Tuesday, July 28, 2015
Friday, November 19, 2010
Reason for blogging--the last seven months!
On our first date Jacob told me he wanted to adopt someday. As a Christian I knew this was a great idea. I tucked it away in my mind thinking "what a nice thing to do." We were married seven months later and started are family right away. The Lord has blessed us and made it very easy to become pregnant. We have a 3.5 year old, 2 year old, and a 1 year old. When our baby was five or six months old God started speaking to us about adoption. It honestly hadn't crossed our minds since becoming parents. We'd been so busy with our own growing family that it hadn't really come up at all. Suddenly it came up on a daily basis. Everywhere we went someone had an adoptions story to share with us. Emails would randomly contain encouragement about adopting, commercials, movies, etc. It just kept coming up! So eventually we decided to start praying about it. We confided in a few friends and family that we thought God might be calling us to adopt. People expressed concern with our own family growing quickly and being so young. We were thankful for the advice but keep praying.
We decided to throw out a fleece before God, like Gideon. Since currently we do not feel comfortable using any form of birth control, we said, "Lord, if you want us to adopt you will have to find an agency that will allow us to adopt even if we become pregnant." The next day on my huge call list I stumbled across an agency that was only 8 months old. It was local and called Graceful adoptions. I started skipping the formalities and simply would ask, "What's your pregnancy policy?" as soon as I spoke to someone. Everyone I had talked to told me that we would be placed on hold until the outcome of the pregnancy and most of the agencies required 10-12 months minimum between the children in the home. Karen, from Graceful adoptions answered and said, "Wow, that's really interesting that you should ask me that because I changed my policy TODAY." Yesterday I was traveling talking to a bunch of unwed pregnant moms, considering adoption and they told me they just want a safe, loving home for their kids. They don't care about spacing. We did some more research on the agency by calling people that had successfully adopted through them and decided to start the application process.
We submitted are application on May 28th. We were contacted by the homestudy worker and he asked if we could meet once in his area and once in our home. It just so happened that on May 31st, we would be visiting my brother near his office so we offered that date. It also happened to be memorial day and he happily agreed to meet with us. The meeting went wonderfully and we had all of our paperwork completed and second meeting finished by the middle of June. We waited for those fingerprints to come back and on July 1st we were cleared to be active. We were so excited!
On July 3, I received a positive pregnancy test. We were a little confused about the timing. We had been certain that God would allow us to adopt or at least be matched before the onset of another pregnancy. Though we were excited to be expecting another baby we started to doubt that we had been hearing from God. My husband sought counsel from men in the church and was encouraged to wait until after this baby was born and not try to artificially create twins. This also became a confusing time. Jacob requested are agency to place us on hold and we continued to pray. I became very sick with the pregnancy, which had never happened before. At one point I even confessed that I was glad we hadn't adopted because life was much easier with only the kids we had and I selfishly didn't want to deal with all the headaches of coming up with the money, and the adoption process, etc.
Well, from the day I said that (not wanting to adopt) out loud something happened. Suddenly we started receiving email after email about children in need and how there aren't enough parents willing, songs, stories, testimonies kept coming and coming. One night I lay broken before the Lord confessing my selfishness and recommitting my will to His. Whatever HE wills I am willing to do. I started sharing with Jacob how God was changing my heart and really making me want to adopt again. Now Jacob was the one who had all the worries. The big one was that we knew we had to replace our roof soon and coming up with all the money for adoption would be even harder when we had money that needed to be put into the house. Well, God does take care of everything! A good friend of mine had 5 weeks left of her job and asked if I'd be willing to watch her son until she could stay-home full time. I knew the money would help us, though I felt very sick--I agreed. God granted an amazing amount of grace during that time. The final week we had an awful hailstorm. My insurance actually called me and asked if we had any hail damage. I didn't know for sure, so they sent out an adjuster. My final day of babysitting he came walked around the roof, and said, "yeah, we'll replace the roof, but you'll have to pay $1,000 for the deductible. Literally as he was backing out of my driveway my friend pulled in and wrote my a check for $900 for the five weeks of babysitting. We spent the whole night praising God for His goodness to provide. After that night Jacob said he felt like God was telling him maybe we should be adopting because He is going to provide for this child that needs a godly, Christian home.
