As Morgan said in our first post, I've wanted to adopt since I was about 7. I distinctly remember being at a pool party (in Florida most kid parties have water involved) and meeting 2 brothers who were only a month apart in age. One was black and one was white. I was a little confused about how these "twins" could look so different. My mom explained that they were adopted and I thought it was the COOLEST thing ever! How cool is it to have two people with no biological connection be brothers? I wanted to be adopted...it seemed a lot more interesting than my boring story of growing in my mother's belly. I didn't understand, at that time, that I actually was an adopted child, one adopted by God. As I grew up and read the Bible, I began to see that adoption was part of how God worked things out according to his plan. It seemed like adoption was everywhere I looked. God was constantly grafting people into his family and calling them sons. I knew that not adopting once I was married was not an option for me.
On our very first date, we were sitting by a pool (apparently adoption conversations are best had by a body of water) and I asked Morgan his view on adoption and whether or not he had to have his own biological family. It was a deal breaker for me...if he had said no to adoption then there would be no second date. Thankfully, Morgan said he was cool with going the adoption route...so I married him :-)
Over the last 5 years we have been enjoying our time without kids but we have also been preparing for adoption. When we got married I started praying for our children knowing that they probably were already born and would be going through hardship...they wouldn't be available for adoption without hardship. I had no idea what my children would look like, what country they would be from, would they be boys or girls but I knew that they needed prayer.
In the last year, we have sold our house and built a bigger one better suited to a growing family. We have taken in 2 teenage girls, due to the circumstances their story doesn't get to be shared...at least not yet. We have gone to an adoption conference and we have prayed that God would show us which way to go in regards to adoption.
We have friends who got a phone call one day asking if they would adopt a little baby boy. They hadn't even started the adoption process and yet God gave them a son! I started praying that God would give us clear direction like he did them. I didn't necessarily need a phone call like theirs but with 147 million orphans world-wide where do you start?
God answers prayer! I, too, got a phone call about adopting and all of a sudden our plans for 2013 changed. January started off as normal and by the 4th everything was different. As Morgan said before, we are living with a wonderful family from our church while our house is being finished. We have shared with them our heart for adoption (they live on a lake and as I said before, in my world, adoption conversations are best had by a body of water). They just so happened to have a connection to an orphanage in Uganda and just so happened to remember that we want to adopt. That's too many "just so happened"s for us not to see the hand of God in it.
I am married to a man who doesn't like change...I think God just laughed at him when he married me because I like change. I like to rearrange the house just because. I like to see things not working well and come up with a way to change it to make it better. I love projects...sometimes I have too many projects and Morgan has to bring me back to reality. So when my husband, who doesn't like change, said "Yes, let's adopt from Uganda" I knew that it was God working in him too.
Since Jan 4th, life seems to be put on fast forward. We still haven't even been able to move in to our new house but we have children on the way and I'm already in nesting and planning mode. We now begin fundraising with a goal of $25,000 to go get these kids and bring them home. It seems like an impossible task but thankfully with God all things are possible! :-)
Please do pray for us as we try to navigate these uncharted waters (to us they are uncharted even though many have done this before us) and get ready to expand our family. We only halfway know what we are getting ourselves into ;-)
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