The Rest of the Story

         Some of my Facebook friends may have read this already, as this was originally going to be my first post.  I decided my initial post might need to be a shorter intro, so I'm posting this one now, in case anyone might like to read a more full version of what got us here.  If you'd like to read a shorter summary, please see my initial post, "A Sister for Sara".  Sara's adoption story will be posted soon, as well!


          Have you ever seen a small child walking down the street, holding her mom or dad’s hand, looking all around her while they’re walking, but not bothering to look where they’re headed?  She walks along, maybe even stumbles sometimes, but the all the while, she has a relaxed, complete trust—no, she has faith, that her mother or father is taking her right where she needs to be.  Sometimes that’s what my life reminds me of.  I’m like the child, sometimes walking gracefully, and sometimes stumbling through life, but holding my Holy Father’s hand, trusting He’ll take me where I need to go.  At times, I look around me and think to myself “When did we get here?”, but then I remember.  My Father led me here.

        On that note, at times I have to remind myself what ever started us thinking about adoption in the first place.  My husband John and I had no difficulty getting pregnant, and my two pregnancies were both good, with normal, healthy deliveries of my beautiful boys.  When our youngest son was one year old, we knew a teenage girl who was put into foster care because of an abusive situation at home, and we started thinking about foster parenting.  But there was this one snag: We knew that once we bonded with a child, and accepted them into our family, it would break our hearts to give them back!  And so it began. 

          In a nutshell, we felt called.  We were not only open to the idea of adopting.  It appealed to us for reasons we didn’t even fully understand.  But there were some things we did understand.  We knew there were children in the world who not only needed homes, but needed families.  And there still are.  These kids need a mom to give them hugs and kisses when they fall down, someone to read them stories, and snuggle on the couch and watch Little Bear or Star Wars.  Kids need dads to chase them through the house yelling “I’m gonna get you!”, and they need to laugh until they can’t breathe when he does.  Little girls need a mom to talk about boys with, and to take them dress shopping when they’re old enough to go to a dance.  And boys need a dad to throw a baseball with them, or at them, totally by accident…a dad they love so much they’d forgive him even after being hit by that baseball three times in two days.  (Those numbers are completely hypothetical, by the way.)  Some of them need brothers and sisters to play outside with them, to teach them how to throw a Frisbee, and to let them borrow their favorite cap that says martial arts in Chinese symbols and not get mad if they drop it in the dirt (most of the time).  These are the brothers and sisters who will always stick up for them no matter how much they get picked on, or who will take them down a notch or two if they pick on somebody else.  They need something more than culture, more than food, clothing and shelter.  These kids need a stronghold of people who will be with them through all the years they have here on Earth, no matter what happens, good or bad.  They need family.  And we knew we could give a child that.

 

I once heard someone say that to be an adoptive parent, you can’t just be a good parent; you have to be a great parent.  I’m not sure whether I agree with that or not.  But while it may be true, I will say this—I know a lot of great parents whose children aren’t adopted.  I also know some great parents who have no desire to adopt, and that doesn’t make them any less fantastic parents.  Adoption is not for everybody.  Neither is mountain climbing, or Olympic gymnastics, or martial arts, or mission work, or anchovies.  God made all of us to be different, and there is no one calling from the Lord that is any better than another, as long as we’re doing what we believe God wants us to do.  He made my husband and myself such a perfectly fitted match that we seem to agree on all the important things, but disagree on enough just to keep life interesting.  And there’s one really big thing we agree on; we are both open to, and drawn to, adoption.  And no matter how God delivers these precious children to us, we consider ourselves blessed, and graced with His trust in us.
 

So here we are, in 2011.  Our oldest son, Aaron, is 13 years old now.  Jacob will turn 10, and Sara will turn 6 this year.  We’ve thought our family was probably complete as it is, but for several years, we’ve also had another idea in the back of our minds.  Countless children around the world are still without parents.  Many adoptive couples want to adopt babies.  There’s nothing wrong with that—we did too, the last time!  But this time around, we would like to adopt a slightly older child.  We would like to keep the current birth order of our children, with Sara being the third in line, so we’re thinking of a child around five years old.  Here’s why.

