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| Our Story |
| Our story is a little unique. Pat and I already have four biological children. We had talked about adoption from time to time, but since we were able to have biological children we never really concidered it seriously. He and his mom talked about it often, but again we had our own children and at one point "decided" that four was quite enough. Three years ago my eldest daughter (now 16) attended a Steven Curtis Chapman concert. (In case you dont know, he is a contemporary christian artist who himself has 3 adopted children from China) When she came home from this concert, all she could talk about was adoption. Apparently they did a little presentation during the concert and she was clearly "touched." I was very quick to say "thats very nice honey, but we cant afford to do that," and quickly dismissed her enthusiasm as residual emotion from a emotionally charged concert. Little did I know that she began praying about the situation. Fast forward 2 years later. Getting discouraged after some time in prayer without seeing an answer, my daughter decided to "give it up." She figured that she had 2 brothers and 1 sister already and she knew that her parents were on a budget to make ends meet. There's no way it could ever be possible, she thought. She had no idea that the Lord had already begun to work on Pats heart. One day Pat felt led to look up adoption on the web. Soon he began to plow through website after website reading peoples adoption stories and about the individual requirements for each country. Days turned into weeks and weeks turned into months of research. Tax-credits, grants, employee assistance, you name it.....he researched it. He felt that the Lord was leading him to this awesome endeavor, but did not feel led to express his feelings about this to me just yet. Meanwhile our fourteen year old begins to feel a renewed desire to pray again about her family adopting........ As I reflect on how this all came about, I am amazed at the way the Lord put this all together. I was absolutely clueless as to what was going on with my husband and daughter! As my daughter prayed, and as my husband prayed and researched, I began to experience some things myself. Recently I have felt a a burden in my heart for the little girls of China. I began to read about adoption from a christian perspective and began to feel a calling in my life to "do something." There are litterally tens of thousands of baby girls abandoned each year in China. I was kind of overwhelmed at the fact that there was little that any one person could do to help or change this situation, obviously I am only one person. I tossed around the idea of leading an effort to collect items for an orphanage there or something of that sort, and still may, but what the Lord laid on my heart was the fact we could actually make a tremendous difference in the life of a child by providing a loving home and family. I had been greiving over the fact that we could no longer have children and felt as though our family was not yet "complete." I know that children are considered a blessing in the Lords eyes and we as Christians, are called to help "orphans and widows in their distress." Could it be, that God is wanting to continue to bless our family with more children and provide a loving home for someone in need at the same time??? I began to pray about the situation. I wanted to know for sure that this was Gods will for our family, and not just me and my hormones. I prayed that confirmation would come through my husband, as he was the one who felt very strongly (after my last difficult pregnancy) that 4 children were enough. One night, several weeks later, as Pat and I were watching T.V. (a story involving adoption) I happened to mention how much I had been thinking about adoption and the little girls in China, and how I couldnt get it out of my head. His response absolutely floored me! He said............ "So have I, do you want to see all the research that I have done?" My heart was racing, I couldn't believe my ears. God had put this all together, touching each one of our hearts individually, and then bringing us together to discover that each one of us was feeling led in the same direction! And so our pursuit began. |
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| "The Bible says that debt is a curse, and that children are blessings, yet in today’s society, we apply for the curses and reject the blessings!" ~ Doug Philips Vision Forum |