In Honor of National Adoption Month

Today our family shared in church about the amazing ways we have seen the Lord thru the many adoptions of our children. I will paste a copy of the words I shared in the 2 services . We have already heard from many and I know that the Lord will move to His will if we are obedient...

In honor of National Adoption Month we would like to share briefly our walk with the Lord thru our 17 adoptions. James 1:27 says, Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and fautless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress. Our very fulfilling walk in adoption really started when Paul and I gave our lives to Jesus- We first became adopted into the kingdom of God by choosing Jesus.

Paul and I gave our lives fully to Jesus before we met and then as a couple we dedicated our lives to serving him. We were childhood sweethearts. I have always had a call on my life and a love for children. We almost went to Africa to serve in an orphanage and our older kids tease us instead we are bringing all the kids here.

Often we are asked these questions:

What do you drive? A 15 passenger van and an 8 passenger Honda when we need to go with everyone.
How many bedrooms or how big is your house? It is a very large home with 4 and a half baths, and 8 bedrooms ( one is a lg. dorm room).
Why do you do what you do? This is a vey simple answer that was given to us while on our adoption trip for Josiah. It was in a devotion . Simply stated it comes from

2 Corinthians 5:14- For Christ's love compels us....

We have no other choice but to be obedient to Him who has called us.This is the love placed in our hearts - for orphans and especially special needs children- the ones no one wanted.

Several of our children were not the first choice of most families because of their health issues like kidney problems, cleft lip/palate, arthrogryposis, polio,heart condition, and the mere fact they were boys, to old, or came from abusive, dysfunctioning families where drug and alcohol were the norm.

Each one of our children have their own story of overcoming and experiencing the love of Christ. He had his hand on each ones precious life to lead our family to them.

My second reason for sharing today comes from a deep conviction I experienced the weekend before the elections. One of our greatest motivation for adopting and especially for adopting special needs children comes from our pro-life conviction. I have been involved in the pro life movement back when the only organization to work with was the Catholic church.

As I was praying about whom to vote for and how I can help the pro life movement it became ever clear that we Christians are not doing enough:

Most of us here today voted for what we thought was a pro life ticket. But that is the easy way to support pro life. We can push the screen in the voting booth and then walk away and feel that we have done enough... but I am here today to share that is not enough anymore. The right to life has been battling this abortion issue for 30 some years this way... and it helps but Christians can do more... I strongly feel we can encourage others to get involved by helping out at a crisis pregnancy center, supporting or helping unwed moms and their babies... we can personally open our hearts and homes to unwed moms, and orphans who have no one to care and love them. If anyone needs some more ideas or places to help come see us we can share several Christian places that support the pro life movement thru the crisis pregnancy centers or the actual adoption of babies and children and we need to do and not just vote... we need to get involved in the life of the pro life movement which is loving and caring and showing the love of Jesus to others thru our actions and not just by thinking we can just vote.

I want to end with just one quick story of one of our children's adoption- our Mya. We were at our agency just after we got home with Jacob, Isaac and Lily. They wanted to meet them and while there they shared a picture of a baby who they were having a hard time finding a family to adopt her. She was tiny and paralyzed on her L side ( her medical stated it was from hip dysplasia) which it was not at all. They wanted us to help find a home for her. We took one look at her picture and decided we were not showing this picture to anyone... we wanted her. We were the 13th family they had offered her to. Thank God the 12 before us said no... because if you have had the priviledge of meeting her she is a loving, very affectionate and full of charm little girl who will capture your heart easily with her smile. It turned out she had polio and that is what caused her paralysis. We traveled in Dec. 2002 for our first trip to meet her. While on that trip we asked to meet some other children they were having a hard time finding someone to adopt. We met our Anna and Josiah. We returned in Jan. of 2003 for her adoption. We brought her home Jan. 29. She was only 11 lbs. when she came home at almost 13 months old... they told us she would have died by the summer if we had not gotten her.... Praise God for her sweet life. What if we had decided not to do anything about our pro life conviction when we were deciding to adopt her? What if we had reasonably said, "We don't have enough money. We just got back with these 3." Or what if we had said 3 is all I can "handle" right now...........We were told after the adoption about her life expectancy if she had stayed in the orphanage... Praise God, Praise God we listened to the still small voice in our hearts and adopted her.

I have heard some say, I am too old. When we were adopting Joseph, Cate and Leah there was a couple coming in to the embassy in Kiev as we were leaving... they were there to adopt an almost 16 yr old girl. The father was 70. Paul and I are 52 and 53 so we have many more years left to adopt. Some say we can't afford it..... How do you think we have adopted this many or feed and care for this many children? The Lord has provided every step of the way in our walk of obedience to this call to "look after orphans in their distress."

Last Thanksgiving we were praying and wondering what new life would be around our table. We have 5 new children we adopted from Ukraine this past June and they will be celebrating their first Thanksgiving this Thursday. I hope we have encouraged someone to consider opening their hearts and homes to adopting a child, helping an unwed mother and her baby or helping at a crisis pregnancy center. Because today is not about us... it is about the love of Jesus and what He can do thru people who choose to walk a walk with Him that shows his Love by our actions and not just by our votes.... I encourage all of you to have new life next year to be thankful for at your Thanksgiving table.