Originally published at ScottHowell.ws. Please leave any comments there.

I am writing this series to inform people what I believe to be absolute truth. It is my hope that through these postings that I will be able to give a better idea of my beliefs and be able to offer encouragement to others who are seeking out Christ, or to provide at least some perspective on why I hold so strong to my faith. To Christians and Non-Christians alike, I ask that you please read in the months ahead with an open mind. I realize their might be some differences in opinion or specific doctrine that I dwell on, but ask that we can carry on this discussion in a respectful manner. My intent here is not to save you – only God can open your eyes and ears to the truth. My goal is just to inform you the best I know how, about the grace that God can provide in your life.

I wanted to start by showing part of the church’s constitution that I attend, as its Statement of Faith aligns perfectly with mine. I’ve replaced “We” with “I” to make it a bit more personal. This might seem a bit mundane, but I feel it is important that I showcase this, as I will use it as a foundation for the rest of my posts and will be something that I reference back to continually on various topics.

Originally published at ScottHowell.ws. Please leave any comments there.

It is my hope that 2012 has been great to everyone so far! It’s been great to us. As we’ve entered into the last tail end of this winter, I’m reminded again how much has changed for us in a year. It was about this time last year when we were getting ready to move to Indiana. Though 2011 hasn’t seen as quite of a whirlwind of change that 2010 saw in our adoption of Jackson, it is quite obvious our family has a lot of new blessings to look back on from this past year. We have a new home, a new church family and we are making some new friends as well. I tend to sometimes take things for granted, so it is nice to kind of sit back and reflect on things like this from time to time and realize how fortunate we have been. All of these things of course have been a blessing from God to which we owe all praise!

As my life has been nothing but ongoing changes throughout the last year, I’ve felt it’s come time again to revaluate the purpose of my blog. Though I’ve only been at this web address for part of the time, I have been blogging for nearly a decade. Throughout the years if you’ve been with me for that long you’ve watched how I grew into an adult after graduating high school and entering college, how I thought I would forever be cursed to single-hood, to being able to witness watching me grow in my faith alongside my wife Lindsey as we took a big step in following God’s will and adopting our first son. Since then we’ve had our move, as well as myself making the big change from the world of business to the world of a homemaker and kid chaser as a stay-at-home parent.

Originally published at ScottHowell.ws. Please leave any comments there.

I just had to get one quick post in while 2011 was still here. I’ve neglected my blog for a couple of months, but will pick things back up this coming month. I hope everyone has a safe and Happy New Year 2012!

Originally published at ScottHowell.ws. Please leave any comments there.

October 18th has become a very special day for our family. Today Lindsey and I celebrate our third wedding anniversary. I am thankful to our God for such an amazing wife and I love her so much! Yet today’s anniversary is shared with yet another exciting celebration as it was just one year ago today that we met for the first time our son, Jackson Scott Howell, on the other side of the world in Kharkiv, Ukraine. Though so much has changed since then, it is hard to believe only a year ago we were just a family of two.

I’ll never forget our first interaction with Jackson. He was excited, yet shaking from nervousness, as one of the nurses introduced us to him on that Fall morning in a small office of his orphanage. At the time he had no clue his entire world was about to be flipped upside down for the better. At the time, he was probably just excited to get out of music class or whatever activity was normally going on in his strict day to day schedule. He had a huge smile on his face when he met us and was happy to pose for pictures with us. (Something we can’t quite seem to get him to do today, as he’s much too busy now!).

That day changed our lives in a special way and showed us God’s amazing love and grace. I won’t go into the specifics in this post, but if you are a new reader to my blog and are interested you can read our entire Ukrainian experience at this link.

However, there was one story we chose not to share publicly on our blog last year.  Since that point in time most of our family, friends, and past church family in Ohio have had the opportunity to hear it. I’ve held back from mentioning it because my goal has always been to share it with a humble heart and in person if it was at all possible, as the story is a great testament of the intricacies and amazing wonderment that makes up God’s will. I want you to know that thanks to our experience in Ukraine last year I know without a doubt that God’s will is perfect. Everything he wills for your life, whether painful or in joy, means something and has a powerful purpose. Most of the time we as humans don’t always get to fully understand why things in life work out the way they do, but God revealed one example to us while in Ukraine that has forever changed my perspective and devotion to Him.

Last year we came in contact online with a family from North Carolina who traveled to Ukraine shortly before us to adopt as well. Craig is a pastor of a church in his hometown along with his wife Jenny and daughter Moriah. They unfortunately did not have success in finishing their adoption process, which sadly is more common than most most people know. International adoption is a complex and complicated endevevour. You are never guaranteed anything will work out and you sign several documents with your agency agreeing to this prior to your trip.

When adopting in Ukraine you are not given a referral usually until the day of your SDA appointment with the government. (This very well might have changed by now – the Ukraine adoption system is re-organizing this year). To give a little background on this family’s trip, they went through two referral processes. After meeting and then declining their first referral, they returned to the capital of Ukraine for a second chance referral appointment, where they were shown the same book of unhealthy children we also were shown prior to accepting our own referral to meet Jackson.

