our fourth daughter! Together with three other wonderful people, Laurie and I founded a non-profit organization called A New Song International (www.anewsongintl.org) which is aimed at supporting the children’s home in Uganda where our third daughter Joy spent the first several months of her life. Laurie is always challenging me to “do hard things” as these are the times that grow us individually and bring us closer to God. I am so thankful for God’s faithfulness and unending blessings that he has placed in my life through the wonderful individuals He has surrounded me with.
Ugandan Jewelry Online Adoption Fundraiser
I brought back quite a bit of Ugandan jewelry on my last trip to sell to benefit our adoption. Please join us for an online auction adoption fundraiser April 9th through April 16th to help bring our newest little girl HOME from Uganda! All jewelry has been uniquely handmade by local artisans in Uganda. Purchase these unique pieces for you or a loved one and help bring our sweet girl into her family!
Visit our Facebook event page for more information!
Coombs Family Adoption Update
You never quite know how a child will react when meeting their new mommy and daddy for the first time. I believe it’s incredibly important to be sensitive to each child’s comfort level, especially with older children. There’s always that question, will I be able to just scoop her up in my arms and kiss her all over as I’d like to, or will I need to take it slow?
Well, our little miss made that decision for the both of us. When she was brought to the airport to meet my oldest daughter and me on our first trip (of this adoption) to Uganda in October, she ran up behind my hosts yelling, “Mummy” and began hugging my legs before I even had a chance to pick her up. This of course led to me drop all my luggage right there in the way of all the other people arriving in Uganda (sorry!) so that I could scoop her up for that great big hug and kiss! And my last trip’s arrival, one month ago, went pretty much the same as that first one.
There has always been a connection between this sweet girl and our family. Strangely enough, we actually met her the same day we met our Joy who both come from the same children’s home. I asked about little miss at that time, if she had a family coming for her, and was told she did. And so even though I felt that connection, I figured it was not God’s will for her to join our family. But about one year later, I discovered that this other family had abandoned our sweet girl, leaving her with an unknown future. Ugandan adoptions had become increasingly difficult by that time, and my husband and I really did not see how it could be possible to pursue this second adoption. But as we prayed about it, we both felt God tell us to fight for her, and so we are.
“It’ll take a miracle,” I remember saying, “but I feel like we have to try.” And then true to character, we began seeing God open the doors. One door flew open after another before our faith filled eyes to the point that now this adoption doesn’t just seem possible, but probable. Today we say with confident assurance that we are her family, and she is our little girl.
We’ve been before the court for months working to undo what that other family had done. We have prayed and fasted and asked others to pray and prayed some more, and I am so excited to tell you that mountains are moving. We just received the official ruling and order revoking the previous guardianship of that other family. And now, we’re waiting for a few other processes to be complete before we submit our adoption case to the court, hopefully within the next few weeks, to petition for an exemption to the one year fostering requirement due to the exceptional nature of our daughter’s case. Months ago, our attorney didn’t think this route would be possible for us, though we’ve prayed for this very thing from the beginning. But after meeting with the judge over and over again as they worked toward the revocation, he now believes we have a shot due to the fact that the judge alluded to the idea that he may consider granting an exemption in order to get our girl into a family, something she has waited over two years for.
There is no guarantee that we will receive the exemption, but God is making the impossible seem a bit more possible. And only God can do that! But even if we do not receive this exemption, we are still on track to complete our one year foster period in late October. And even though we’d like to get our sweet girl home as quickly as possible, we’re okay with either option. We’ve been in the adoption world long enough to know that God’s timing is always perfect, and so we continue to wait with eager expectancy for the day we get to bring our little girl home!
But the wait is hard. On my last day in Uganda a couple weeks ago, I tried to explain to little miss I’d be leaving that day, as she sat on my lap. “Mommy is going on a plane today back to America,” I said. “But I’ll come back again.” She nodded. “And when I do, you get to go on a plane with Mommy, and we will go to America together to see Daddy and Ella and Avery and Joy!” I said with an excitement that made little miss giggle.
“Okay? Yes?” I said.
“Yes,” was her response. I thought she understood. But she didn’t.
Later that day she said something in her native language of Luganda to a young caretaker. “She thinks she’s going on a plane today to America!” the caretaker carelessly said. And my heart sink. Now, I know she can’t have a full understanding of what adoption really means at her age, but our sweet girl wants to come home. She wants to get on that plane. She wants to join her family in the U.S. But she can’t. Not yet.
And so, I had a trusted caregiver explain in Luganda what would really happen that day. I listened and watched as she was told, and just as I saw understanding in her eyes, she sternly yelled, “No. No. No. No…” in English.
“Does she understand now?” I asked for good measure.
“Yes.”
It breaks my heart to leave her over and over again, especially when she looks me in the eye and says, “I want to go,” as she drops me at the airport, but I remind myself that God’s timing is perfect. He’s preparing her, and us, for what’s ahead. But I do pray our goodbyes will come to an end soon. Will you join me in that prayer?
We’d love for you to join us on this journey. Will you pray with us? Will you ask for favor in every process along the way, with the investigation, the Ugandan judges, and the visa process through the U.S. Embassy? And might you consider joining our adoption love story through donation? This adoption is costly, but our sweet girl is worth it, and we know God will provide every dollar we need to see it to the end. And you could be part of that! Thank you so much for joining our story, whether through prayer or provision.
It truly takes a village!!!