We’ve had three babies.  (Okay, so we adopted one, but we still had her as a baby, whether I gave birth to her or not.)  There’s nothing in the universe that I would trade for having them here with me as babies.  I nursed them, fed them bottles, and changed their diapers.  I watched their first steps, and heard their first words.  And it was priceless.  With that being said, John and I, as parents, have been blessed with the experience of having three babies, and feel fulfilled in that.  And there are children in the world who still need families, and if they weren’t adopted as infants, their chance for a forever family shouldn’t be gone.  

Thousands of little girls are in Chinese orphanages right now, waiting to be adopted.  Because most couples want to adopt babies, or at least a child as young as they can get, the longer children are in an orphanage, the more likely they are to stay there.  In China, once a girl is 14 years old, she ages out of the orphanage and moves out on her own.  She is put into the work force, with secondary school and university almost definitely out of the question.  She has no family, no home, and will have a difficult time finding a job, because potential employers consider orphans to be bad luck.  Imagine, being preschool-aged, and because you're no longer a baby, your future is already written out for you!  After much prayer and conversation, a few moments of thinking something like “what are we, crazy? Four kids??”, and then some more prayer, John and I would like to adopt a slightly older child from China—a sister for Sara.  We believe this is what God has planned for us, although we admit it is a bit confusing, because while we can afford to feed, clothe, and love four children, we do not have money to pay the adoption costs.  A typical Chinese adoption averages around $25,000.  That leaves us with a lot of work to do!!  (In case you wonder, domestic adoptions in America, on the whole, are about the same cost as international, and sometimes can be more expensive.  We have reasons for choosing China.  More on that later.)  

       Sometimes I feel like God’s asking a lot of us.  I sure don’t know how He expects us to pay for an adoption, but I’m thinking, and hoping, He does know.  I honestly think and believe that if it is in His plan for us, then He will provide a way.  He created the world from nothing, created me and you, and conquered the devil himself; who says He can’t provide us a way to adopt?  He’s done it before!  But this time, though, it’s going to require more faith.  We paid for Sara’s adoption with a home equity loan, and having already borrowed on the equity in our house, we can’t do that again.  So if this is going to happen, it’ll be a lot of fund raising work (including some help from anyone who’s willing), and a great big dose of faith that God will help us raise the money!  So God’s asking for our faith, our patience, and our love.  Maybe that is asking a lot.  I’m not complaining, though.  I know He’ll help us along the way.  And it could be much harder.  

I’m thankful I was blessed to be born in this wonderful country, and grew up with a mom, a dad, eight brothers and sisters, and a family and community where I knew I had roots.  (The word ‘thankful’ isn’t big enough for how I feel about this, but sometimes words fail me.)  Sometimes I wonder, considering all the people, and all the places in the world, why am I so lucky?  I could have been born into a family who couldn’t care for me, or in a country where my parents weren’t allowed to keep more than one child.  God could be asking me to have faith even if I were five years old, in an orphanage with no family, seeing other children find their forever families while I grew one year older (and less likely to be adopted) every year I was there.  He could ask me to have faith that He cared, and that He would take care of me if I aged out at 14 years old.  It would be harder to see the light in the darkness then.  If we are able to raise the money, and if we can adopt again, then I know the Lord will return the favor by putting His faith in us, by entrusting us with another beautiful little one to love.  

So I’m writing this blog as a means to get the word out.  We have several fund raiser ideas so far, but need time and manpower (or womanpower, or kidpower) to make them happen.  There are a ton of questions!  First, and most obvious, where do we start?  We need to decide on a fund raiser kick-off, and get the show on the road!  However, (to state the obvious,) fund raisers only raise funds if there are people involved.  We are hoping that all our family and friends will read this site, and tell their families and friends, and they’ll tell more friends… so that when we get the fund raising started, hopefully we’ll have enough of an audience to make a difference in a little girl’s life, to give her a family, and (we humbly ask this part) to give us another daughter.