It takes a special type of person to adopt these kind of children who are prepared and willing to adopt children with special needs. But praise the Lord that these children are getting adopted by those who feel called. I have met these kind of people before and they are amazing.

After making the difficult decision to decline their first referral after meeting the child, they were presented with with no further healthy children that they felt they could handle as a family. This family unfortunately had to live through the pain that comes with returning home without a new child.  But through the pain they were reminded of God’s great miracle of life, that at least they would be returning home with their daughter of age 8 at the time.

Below is the sermon Pastor Craig gave to his congregation upon returning home.  His sermon explains the details of their trip more eloquently than I ever could. So I will leave it to you the reader to decide if you would like to  listen and hear for yourself one of the greatest stories of God’s will my family was able to be a part in. We never have met Craig and family in person, but as Craig had explained to me in an email we are ‘mended to your hearts as a reminder of how God does His miraculous work through our steps of faith.’

The sermon is 42 minutes long, but if you are a reader of this blog – Christian or not, I highly ask that you consider giving it a listen. If you’ve ever questioned God’s will in your life, know that God always gives one glimmer of hope.

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Lord, Thank You for my incredible wife and my wonderful son Jackson.

Originally published at ScottHowell.ws. Please leave any comments there.

As the leaves have mostly changed colors and begun to fall and summer slips away, it’s a reminder of how drastically our lives have changed since last year when Autumn came our way. A year ago today we took our comfortable life style, free evenings to ourselves and typical schedule and threw it out the window as we jumped on a plane from Columbus, OH headed to Ukraine into the world of the unknown. Back then we didn’t know the exact outcome of our trip. Although we now know Jackson was destined to be with us (who is now 3 years old and full of life), at the time we didn’t know if we would end up with a boy or girl as we had just days before been informed that our agency upped our age limit from 3 and under to 5 and under!

But everything worked out and here we are a year later and a lot has changed. A lot of unexpected things have happened and some surprises down the road but it’s safe to say I think we’ve been following God’s word and will the best we know. I’ll speak for myself, but it hasn’t all been easy and has been stressful at times. We are settled into our new life in Indiana, but Lindsey has been very busy at work these last few months which have turned into long evenings with Jackson and I alone holding down the fort until 8 PM or later. So as I’ve been a little exhausted from it all, I’ve took some time away from here and have tried to spend my free time utilizing every minute I have to myself efficiently.

There’s a lot of good to report though – we have indeed found our church home and forever grateful for being around great new friends and influences. The church we attend is very biblical based with no if, ands or buts, and it’s been encouraging to hear our pastor Kirk get so enthusiastic in teaching the Word. Though we started attending in June, they’ve been hitting the Book of Mark since we’ve been here and I think we are on chapter 9. The associate pastor mentioned the other day that they started Mark well over a year ago, so it gives you some context just how detailed the teaching really is!

One of the biggest things we missed when we moved to Indiana was being part of a life group, and within the last month they started up at our church. We are in a great group which meets Friday nights with lots of kids and a manageable amount of families where the discussion is intense and fun at the same time. We are reading a book right now called “Radical” by David Platt and it really encourages you to pick up your cross and stop living a watered down version of American Christianity that is very prevalent in today’s society.

Something different we do that we didn’t at our last church is that the men and women meet separately once a week for coffee to just catch up on each others lives intermixed with Bible reading and prayer. It’s a real intentional way to encourage one another and keep ourselves accountable during the week and I think our new friendships have grown stronger because of it as well. I really like the men in our group and am so happy to have met them! It makes all the difference in the world being surrounding by other men in Faith.

On a personal level I feel God working in my heart and growing in me. In the past few months I’ve really come to appreciate my relationship with Him and with my own son, Jackson. Staying at home has been great, some small hardships aside. As I watch Jackson grow it’s becoming so much fun to raise him and be such an important part of his life. The kid is on the go all the time now and is full of words now and always singing, dancing and laughing. It’s hard to believe just a year ago we were starting our adventure to bring him home. It seems like he’s been with us longer than that. Earlier this month we submitted our first post-adoption report and it was a lot of fun to look back at all of the memories and photos from that time as we prepared it!

As we approach the year anniversary of meeting Jackson a week from today, it’s become a constant reminder of how great our God is. I ask that you pray that in the next week that God can reveal a way for me to explain just how incredible this adoption really was. For those reading that don’t know us personally there were some “details” we left out of our adoption blog journey last year while we were in Ukraine. After a year I think and hope it is the right time to share with everyone how mysterious, yet perfect God’s will is.

Jackson isn’t with us by chance (even with the coincidence we met him our second wedding anniversary!). The story is personal and I just want to be careful when I explain it that it doesn’t come off as prideful. I pray that God would humble my heart as I try to find a simple and short way to explain how God touched the lives of not just our family, but another American family we never had the chance to meet in person, but whose lives we will be intermixed forever in a very special way. Without out a doubt, we serve an Amazing God!