The next day our adoption agency called us!?! She asked how the pregnancy was going, and then shared that she didn't have any families currently willing to adopt a minority child. She asked if we'd be willing to at least pray about the possibility should a child be presented to them. We of course agreed--it never hurts to pray--right!?
Three weeks went by and we received a call. A mother was no longer able to parent and has seen our families profile and wanted us to take her daughter. The biological father has fought the process, so we thought maybe that was no longer going to happen. Then our agency had another mother shown our profile who also would like us to parent her son. Because of wanting to respect privacy of these mothers and their children I will not disclose the exact situations, but both mom's really need to place their children. Mom #2 is due at the end of November, and the first mom is just waiting for the court to release the father's rights. I'm sure many of your jaws are hitting the ground right now--ours are! We're at a point right now were it seems we have to choose between these two children and are fairly certain one of them will be in our home by Christmas!
I decided to start this blog to finally let others know what has been going on. We know it seems crazy, we think it sounds crazy, yet we've seen God's providential hand directing us the entire way. Did you know that there are nearly three times as many churches the U.S. as there are children waiting for a family. It stands to reason that if only one family in each church stepped forward to adopt, Christians alone could adopt all
the waiting children in the U.S., and leave plenty of Christian families for international adoption as well!
Jacob and I we were both raised in pro-life families. Upon becoming adults, and forming our own convictions we have furthered our permanent stance for this. We see adoption as the end result of being pro-life. We personally encourage pregnant mothers to choose life by either parenting themselves or placing that child for adoption. We’re now stepping forward as an option for a child whose mother saw this pregnancy as a miracle--regardless of her ability to parent.
We have been so blessed not only in our marriage and with the children the Lord has already given us, but with an amazing friends, church family, and extended family. Our children intimately know their aunts, uncles, grandparents and great-grandparents. Right now there are many waiting children that don’t simply need food, clothing and shelter. These children need a mother and father. They need birthday parties and balloons, family vacations, and summer barbeques. They need to be loved and cherished. God has opened our hearts to this need and we are willing and joyfully moving forward.
We decided to throw out a fleece before God, like Gideon. Since currently we do not feel comfortable using any form of birth control, we said, "Lord, if you want us to adopt you will have to find an agency that will allow us to adopt even if we become pregnant." The next day on my huge call list I stumbled across an agency that was only 8 months old. It was local and called Graceful adoptions. I started skipping the formalities and simply would ask, "What's your pregnancy policy?" as soon as I spoke to someone. Everyone I had talked to told me that we would be placed on hold until the outcome of the pregnancy and most of the agencies required 10-12 months minimum between the children in the home. Karen, from Graceful adoptions answered and said, "Wow, that's really interesting that you should ask me that because I changed my policy TODAY." Yesterday I was traveling talking to a bunch of unwed pregnant moms, considering adoption and they told me they just want a safe, loving home for their kids. They don't care about spacing. We did some more research on the agency by calling people that had successfully adopted through them and decided to start the application process.
We submitted are application on May 28th. We were contacted by the homestudy worker and he asked if we could meet once in his area and once in our home. It just so happened that on May 31st, we would be visiting my brother near his office so we offered that date. It also happened to be memorial day and he happily agreed to meet with us. The meeting went wonderfully and we had all of our paperwork completed and second meeting finished by the middle of June. We waited for those fingerprints to come back and on July 1st we were cleared to be active. We were so excited!
