Adoption is something Brian and I have considered since we started dating.  It is something that we have felt called to for reasons that are completely of God.  It is one of our missions in this life.  God has adopted us into His family and now we want to adopt a child into ours.  We pray that this child will embrace the gospel and come to know Christ as we have.  We pray that we can be godly parents to him or her and to raise them with a love that is deep and pure.  We know that it is impossible without God and so we ask for your prayers in what is sure to be a humbling experience.

Many people ask me directly if we are infertile.  That is probably the first thing that pops into an outsiders mind when a person chooses adoption.  That is not the case for us.  Honestly, it was my selfish hangup that kept us from adopting right away.  I thought that motherhood needed to be something experienced physically if you are able.  But that is not what God thinks.  He is, thankfully, always a zillion steps ahead of us in our human, pea-sized brain thinking.  Our decision to adopt came about during February.  I was reading a book that one of my Hmong American students gave me called The Latehomecomer.  The Twin Cities have a large Hmong American population and I wanted to learn more about their culture so I can better serve my students.  For those of you who are unfamiliar with the Hmong people, I suggest reading this book.  Anyway, I was struck by how the Hmong people were displaced and did not have an actual land to call home and it broke my heart.  I thought to myself, “how can I help people who might feel this way?”  Then, like a ton of bricks, I could hear God saying, “hey, you, remember how you keep putting that whole adoption thing on the back burner–revisit it!”  Okay, God didn’t literally say that to me, but He urged me to talk to Brian at that moment.  I put down the book and said “what if we adopted?”  To give you a little history, Brian and I have always wanted to help people in a radical way.  We take Jesus’ call to help the poor, widowed, and orphaned very seriously and thought that we would be called to be missionaries or work in homeless ministry.

Now we still consider doing these things some day, but we know that for the time being our call is to adopt.  This is why God put us here.  It is crazy how after that singular conversation and a LOT of prayer, God literally flung doors open, one right after another, to make our adoption journey possible.  I am so grateful to Him and our current church community for embracing our call to adopt and for going alongside us.  It has only been four months, but it feels like a lifetime.  We know that it only gets more difficult from here, though.  So, please, pray for us when you have a chance.  We are almost done gathering all of the materials needed for our profile book, including the writings we have both done on our families, one another, to the birthmother, about our home…it will be a beautiful keep sake to share with our son or daughter someday.  After we (Lord willing) get approved for our home study, these profile books will ship out to birth mothers and then nothing is in our control.  I mean, nothing really is in our control anyway, but we will have to fully lean on God for support as we wait for a call to come and get our baby.  We hope you can go alongside us, too.  Your words of encouragement have been so helpful and we are so looking forward to sharing them with our child.

Something I am currently struggling with is the idea that we can get matched, fly down to the state where the birthmother lives, see our baby, and have the adoption fall through.  This happens (at least) 1 out of 10 times.  You do not lose everything money wise, but it is a great loss on the adoptive parent’s end, which we are preparing our hearts for.  However, it keeps getting more and more real to me; so if you could pray for strength, I would really appreciate it.  I am sure my hubby needs it, too, so keep him in your prayers as well.

For the next week we will be embarking on our “baby moon.”  I hope to have more updates for you all when we get back.  But until then–I’ll be dreaming of my adorable hubby, sweet tea, and the beach 🙂