It's Official

In my mind anyway ;)

Throughout this past fall God has been moving my heart toward adoption.  Back when we were dating, Gordon and I had talked about having one or two children of our own and then adopting a couple more to bring us to 4.... fast forward a few years after getting married (and quickly getting pregnant) and that thought was completely gone. After Addison, Gordon decided he only wanted one more. I was still desperately clinging to the magic number of 4 in my heart and my mind BUT when Gordon sets his mind on something I'm learning to just try to accept it and PRAY.  I prayed for peace for months while I was pregnant with Kaitlyn and most of her first year.  Every time I packed up her clothes into hand me down bins I cried that I might never get to use them again. Somewhere in that first year, though, God met me with that peace that surpasses understanding. I really felt ok with not having any more babies, so much so that I started to sell our baby things, but at the same time I desperately wanted a bigger family and couldn't stop clinging to that dream. Sounds insane, I know- I felt that way too.

Looking back on it now, I can see with so much more clarity how God was working in my heart and mind but at the time I was too caught up in my hopes and dreams to see why I couldn't have what I thought I wanted. The timeline went something like this...

Our pastor at People of Mars Hill took us through a two year long study of Genesis. I never knew I had so much to learn before this study. Jack has an amazing gift for teaching the Bible, and teaching it from a Jewish perspective to bring out all those cultural concepts that we just don't understand when skimming over the stories. Anyway, in the story of Sodom and Gomorrah in Genesis we discussed why they were destroyed. Jack pointed us to Isaiah 1:10-17 and Ezekiel 16:49-50 (and maybe others, hehe) which seem to say that S&G's "main"sin was neglecting the poor, orphans and widows. 

Ezekiel 16:49-50 NIV

⁴⁹ “‘Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy. ⁵⁰They were haughty and did detestable things before me. Therefore I did away with them as you have seen."

I don't know about you, but I didn't realize that. Most people center in on the sexual sins of the two cities and overlook this, but it is mentioned in more than one place. Anyways, this started to wake me up to the fact that we as a nation, a worldwide church, and a family do not take this seriously enough.

I think it was right after the S&G sermon that we started sponsoring an orphan in a Chinese orphanage. (Her name was Helen- she was/is simply adorable but has since gone home to her forever family WOOHOO!! We now have the priviledge of supporting Debbie who stars on the sidebar of my blog:) )  The monthly updates and regular FB updates from An Orphan's Wish definitely kept the issue in the forefront of my mind.

Also, this fall I started going to Bible Study Fellowship and this year we are studying Isaiah. 

The study has been amazing but the first half or so of Isaiah is full of "woe's" from God concerning Israel's misbehavior. It came up time and time again that they were neglecting the orphans and widows.

God wasn't letting me off easy on this one. I started to realize that He was calling us to way more than a $35/month commitment.

Also, our great friends Tara and Andrew were quickly approaching the day when they got to bring home their newest son Caden from China! Following Tara's journey to China and back cemented it in my mind that I wanted to do the same some day.

At this point I was praying that God would show this all to Gordon too because he was pretty determined to keep our family at it's current size ;) I don't really remember when he started warming up to the idea but I tried to not talk about it much. Every now and again I'd bring something up but I tried to not nag and just let God work... especially since you have to be 30 to adopt from China anyway, haha! I figured God had PLENTY of time to bring Gordon on board ;)

I started this post back on April 4 (sorry it's taken me so long to finish it), just a few days after Gordon told some friends of ours that we were looking at someday. I was a little surprised when he said it so matter-of-factly that day. We still hadn't talked about it all that much and I was real sure on where exactly he was on the issue.  I am overjoyed to say that his heart is now also completely pulled to adopting!  
We have started doing some research here and there but there is much, much more to do.


Questions? I know many of you will have some so I'll try to get a head start ;)


Gordon has decided that he thinks he would like to adopt a boy. 
Surprised? Don't feel like the only one ;) 
I really don't have a preference, so as long as God approves, 
we will be looking for a boy to join the family.
Speaking of boys, watch this

We feel like since we have awesome FREE health care coverage that we, of all people, 
should definitely be open to special needs. 
I realize that is a HUGE umbrella but we have tons of research to do so I'm not sure I can narrow it down any for you yet, though I will step out and say that we feel more drawn to less intimidated by (just being honest) medical needs than developmental delay type needs (past the normal delays that are to be expected anyway). God has a funny way of changing desires, though, so you just never know I guess ;)


Also, we both feel drawn to "older" children. This usually means from about 3 to just before the child's 14th birthday. I feel especially drawn to the kids who are about to age out of the system having never been chosen. My heart aches for them. I'm not sure if we will start there since (assuming we move through the system fairly quickly) that would put me at 30, G at 33, new child at 13, A at 10 and K at 8 but we will see what God has in store. There are many, many details to pray about there.


Where will we go, you ask?
We're not really sure yet. So far, I have the most exposure to China (and I must admit that those little Chinese faces are just so irresistibly cute) but we're still open to pretty much anywhere... we are very hesitant about domestic adoption though. I really feel like we will be doing an international adoption because the stories I read and the orphanage conditions that are described are just heartbreaking.

How do the girls feel about it?
We have just started introducing the idea to them and Addison is ecstatic... probably because she thinks she will be getting a little brother or sister like Kai-lan. ha! I asked her what she thought about getting a big brother or sister instead and she said she just wanted a little baby brother. haha.


How many?
Not sure. The number 4 feels much less important to me these days. I'll go with "as many as I can convince Gordon to bring home" ;) We have talked a little about bringing two home at once. China now allows you to do this if one is off the Special Focus list. Anyways, that too is something that will obviously require much prayer. And, if it turns out that we do go to China, we have 6 years so no rush ;)




Well, it is WAY past my bedtime so I'll leave you with that to contemplate for now... 
pray for us, would you? <3