Adoption is something that’s always been in each of our hearts, even before we were married. I would venture to say that it’s something that drew us to each other. We both had a heart for children. More specifically, a heart for adoption and orphan care. 

We went through a lot of infertility issues. We were trying to have a baby. It would have been really easy for us to just hold off and say, we’re gonna wait for a child biologically. We found ourselves holding both of these things together: the loss of being able to conceive, but a heart for adoption and foster care. 

We were in a place of waiting, but wanting to take action. We thought, we have a home, even though there’s no children in it, there’s no reason that we can’t still use it for children. That’s where we really dived into the orphan care ministry. 

The Wednesday right before Good Friday, I’m at work, back when we were all in the office. I’m in a meeting and Christine calls me. I text her, “I’m in a meeting right now, is everything okay?” And she texts back, “When are you out? CALL ME.” So this is where I see this is urgent. I stepped out of the meeting, called Christine and said, “Hey, what’s going on?”

“I just got a call from our agency and they want to know if we want to be placed on a list for a baby girl who was born a week ago.” Oh man. Well, this is what we were praying for, right? This is everything we were moving forward towards. God has given us an opportunity and we’re kind of nonchalantly like, well, we’re only being put on a list to be considered. We might not even get picked. Let’s see what happens. 

We pray, on the phone while I’m at work and she’s at home and that’s it. So that was Wednesday. I’m at work again, and I get a phone call from her. As soon as I pick up, she goes, “Oh my gosh.” I go, “I think I know what happened.”

Christine says the social worker picked us. She looked at our profile and she picked us. On Easter Sunday that’s when we first met her, signed some papers, just to make sure everything was squared away. She was in our care as a foster baby for a total of a year and a half. At the beginning of this year, in January, we were able to adopt her at the court. She became a part of our family. 

When I think of surrender, as it relates to our story and our experience in foster care and adoption; it’s surrendering our hopes and expectations of what we thought our family was going to look like. If this isn’t perfect, the way Your plan is supposed to be perfect, then we have to surrender our hopes, our expectations, and trust that what You have is perfect.

I think it’s the love that we all experience from our Father God that gives us the love that the kids will need. Not everyone can open their home up as a resource family, but I think everyone has an opportunity to get involved in helping to come alongside orphans. You can cook or write an encouraging card or send a food delivery or provide clothes. Those things really helped us when we were going through it. 

Find where you can fit into this, into the story. It’s a complete oversimplification, but I, to a certain degree, I think it does come down to this: there’s a clear need, and the question just becomes, how can you help meet it?

How can you help meet the need? Foster children don’t necessarily have advocates, by the very nature of foster care. So in the same way Christ advocates for us, I think we are called, as believers, to come alongside this population and advocate for them and care for them.

For our particular story, I don’t think we ever arrived at a particular place where we could say we are at a crossroads. I think it was one of those things where we said, okay, let’s go to an orientation and see what happens. And then it became, what more can we do? And there were these little confirmations: God continually opening doors, us saying yes, Him bringing us people, stories and opportunities to grow our heart, to expand our vision of what He can do. We just said yes.