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“Anything with a ball,� Trower says of his 5-year-old’s interests.

Last weekend, father and son played catch with a football for the first time. It was an easier form of communication than the spoken word. Luke speaks Lingala, the language native to the Democratic Republic of Congo, his previous home.

On Saturday, he disembarked a plane at Orlando International Airport and was welcomed by his father; his mother, Jill; and a big sister, Nora. It’s a trip that started five years ago, when he was abandoned near a trash heap and ended up at an orphanage near the town of Kinshasa.

Around the time Luke was 6 months old, the Trowers made a decision guided by their faith: they wanted to adopt a child to complete their family.

Congo has experienced years of violence, with armed gangs wreaking havoc and hundreds of thousands of people fleeing. In some cases, they’ve left children behind. A friend of the Trowers volunteers for the , which helps orphaned Congolese children.

The Trowers set out in October 2018 to navigate the foreign adoption process. They filled out the I-600-A form required by United States Immigration and Customs, completed the adoption process in Congo and sought U.S. State Department approval to bring their son home.

That approval didn’t come. In fact, the Trowers had to take the federal government to court to win the right to adopt Luke and bring him to the U.S. It was a maddening process, with two different federal departments telling different stories. And then the U.S. Justice Department took the Trowers to task, criticizing the family in court documents, for sharing their story with the media.

In February, a federal judge ruled in the family’s favor, and the stressful and urgent process of getting Luke home began.

This time, Adam says, the federal government was a partner, helping the family navigate the final portions of the bureaucratic maze.

Jill compared the process to the final weeks of pregnancy — filled with anxiousness but also hope.

Now comes the really hard part. The Trowers will bring Luke from an orphanage to their rural farm in Pike County, Missouri. They speak very little Lingala; he speaks very little English. It’s why they spent a few days at a hotel in Orlando after Luke arrived, along with a translator from the orphanage, to help with the long-awaited process of forming their new family.

“We are trying to learn to communicate with him, and him with us,� Jill says. “He definitely loves Nora.�

Luke has shared the names of his friends from the orphanage. Adam and Jill have tried to find food that he likes. And with words, hand gestures and the tossing or kicking of a ball, they began to learn about each other and create a new family.

The process was bumpy, Adam says, and they were perhaps naïve to think they could get by without all the help they’ve received — from attorneys, family and friends, their congregation and strangers who read about their tale and offered a prayer or support.

“It was so exciting to see him come through those doors,� Adam says. “It’s amazing to see how quickly he is adapting to things. He’s so full of life.