Our Adoption Story - Part 3 - I thought this would be easier

Part 1 - 143 Million
Part 2 - 2AM Conversation
Part 3 - I thought this would be easier
Part 4 - Adoption Placement Staffing Match?  

After attending the 30 hour MAPP class requirement for prospective adoptive and foster care families, we had our "home study" in hand and ready to welcome a new child into our home. We were told a finalized adoption could take anywhere from a few months to a few years. But we would be different... right?

We scoured the Heart Gallery websites for children that might be a good fit for our family. We spent hours looking into the eyes of beautiful children posted online. We would read and reread the descriptions, trying to guess from cryptic cues, "Is this the one?"

At times it felt like we were bidding on an eBay auction. I struggled with this at first, wishing that there was a better way to find the child/children meant for our family without it seeming like online shopping. In addition to being a pastor, I'm also a website designer. I knew that this method created incredible visibility for children waiting to be discovered by their adoptive family.



Still, we searched and searched. We sent our home study to caseworkers for child after child after child. We began to wonder if we were really needed all that much. I admit, the urgency that flooded my heart in the very beginning of our adoption journey was waning. We may have even been a little discouraged. If there are 143 million orphans in the world, should it really be this complicated to adopt a child who needs a family???

After about 1 year of searching, we stopped.

This was the part of the journey where God was waiting patiently on us. Or was this part of the plan to let the idea of adoption rest and then become renewed with clarity and even greater passion? Christa and I agreed to put our fruitless pursuit of adopting a child from the foster care system on hold for a time.

During this time, the idea of our family adopting a child never left our minds. We continued to pray each evening with our children for the orphans in the world. We even sponsored 1 of them (pat self on back).

A trip to Uganda this past summer surrounded me with orphans and other needy children. With hundreds of children hugging me and tugging on my white skin, my heart was once again crushed for the global needs of children. God made me this way - I think you'll find He made you this way also. In a phone call home, I warned Christa not to be shocked if I bring home 50 or so Ugandan children. She chuckled a "bring it on!" type chuckle. She also knew we could never afford a single international adoption- let along 50.

Soon after arriving back from Uganda, Christa began to grill me about our adoption journey. One late-night conversation, she asked, "So, are we ever going to do this?", "Isn't that up to God?" I said, passing the buck with spiritual prowess. Christa is sweet, but has never struggled with challenging me when she senses I'm missing something.

She thinks silently for another minute or so. Then, breaking the silence, she says, "Well, when you believed that God invited our family to adopt, were you wrong?", "Um...", I said, knowing without a doubt that God still wanted our family to adopt.

The discussion continued, steering in the direction of our frustrations of getting zero traction along our adoption journey thus far. That night, Christa said that she was going to start praying that if God wants us to adopt, He would orchestrate the next chapter of our adoption journey in such a supernatural way that we would know without doubt He was at work.

And so, she prayed...