In a small room telling her story, Karin White of Newberry gives simple instructions to her newly adopted 5-year-old son as he crawls around the room, shouts syllables above her own voice and then rocks the base of a nearby podium.

“You’re going to make this stuff fall on your head. You need to stop. You need to stop,” she says. “I don’t know what you’re saying.”

Clifford is, after all, speaking Haitian Creole, scooting around on the floor though he can walk and a little unruly at the moment.

But White, equipped with king-size patience, five crayons and 21 months of Creole lessons, doesn’t seem to mind his busyness.

“We felt like God was asking us to do this,” she says of her family’s new addition.

Clifford White spent his early years hungry in Haiti.

Malnourished, he crawled and wore diapers at age 3 when his birth mother brought him to an orphanage.

She thought her son was crippled, and didn’t think she could handle raising him.

But it turns out Clifford wasn’t crippled, only malnourished with a slight hip problem and other alignments.

White and her husband, Dr. Michael White, first saw Clifford in the orphanage where they served on a medical mission trip in 2007.

He was one of 40 children there needing a family.

But the Whites weren’t thinking adoption.

“We have two beautiful girls. We had not planned on having any more children,” says Karin.

But in between the time the Whites left Haiti and returned the next year, Clifford’s adoption was in the works, unbeknownst to them.

An orphanage worker told Clifford’s mom, who still visited him at the orphanage, that if she officially gave Clifford up for adoption, a family would adopt and help him.

“I want you to think about adopting Clifford,” the woman told the Whites when they returned for another mission trip.

But the adoption request was not a complete shock. It was the second in a series of prompts to adopt Clifford that Karin thinks were from God.

Before their trip, Karin’s grandmother called her over to her home to see an article in the Christian magazine Guideposts about author Karen Kingsbury who adopted Haitian children.

“She felt led (by God) to tell me Karen Kingsbury’s story,” Karin says, “prior to our trip.”

“And it was like, OK, we’ll do it,” White says laughing. “Of course my husband said, ’We’ll talk about it.’”

They talked, and soon after stepped out on the long, patience-building adoption path.

“We wanted everything to happen yesterday,” she says.

Along the way, Clifford’s birth mother changed her mind about allowing adoption.

Then she changed it back.

But then there was this one paper missing Michael’s signature.

“And I knew it was on there as good as I’m sitting here,” says Karin. “And I found my copy of it and I scanned it in and I e-mailed it to them.”

Then all was well again — before the White’s entire adoption file reportedly went missing for a while prior to the final adoption step.

Then it was found.

“It’s little things along the way that just are out of your hands,” Karin says. “And you just have to completely trust God that he knows exactly what’s going on in Haiti when you can’t see what’s going on in Haiti.”

And many kept asking the Whites again and again, “When are you going to get your son?”

“‘We’re one day closer than we were yesterday.’ That’s the statement I adopted,” Karin says. “It was like being pregnant for a really long time.”

But then there were the “confirmations” from God, Karin believes, that encouraged her that the family was on the right track.

For one, Clifford’s birth mother and Karin have the same birthday, the Whites found out.

And the cost of Clifford’s $10,000 adoption was fully funded by a surprise $10,000 settlement on a life insurance policy from Karin’s late grandfather.

“We didn’t know anything about it, and my dad didn’t know anything about it,” Karin says. “And he got a settlement in the mail for $40,000 and the adoption was $10,000 and there’s four of us—my mom, my dad, my sister and myself—and my dad split that four ways.”

Having a windfall of the exact amount for the adoption was again like God’s assurance, says Karin. They didn’t have to borrow money for the process.

Finally, Sept. 2, Clifford set out with an orphanage worker to head to Newberry.

But even being so close, there were hurdles between Clifford and his new home.

Clifford and the orphanage aide were delayed by missing paperwork in Haiti and missed two flights, and then the two took an unplanned train ride through Florida.

But, as promised, the Whites were waiting on the other end.

And Clifford didn’t seem nervous or scared and he didn’t cry, Karin says. “It felt like a great reward for a long patient wait.”

But the long wait wasn’t just anticipatory — it was preparatory too. It’s when Karin forged patience to peacefully love her new son after 21 months of waiting for him.

Karin was not a patient person before the adoption process, she says.

There are spats between her newly acquainted children, and some yet-to-learn rules.

“It can be fun at times. Other times he can be destructive,” says Leanna, 11, of having a new brother.

“He’s a boy,” Karin says in Clifford’s defense.

“And boys are really wild,” adds Lauren, 7.

“Be nice. Dousman,” Karin calls to Clifford in Haitian Creole. “Douseman, gently.” Directing Clifford to throw his fruit peels in the trash and come to get his face wiped from eating.

But Clifford instead illustrates his sister’s points, like any dutiful little brother, wiping his mouth in the middle of Karin’s sweater after Lauren wrestles him away from hers.

After being the napkin, Karin then has her apple swiped and polished off by Clifford.

After just two months together, the crew is still learning.

Clifford, two years developmentally delayed because of early life malnutrition, is learning more English at the ARP Church preschool on Main Street where he is enrolled, and he’s buddied up with another Haitian boy adoptee in Irmo around his age.

The Whites have learned more about Clifford, too.

They now know he hates chocolate, taking off his shoes and being dirty.

And during a recent surgery to help Clifford walk better, the Whites also learned he had a hernia.

“The whole medical reason why we adopted him ended up not being his medical issue. His medical issue was the hernia,” Karin says of originally thinking that Clifford was somewhat crippled.

But the bigger picture for his adoption may stretch beyond having Clifford healthy now.

As Karin explains her hopes for Clifford, he colors a picture and loudly calls for Karin after he’s done with each image for approval.

“Mom! Mom!” he shouts until Karin smiles, nods and comments on his art.

Then she continues.

She wants Clifford to visit his Haitian homeland as an educator, teaching the academic and spiritual knowledge he’s learned here, she says.

“I would hope that he would be able to go back and help the people of his country, that he would have the education,” she says. “Through what we do, we can effect future generations of Haitians.”