(Thank you to Tricia for today’s guest post! This adoption story includes infant adoption, foster-adoption, and older-child adoption, too! And Tricia gets bonus points for being married to another Ken — because I think they make the best husbands! )

Our Journey to the Gift of Adoption

Ken and I married in January 1983. Six months after we were married, I had an ectopic pregnancy and over the next seven years came multiple surgeries, lots of infertility issues and treatments, and finally the news that we would not be able to birth any children. Ken and I both had fertility issues, but at this point, the one ovary that remained was brutally scarred and not functioning. We were told to look at other avenues. We chose adoption… or more accurately, God chose it! This was in February of 1988. We loved the idea of open adoption and applied immediately with an agency.

On September 4, 1988, in the midst of literally moving into our first house, and Ken about to start his first teaching job, we received a phone call. We were literally sitting on boxes in our kitchen hearing the news that a baby had been born and she was bi-racial; the couple that had been chosen by the birthmother weren’t expecting a bi-racial child and had decided not to adopt.

We were next on the birthmother’s list. I was ecstatic… Ken not so much. I am an eternal optimist and he more on the pessimistic side. The timing looked perfect to me and overwhelming to him. Long story short: God orchestrated an amazing meeting and when Ken held Kristin, it was done!!

In April of 1990, we unexpectedly were given the opportunity to adopt our next little girl. Things were rocky with our circumstances, but God always works out the details. It did not take long to realize that Megan had some special issues. Amidst that, when she was six weeks old, I got pregnant. Almost a year later, in March of 1991, I gave birth to a healthy baby boy! God has an amazing sense of humor. We named him Aaron.

We rocked along for years with our three kiddos, finding out in the process, that Megan had significant disabilities. Again, God always knows the plan for His glory, even when it seems hopeless. Our lives took a drastic shift when Megan was ten years old and diagnosed with cognitive and mental health issues. I quit my job as a nurse and we downsized to live on a teacher’s salary so I could stay home and manage our mounting family issues. This was one of God’s huge turning points in our life.

I engulfed myself in trying to manage Megan’s school issues and repair the ever increasing damage our family was sustaining due to Megan’s issues. Needless to say, I can’t manage anything… but God, that’s His specialty.

One year after we downsized and moved into our small town, Megan came home from school and asked me a haunting question (which was again God’s divine plan):

Megan told me that we are always talking to her and her siblings about God calling His children to take care of people in need, orphans and widows. She went on to say that she had a friend at school that was a foster child, and if we believed what we were telling them, why weren’t we fostering children who had no home?

Out of the mouths of babes — and one with many challenges!

So, we prayed and prayed, as a family and as husband and wife. We knew God was leading, so in 2001 we took classes and geared up to foster one-to-two children in our home. Again, God had other plans.

Within two weeks of our certification, we received a call about a sibling group of four. They needed immediate placement, sooooo — we took them all. They were 5, 3, 3 and 2 years old: James, Jared, Jason, and Jasmine. Our house was overflowing with life and activity. The twins had Fetal Alcohol Syndrome and Jason was significantly disabled. They had all suffered horrific abuse throughout their short lives. It became apparent quickly that James, the oldest, was very intelligent, and abusive to his younger siblings. They were not safe around him, so CPS moved him to another placement. Longer story short, we adopted Jared, Jason, and Jasmine in 2004. James came back to live with us, after his adoptive placement failed, when he was ten years old. We adopted James in 2008.

(Recent photo of the family, including a son-in-law and a soon-to-be-daughter-in-law!)

To say that life is not full of daily complications would be a lie. But, there is no greater truth than God’s promise of being in the midst of the neediest among us. God lives in our house: He always provides, always comforts, always works EVERYTHING together for His glory.

We are on an uncertain journey for sure, but we are with the One who knows where we are headed and how this journey unfolds.

There are not adequate words to describe what happens in our lives when we follow Jesus, and just simply do what He commands in the New Testament. It doesn’t make sense in this world. God’s economy will never make sense by worldly standards. We are a family of nine. I am a stay at home mom, with a life I could never have imagined, or even thought I wanted. Something happens to your heart when you open it to the least of these. God makes a way!

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(Do you have an inspiring adoption story of your own to share? If so, I’d love to share it, so please contact me!!)

(Thank you to Sandy for today’s guest post!)

“Religion that our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this; to look after widows and orphans in their distress.” James 1:27

It is hard for me to pinpoint just exactly the date when I first felt the call to adopt, but I remember driving and praying, asking God, “Are you trying to tell me something?” I kept hearing the newly released Steven Curtis Chapman song, “When Love Takes You In” and crying. The vision of a little brunette girl popped in my head and that is when I started praying and talking to my husband. His response was “I don’t know, maybe someday.” You see, we already had three birth children of our own and truthfully, I think he thought I had lost my mind. In 2001, our children were about 14, 10, and 6 and my husband was quite content.

