Brothers find home for Christmas
Posted: 12/05/07
Brothers find home for Christmas
By Bill Martin
Children at Heart Ministries
ROUND ROCK—For one of the few times in their young lives, Trey and Derek Atkins will have a real home for Christmas, thanks to Charlie and Cindy Goble, a Burnet couple who thought their childrearing days were behind them.
“To see God working and then be allowed to be right in the middle of it is an amazing and humbling experience,” Cindy Goble said.
Derek (left) and Trey Atkins had been in and out of children’s homes most of their young lives, and they never thought they would be adopted. Charlie and Cindy Goble of Burnet thought their childrearing days were over. But they all believe God had other ideas. (Photo courtesy of Children at Heart Ministries) |
When Derek, 11, and Trey, 12, arrived at Texas Baptist Children’s Home—part of Children at Heart Ministries—last February and moved into a cottage with house parents Marta and Robert Brock, it was an all-too-familiar environment.
After their mother died a few years ago, their father tried to raise them on his own, but severe health problems made that difficult.
Seven times they were placed in a children’s home in Louisiana. Seven times they were taken out.
“He would place them in the home when he got sick, then take them back out when he got better,” Jason Schmidt, their case manager at Texas Baptist Children’s Home, explained. “Then he would get sick again and put them back in. He really wanted the kids with him, and he was fighting tooth and nail to keep them.”
Eventually, he moved to Dripping Springs where an older daughter was living. As his health deteriorated, he tearfully asked Texas Baptist Children’s Home to care for the boys. A third brother, a little older, elected to stay with his father.
“They are the most delightful little boys you have ever met,” Schmidt said. “Everyone fell in love with them.”
As part of their counseling, last summer they attended Camp Agape, a Christian bereavement camp near Lampassas for youngsters who have lost a loved one. It was a chance for the boys to deal with emotions stemming from the death of their mother.
Meanwhile, Charlie and Cindy Goble, having raised three children and becoming grandparents, were settling into life as empty-nesters. They even downsized to an 880 square foot, two-bedroom, one-bath home on several acres near Burnet.
The Gobles, members of First Baptist Church in Burnet, had been praying for a ministry in which they could become involved. When they heard about Camp Agape, Mrs. Goble began to make gifts for children at the camp.
At camp, each boy is paired with an adult “buddy.” But during the week before Derek and Trey were to arrive, the camp director e-mailed the Gobles to say they were one buddy short for the next session.
“Charlie said he would love to do it,” Mrs. Goble recalled. “But he has his own business and had two clients waiting for some work that had to be done by that Friday, and he just couldn’t get out of it.”
The day before camp started, the Gobles drove out to deliver their gifts and meet the staff. When the camp director asked Mrs. Goble if she had talked to anyone to find another buddy, before she could respond, her husband volunteered. At the last minute, his clients had informed him that they wouldn’t have the information he need to do his work. He was at camp at 8:30 the next morning.
“We knew it was God opening a door to allow him to go to camp,” Mrs. Goble said. “But at the time, we thought it was just to be available for the boys. Now we know that it was more than that. It was part of the plan.”
Goble was the camp buddy to Derek, and they bonded immediately. On Sunday afternoon, Mrs. Goble attended an afternoon luau at the camp.
“I was probably there for an hour, and Trey sat right across the table from me,” she remembered. “There weren’t many words spoken, but something clicked when I looked into his eyes.”
After that, the Gobles became host families through Texas Baptist Children’s Home for the brothers, having them in their home one weekend a month.
“We really began to pray about how we could keep a relationship with these boys,” Mrs. Goble said. “We really felt led by God, that the Holy Spirit was giving us an opportunity, telling us we needed to have the boys in our home permanently.”
The Gobles told Schmidt if the opportunity ever presented itself in the future, they would be willing to adopt the boys. The boys weren’t told anything about it, but two weeks later, when Marta Brock picked up Trey from school, looking very serious he said he wanted to talk to her about something.
“I’ve been thinking,” he told Mrs. Brock. “I would like someone to talk to my father to see if he would let us be adopted.”
“I called the Dad and asked him what he thought,” Schmidt said. “He said that was what he had been praying for. The older daughter said that was what she had been praying for, too. And their grandmother in Louisiana, who had lost contact with them, called me and said she had been praying for years that this would happen.”
“Their father said he had mixed emotions, but he felt like God’s hand was in it,” Mrs. Goble said. “He felt like we had been sent their way to make sure the boys would have a permanent home.”
In a matter of days, the Gobles picked up Trey and Derek, and they were enrolled in school in Burnet. Their father signed a power of attorney, and the process of a legal adoption is underway. The boys have totally adjusted to their new home.
And at each step in the process—from a last minute change that allowed Charlie Goble to take part in Camp Agape, to long-term prayers being answered, to an unexpected windfall of money needed to pay the attorney’s fees for the adoption, to much more— everyone involved sees the fingerprints of God.
“We know without a shadow of a doubt that this is God’s hand at work,” Mrs. Goble said. “You look at every little instance in this, and you see how God has already laid it out. I’ve experienced God in several ways, but not on this level.”
Then there’s the matter of adoption from the Texas Baptist Children’s Home in the first place. Practically speaking, it just isn’t done.
“We do not have a formal program for adoptions and do not facilitate them,” said Kip Osborne, Campus Life Supervisor at TBCH. “Almost all of the families of children who are placed here would not agree to give up parental rights.”
While Derek’s and Trey’s father has agreed to do what appears to be best for the boys, the Gobles have promised that the boys won’t lose touch with their father or with their other siblings. In addition to the brother who still lives with the father, an older brother and two younger sisters previously were adopted into Christian homes in Louisiana.
This year, Derek and Trey finally will be home for Christmas. Of course, it’s a bit cramped, since the Gobles moved into a two-bedroom, one-bath house. But they have already started thinking about an expansion.
“No doubt God will take care of that too,” Mrs. Goble said.
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