On July 3, I received a positive pregnancy test. We were a little confused about the timing. We had been certain that God would allow us to adopt or at least be matched before the onset of another pregnancy. Though we were excited to be expecting another baby we started to doubt that we had been hearing from God. My husband sought counsel from men in the church and was encouraged to wait until after this baby was born and not try to artificially create twins. This also became a confusing time. Jacob requested are agency to place us on hold and we continued to pray. I became very sick with the pregnancy, which had never happened before. At one point I even confessed that I was glad we hadn't adopted because life was much easier with only the kids we had and I selfishly didn't want to deal with all the headaches of coming up with the money, and the adoption process, etc.
Well, from the day I said that (not wanting to adopt) out loud something happened. Suddenly we started receiving email after email about children in need and how there aren't enough parents willing, songs, stories, testimonies kept coming and coming. One night I lay broken before the Lord confessing my selfishness and recommitting my will to His. Whatever HE wills I am willing to do. I started sharing with Jacob how God was changing my heart and really making me want to adopt again. Now Jacob was the one who had all the worries. The big one was that we knew we had to replace our roof soon and coming up with all the money for adoption would be even harder when we had money that needed to be put into the house. Well, God does take care of everything! A good friend of mine had 5 weeks left of her job and asked if I'd be willing to watch her son until she could stay-home full time. I knew the money would help us, though I felt very sick--I agreed. God granted an amazing amount of grace during that time. The final week we had an awful hailstorm. My insurance actually called me and asked if we had any hail damage. I didn't know for sure, so they sent out an adjuster. My final day of babysitting he came walked around the roof, and said, "yeah, we'll replace the roof, but you'll have to pay $1,000 for the deductible. Literally as he was backing out of my driveway my friend pulled in and wrote my a check for $900 for the five weeks of babysitting. We spent the whole night praising God for His goodness to provide. After that night Jacob said he felt like God was telling him maybe we should be adopting because He is going to provide for this child that needs a godly, Christian home.
The next day our adoption agency called us!?! She asked how the pregnancy was going, and then shared that she didn't have any families currently willing to adopt a minority child. She asked if we'd be willing to at least pray about the possibility should a child be presented to them. We of course agreed--it never hurts to pray--right!?
Three weeks went by and we received a call. A mother was no longer able to parent and has seen our families profile and wanted us to take her daughter. The biological father has fought the process, so we thought maybe that was no longer going to happen. Then our agency had another mother shown our profile who also would like us to parent her son. Because of wanting to respect privacy of these mothers and their children I will not disclose the exact situations, but both mom's really need to place their children. Mom #2 is due at the end of November, and the first mom is just waiting for the court to release the father's rights. I'm sure many of your jaws are hitting the ground right now--ours are! We're at a point right now were it seems we have to choose between these two children and are fairly certain one of them will be in our home by Christmas!
I decided to start this blog to finally let others know what has been going on. We know it seems crazy, we think it sounds crazy, yet we've seen God's providential hand directing us the entire way. Did you know that there are nearly three times as many churches the U.S. as there are children waiting for a family. It stands to reason that if only one family in each church stepped forward to adopt, Christians alone could adopt all
the waiting children in the U.S., and leave plenty of Christian families for international adoption as well!
Jacob and I we were both raised in pro-life families. Upon becoming adults, and forming our own convictions we have furthered our permanent stance for this. We see adoption as the end result of being pro-life. We personally encourage pregnant mothers to choose life by either parenting themselves or placing that child for adoption. We’re now stepping forward as an option for a child whose mother saw this pregnancy as a miracle--regardless of her ability to parent.
We have been so blessed not only in our marriage and with the children the Lord has already given us, but with an amazing friends, church family, and extended family. Our children intimately know their aunts, uncles, grandparents and great-grandparents. Right now there are many waiting children that don’t simply need food, clothing and shelter. These children need a mother and father. They need birthday parties and balloons, family vacations, and summer barbeques. They need to be loved and cherished. God has opened our hearts to this need and we are willing and joyfully moving forward.
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