The Road to Adoption

It's been a long journey that has been filled with joy, heartache, pain, blessings and happiness. I've had a lot of folks ask again why we adopted, why international adoption, why Korea? How did we get here? I thought I would take the next few posts I do to walk everyone through it. I know I have a lot of folks reading that are already in process, but there are also a lot of folks reading that maybe don't know much about adoption. They are unsure of the need, what they can do or what kind of families adopt. These next few posts are to highlight the incredible need for adoption and to show some of our journey.

Here are some astronomical statistics....

**It is estimated there are between 143 million to 210 million orphans worldwide (recent UNICEF report)

**The current population of the US is just a little over 300 million to give you an idea of how huge these numbers are

**Everyday 5,760 more children become orphans

**2,102,400 children become orphans in Africa alone

**Every 15 seconds another child in Africa becomes an AIDS orphan

**Each year 14,505,000 children grow up as orphans and age out of the system by age 16

**Every 2.2 seconds another orphan ages out with no family to belong to and no place to call home

**In Russia and the Ukraine, studies have shown that 10%-15% of these children commit suicide before they reach age 18

**These studies also show that 60% of girls become prostitutes and 70% of the boys become hardened criminals

Can you just take a second and read those statistics again. Think on them.

Our family has two biological girls. My first pregnancy went like clockwork. My second ended up being quite different with both of us in very real danger. It was not recommended for us to have anymore children. At first I was ok with all of this. I mean, I always wanted more kids...a house full, but I was just thankful and blessed that we were all healthy and safe. I was so grateful that God had given us two healthy children. I figured it was meant to be that we just had our two. We got rid of all of our baby stuff and moved on. That was 2005.

Flash forward January 2009. One of my very best friends told me they were adopting from Ethiopia. I didn't know much about adoption at all. I decided to get online and start researching...to be able to follow along with her, to be a support and understand all of the acronyms and language she was using! The more I researched, the more my eyes and heart were opened. I just couldn't believe the stuff I was finding. It was unbelievable. I held onto it for a few months and just thought on it, prayed on it. We were doing fine financially with our two kids, we were out of diapers, out of it taking 2 hours of packing to leave the house, sleeping through the night. What the heck was I thinking?

But, I could not think of one reason alone to not adopt that wasn't selfish. Yes, finances are tough for everyone, but could we give up some of those materials things for some extra money? Yes. We have plenty of room in our home, plenty of food in our pantry, plenty of love to go around. Could we do this too? Could we move beyond our own American dream to give a child a home? Maybe God had a different dream for us beyond what we had planned out ourselves.

When I first went to my husband with all of this, I knew in my heart we were called to adopt. I could not turn my heart away from everything I knew now. He was reluctant at first. How would we afford another child? How would we afford an adoption? Did we have enough time and energy for another baby in the house? At first I was very hurt by his response....didn't he understand and feel the way I did about this? I finally just let it go and prayed. A few weeks later completely out of the blue he came up to me and said yes. I couldn't believe it! We were going to really go forward with this and adopt! I was so excited and thrilled, but honestly scared at the same time. It's like that "Oh CRAP" moment you have when you look to that positive pregnancy test the first time and then look at your husband and he has the same look. Scared joy!

The next steps involved much much research. Domestic or international? If international, what country? What about waiting children? Which agency? How will we pay for it all? How long will it take? How will our family handle all of this since no one else has ever adopted? How will our kids feel about it? My next blog will take on waiting children since these are the kids worldwide with the greatest need of adoption. I will also cover domestic and several other countries as well in subsequent posts.

Although not everyone is called to adopt, I hope that those reading will open your hearts and minds. Maybe your family can do it. Maybe you've just never thought about it and don't know where to begin. Maybe you can help support a family in the process. Maybe you can get involved in an orphan ministry here in the states or oversees. Maybe you can foster. I hope and pray that you find clarity in your mission these next few weeks and fill compelled to do something.

"Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world" James 1:27