A Sister for Sara

Here's our story.  I'm married to my wonderful husband, John Besse, and we live in Lebanon, TN.  John and I got married 15 years ago this year, and have three beautiful children--Aaron, Jacob, and Sara.  When we first got married, we never thought we would move from KY to TN, we never thought about adoption one way or the other, we didn't really know what homeschooling even was, and we didn't think we'd have any children for a few more years.  At this point in our lives, we don't make many long-term plans anymore, because we think God must think our plans are just good entertainment!  But He knows better than we do, so here we are in Lebanon with a 13-yr-old boy, a 9-yr-old boy, and a 5-yr-old girl, who we adopted from South Korea 5 years ago this month.  We live in TN and have no plans to move, because we have roots here, but still love to visit KY and reconnect with our roots there, too.  John works in internet development, and I homeschool our three children during the day, teach Taekwondo part-time in the evenings, and I do a bit of photography on the side, where I can fit it in.  We are Thrilled with our family life, so we're glad God helped us to carry out His plans for us instead of ours.  And now, we're thinking maybe God is asking us to change our family life again. 


When we adopted Sara, we thought our family was probably complete.  We are crazy about each one of our kids, and we are so blessed and happy!!  But over the past few years, we continue to think about adopting another little girl--a sister for Sara.  Our children are all obviously very open to the idea of adopting, having adopted one child already, so it's second nature for them to think of birth children and adopted children all the same way.  But of the three of them, Sara is the most excited about the idea, because she would so much love to have a sister!  Many adoptive parents request to adopt a baby, which we totally understand (since we requested the same thing last time!).  But we've been blessed with three babies, and know there are more children in the world who need families too, even though they aren't babies anymore.  So we want to request a little girl around 5 years old.  Sara told me the other day that she would really like for her sister to look like her (meaning Asian), but there aren't many Korean girls up for adoption, especially at this age.  However, there are a great number of little girls waiting to be adopted in Chinese orphanages, and Korean and Chinese children look very much alike, at least according to Sara, so we plan to go with China this time around, . 


There's one little snag, though--adoption is expensive!  So I'm starting a blog, hoping to get the word out, and we are going to do our best to raise the money to adopt one more child.  We'll have some fund raisers, and hopefully just gain the support and prayers of friends and family, and future friends who would like to support adoption!  I also hope to just spread the word about how awesome adoption is in general (not just our adoptions).  We think adoption is awesome for a lot of reasons, but I guess it all boils down to that John and I both feel led by God to adopt, because it's just in His plan for our family.  We honestly would not be at all complete without each of our three children, and there's no doubt in our minds that God designed each of us knowing we'd be together, knowing we belong together. 


So that's the summary!  If you want to read a slightly more filled-in story, check out the next post!  I love talking about adoption, and could continue talking (or writing) for hours, but I know there's only so much time in the day, so I wanted to make a short(ish) post to kick this off.  I'll also be posting Sara's adoption story soon, just in case anyone wants to read that one.  It's a bit longer than a regular post, but I love reading adoption stories, so I thought someone else might like to hear about it, too. 


We are super excited!  We know there's a lot of work ahead of us, but with God, all things are possible!