A Growing Pack

Our family is SO excited to announce that we have begun the process to adopt a child from China [insert girlie squeals]! We joyfully anticipate bringing our child home to join our family, but we know it is going to be a long and challenging journey. We know it will be worth the paperwork, the fundraising, the home study, the ups and downs, the wait, the travel, and all the challenges and sacrifices that come with having a child. Why? Because we love this child already. We love her with the same love we have for our two children who are already under our roof and our baby who is already with the Lord. We are committed to loving this child forever without condition.

I decided to start this blog for a few reasons. It is our desire to share with others what God is doing in our lives (and around the world) and to proclaim His goodness and glory. We also hope to encourage our sisters and brothers in Christ to be sensitive to the stirring of their hearts toward adoption and orphan care. Lastly, we want to keep our friends and family informed, so they can be a part of bringing our child home.  

God first stirred my heart toward adoption as a teenager. I was blessed to have the opportunity to travel to Brazil and Peru on mission trips with my church youth group. Our projects varied, but my heart most deeply ached for the children at the orphanages we visited. I wept to leave those children. I wanted to take them home with me, never mind that I was only 15. While in Brazil on June 21, 1996 I wrote in my journal, “It was the most emotional day of my life thus far. It was our last day in Assis. Our last day to see and spend time with the children who had captured our hearts. Almost everyone was sobbing and wailing uncontrollably. It was tough. I cried SO much.”

When my husband Josh and I began to discuss marriage, international adoption was one of the topics that came up. We agreed that adoption was something we would most likely pursue in the future. We’ve been married for 9 years now, and this year, our desire to adopt heightened tremendously. We have moved around quite a bit since we married, but we are finally settled into a home we anticipate staying in. We live close to some of our family now, and Josh finally turned 30 this summer (the minimum age to adopt from China)! We both agreed it was time to start the process – however long, however hard, however costly. Josh immediately had a feeling we’d adopt from Asia, but we did our research and took some time to pray and seek the Lord’s leading as to where we should pursue adoption. Once we felt drawn towards adopting a child with special needs, China was just it.

In this first post, we wanted to take the time to answer a few questions that many of you might have, so here goes:

1. Why are you adopting even though you are capable of having biological children? We don’t see adoption as simply a Plan B for couples who cannot conceive. Adoption is beautiful in and of itself, because it demonstrates the heart of God and is central to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Adoption is part of our story as followers of Christ (Galatians 4:4-7; Romans 8:15-17; Ephesians 1:4-6), and we eagerly await the full experience of our adoption when our groaning will cease (Romans 8:22-23). We also love that adoption is a positive, loving way to live out our undeniably pro-life convictions.
2. Why China when there are children in the U.S. that need families? We love adoption, both domestic and international. There are over 143 million orphans worldwide – just stop and think about all those faces – how can we not be wrecked into action? There are hundreds of thousands of orphans in China – many due to the one-child policy or because the children have some sort of special need. In our opinion, there’s not a bad place to adopt from. Where there are children without a family willing and able to love and care for them, there is a need. I love how Russell Moore puts it in the book Adopted for Life, “What better opportunity for you to model the God who adopts from every tongue, tribe, nation, and language and sets all the children together at the same table with the same inheritance and the same love?” We desire to have a family that displays the glory of God and the beauty of the gospel in this way.
3. How do you plan to fund this adoption? You may be surprised to know that the cost for a domestic or an international adoption is about the same – roughly $30,000. Wow, that is A LOT of money for this girl whose wardrobe comes from Goodwill. But here’s a “fun” fact for you that I find rather distressing - $27,000 is the cost of the average wedding in the U.S. today. In NY, the average is over $65,000. A big party that lasts one day versus changing a child’s life forever. Let’s chew on that together. You also may not realize that when you adopt, that money is NOT used to buy a child. The funds go toward agency fees, the home study, citizen/immigration fees, travel, medical reports, orphan care, dossier fees, etc. It’s a long process that requires a lot of paperwork, coordination and funds. We are committed to stepping out in faith, knowing that God will provide where He guides, and doing everything we can to save money for this adoption. We are excited to see and be humbled by God’s providence through this journey. We’ll be doing some fundraising projects along the way (start saving your change if you want to help!), applying for grants, hoping that the adoption tax credit doesn’t go away after this year, and preparing to go into debt if necessary. After all, can there be a better reason to go into debt than to give a child food, shelter, an education, unconditional love from a forever family and daily exposure to the gospel? We can’t think of any.

We would be honored if you would pray for our family, including our child-to-be. We are praying that God would be glorified as He provides the funds and prepares us for the journey ahead. We eagerly await bringing this little one home, while gaining an even greater understanding of Christ's love for us and our own adoption into the family of God!