Why we chose Adoption

We love having children and have always wanted a large family.  Our three biological children have brought us tremendous joy, yet for the past several years we felt that our family wasn’t complete.  Over the past six years God has given us a deep and growing desire to care for orphans.  We have spent time loving on orphans in India, praying for foster children in the US, and seeing the amazing impact that adoption and foster care has had on our friends.  We have been overwhelmed by the need of so many children to have a family to call their own, and have undoubtedly felt God’s call to be that family for at least one orphaned child.

Our adoption story began at the very beginning of our marriage when we went to China on a short term mission’s trip.  That trip was life changing for us and eventually led to us spending two years in China helping local people start house churches.  We learned to depend on God in a way we never had before, and our relationship with Him grew very deep. It was while we were living in China that we first talked about our desire to adopt. We returned from China in 2006, and shortly after that became involved in our church’s work in two Indian orphanages.  Both of us spent time in India and were overwhelmed by the orphan crisis there. We spent time with our sponsored child, and developing a relationship with her gave us a desire to adopt a little girl who didn’t have the opportunities she was going to have. We constantly were reminded of the call in James 1:27 that “true religion is to care for orphans and widows in their distress.”  Because of this experience I started a non-profit organization called Renew that provides small business loans to impoverished Indian women.  My goal is to combat the orphan crisis by giving Indian women the opportunity to provide for their families.

In the past two years our desire to adopt has grown very strong.  We spent a year praying over whether we should foster to adopt or pursue an international adoption.  We attended a workshop called “If You Were Mine,” which further solidified our desire.  That workshop and our friends’ adoption of a special needs child from China helped us to come to the decision that if we decided on international adoption we would request a child with a special need.  Last July we both felt clear leading from the Lord that the time was right to begin the adoption process, and He clearly led us to choose a special needs child from China.  Our time in China gave us a love for the people and understanding of the culture that we believe will benefit our daughter as she grows up.  We know that it isn’t going to be easy, but we trust that God is going to give us everything we need to love and nurture this little one. We know without a doubt that He has chosen her to be part of our family forever.