It’s a well known fact that I (and my husband!) can talk adoption all day long, but what do our bio kids have to say about it? You might be able to tell how much they love their siblings by the way they care for them, play with them and communicate with them. But when one of them told me his Comp I instructor allowed him to choose a topic for his paper, and wrote about adoption, it touched my heart.
This is significant to me on so many levels. When we started adopting 11 years ago, and had three biological children, ages 6, 7 and 14, one criticism we got was, “You’ll ruin your family. You won’t be able to pay for your kids’ college or buy them a car.”
*news flash* My parents didn’t pay for my college or buy me a car, and they didn’t adopt.
We’ve got one college graduate, one college freshman and another entering college next year. All three have vehicles, and… you guessed it, we didn’t buy those either. They did.
Nine adoptions later and we still hear similar arguments. What it boils down to, for us, is… what are we living our lives for? Who are we living for?
Adoption isn’t for everyone. Adopting doesn’t make one family any holier than another. It certainly isn’t a way to get into heaven. For Clayton and I, it is a way of living out Christ’s love for us by loving others. When He redeemed us 13 years ago we surrendered everything to Him. Willingly. joyfully, completely. It’s not always easy, and we constantly have an inner battle with our selfish flesh. But every aspect of adoption, from the paper work, the thorough home studies, the waiting, the faith for provision and the transition has built character in us and our children.
Here is Kolton’s Comp I paper. As an English student, I will tell you it has a few grammatical errors, and he changed some of the facts ~ (you know, names have been changed to protect the innocent:). But evidently the content and subject superseded the flaws because he got a 100!
So, maybe my kids are ruined. And that’s not a bad thing!
10/28/14
Little Bundle of Joy
A group of short women wearing the same outfit walk into the room, each one with a little dark haired baby wearing way too much clothing for the temperature in the building. Everyone in the area is sniffling and wiping back tears of joy as the women with the little bundles of silent babies, line up.
There are about 60 million orphaned children in all of Asia. The cause of most of the orphans in China is their one and two child policies. When a family is only allowed to have one child, they are forced to desperately try to conceive a boy so their family name can continue to survive.
So, what happens when a family has a girl? Girls are simply dumped in alleys, left on doorsteps, put in drainage ways, or dropped at bus stops. These cruel means of abandonment are due to the fact that it is illegal to put your own child into an orphanage.
There is hope for these children. On a normal summer morning, my older brother and I, gone, my sister playing in her room, my parents sit silently reading their bibles in the living room. The silence is broken by my mom’s voice, “Have you ever thought of adoption,” she says to my dad. “Yes, I have actually, all week I have been thinking about it,” he replied.
Without them even knowing it, the Lord had stirred both of their hearts for the same cause. “I have been thinking about China and all the orphaned girls there,” my mom says. “I was also thinking of somewhere in Asia,” said my dad.
At that moment they both knew what they were supposed to do. Whenever my mom had spare time after that she spent it on the computer researching international adoption. She poured over detail after detail on every single adoption website. She eventually found blogs from adoptive families which turned out to be a great resource for learning the steps of the international adoption process.
After my mother read many blogs, she found that she needed to talk to an adoption agency, Dillon. Dillon is an international adoption agency out of Tulsa, that my mom got hooked up with to get even more information. She talked to a very nice sounding lady that gave her all the minuscule details that she had so desperately dug for.
My parents decided to travel to Tulsa to meet with this faceless bearer of all good information. Upon arriving at Dillon they walked into the nicely sized building and met a receptionist. The lady at the door sent them back to an office where they met the rather wrong image of the woman my mother had talked to on the phone. The voice on the phone had come from a large statured, red haired, almost burly looking woman. Despite her appearance, she was the nicest woman someone would ever want to meet. The nice sounding lady helped them tremendously and my parents actually left that day with the information of a baby girl.
Many months, fundraisers, sleepless nights, and endless prayers later, my parents and my older brother found themselves in the middle of the densely populated country of China. While in the great country, my family took warm muggy boat rides down ever-flowing rivers with steep jagged limestone walls on each side, reaching up toward the sky.
The giant white people walked through extensive market places that were set up for a much shorter person. The smell of the thick, grungy air followed them everywhere they went, even to the little city in which they were to obtain their baby girl.
My family members arrived with several other families at the building that their guides led them to. Inside the building all the families were instructed to stand in this blank room and wait patiently for what was to come.
Then, out of nowhere, a group of short women wearing the same outfit walk into the room, each one with a little dark haired baby wearing way too much clothing for the temperature in the building. Everyone in the area is sniffling and wiping back tears of joy as the women with the little bundles of silent babies, line up. In that moment, the moment every single one of those families had been waiting so long for, my mom and dad were united with their own chunky little bundle of joy.
Since that awesome point in time my parents have adopted seven more of my wonderful brothers and sisters and are in the process to bring home another. My mom has kept a blog through all the adoptions of my siblings. Through my mother’s blog, and other outreach programs, she has mentored, and encouraged many families through the adoption process. She even helped start an adoption fund grant foundation. From that one single bundle of joy branched countless precious lives saved.
TO HIM BE GLORY!