The years past and I continued to feel that pang. God would put a story or something in front of me or I would meet someone who was fostering or adopting. Then I would pray “God, if our child is out there, please be with them and help us to know when your time is right.” Again, I would talk to my husband. He would say, “Yeah, maybe someday, but not right now.” Finally, 7 years later in July 2008, during a rainy, stormy night in Atlanta, at a concert that almost didn’t happen, God spoke to my husband through a broken Steven Curtis Chapman just months after he had lost his sweet Maria. As many people in the Christian community know, Maria was one of three beautiful girls that the Chapman family adopted from China. She was killed accidentally in the family’s driveway when hit by a car. Much of the night was about walking through the grief of losing Maria, but at some point he talked about the 140 million orphans of the world. I think it was Steven’s testimony coupled with that number that really hit Tommy between the eyes. After more discussion the following week, my husband and I agreed that we would pray and seek God’s will of adoption for our family.

What happened in the following weeks blew my socks off. God not only confirmed my calling, but through strangers, circumstances, family, friends, and James 1:27 (which He constantly put in front of both of us); he totally moved my husband from a reserved openness to full on commitment and confidence that this was our call as a family to adopt, specifically “older child adoption” from the US foster care system.

Our then 13 year old daughter, already on board, was eventually joined by her older brothers as well. Being 18 and 21 at the time, their acceptance was slower to gain. However, after prayer and discussion, they both came into agreement with us as a family. So began our journey to adopt our child.

We chose to use Bethany Christian Services. We were warned repeatedly that our very specific description of our child was going to be impossible to find and may take a while. However, during our second home visit with our adoption specialist, she gave my husband and I a flyer about a ten-year-old girl we’ll call Beth. She told me it was very unusual to receive such a thing from a caseworker. It had no picture, just the child’s name and brief description of her, including her likes and dislikes, hobbies, etc. I felt like this was our girl; she was described exactly like the child God had laid on our hearts. Our specialist tried to get more information about her, but never heard from her caseworker. Then one day, we received a call from our caseworker, saying that we were the number one choice for this child and we should know in the next day or two. Still, we did not receive a picture or additional information, just the flyer.

The next two days passed without word until we received another call with the news that the child’s caseworker had quit and her boss was looking at another family because of a logistics reason. I felt like I had just been given the news that my pregnancy test was false positive. I left the house to run some errands and be alone. God gave me comfort through a verse, Hebrews 11:1. It says, “Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.” This verse gave me peace. I knew God was in control, this child was His and He would decide where and with whom He wanted her just like He did with the three He gave us by birth. I didn’t have control, but I knew the one who did and He was working. I knew God was telling me to let go, knowing He would make sure our child found us, whether it was this one or not.

An email came a month or so later from our caseworker. It said,

“You must have been praying hard, because you will never guess who I got an email from today….Beth’s caseworker!”

She went on to tell me that the other family had fallen through and they wanted to know if we were still interested. Of course, we told her we were.

After this, God moved so fast! Our family went on a mission trip to China and when we returned, we had an appointment with Beth’s support team at DFCS. We met our daughter two days later on July 11, 2009, almost one year after that rainy concert. Within two weeks, she had moved in her new home. We had the privilege of celebrating her 11^th birthday together.

With the exception of a very short transfer to the fostercare side of Bethany until TPR [termination of parental rights] completion, everything went quickly and smoothly. DFCS was incredibly supportive of us and our adoption of her, and they worked well with our caseworker and Bethany Christian Services to quickly finalize. On February 1, 2010, Beth officially became a member of our family, although in our hearts, she already was. God’s timing was perfect, as always.

I will not tell you it was all easy; parenting is never easy, no matter how you get your children. However, I will tell you that Beth is worth it. Every smile, every new experience, and every victory make it all worth it. God lends us all of our children for a time. Some are given through birth and others, through adoption, but they are all His and none the less given. It’s just a different kind of labor.

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(Sandy and I have gotten to know through email and facebook. We had the same caseworker, who put us in contact because our situations were so similar: we are both homeschooling moms with biological children who decided to adopt an older child through foster care — and they were just a few weeks behind us in every step of our adoption process with Lindsey! I’ve been following along with Sandy as they’ve helped Beth overcome fears and do things she never would have thought she could do, like learning to ride a bike, and participating on a swim team when she couldn’t even swim last year! It’s been a beautiful story to watch!

Do you have a positive adoption story of your own to share? If so, contact me!

I’m so encouraged about the number of emails I’ve received lately about adoption! Even if I had no other reason to blog, providing a positive story in the world of older-child foster-adoption would be reason enough to blog in itself. As I’ve said before — and as these emails have said — almost everything in the news about foster-adoption, and particularly about older-child adoption, seems to be negative. I do know of numerous other families who have had positive experiences as well, but as far as I know, I’m the only one of them who blogs.

All of this has given me an idea: I would like for other adoptive parents to do a guest post about their experiences!!! Actually, I’d love to expand this to anyone who has adopted, whether international, domestic, or foster adoption.

Even if you have a blog of your own, wouldn’t it be wonderful to have a bunch of wonderful adoption stories of all shapes and sizes here in one place? So if you have adopted, and if you are willing to share your story, please contact me or leave a comment.

And please — spread the word to your friends and/or other bloggers!

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