We would like to share the stories of some of our grant recipients. Enjoy and be encouraged as you hear their stories.
Our hearts are full of joy as we recount these last few years and how God called us to adoption. It was an unsuspected path for us, something that we had never really considered before. We like to say we were ambushed by the Lord. Looking back, we wonder why we had never thought of adoption before! We simply had not noticed how much God says about orphans in His Word and how close it is to His heart. We’ve prayed James 1:27 for years (Lord, give us pure and undefiled religion…), but I guess we were taken by surprise when we realized God wanted to answer that prayer in our own family. The way God moved our hearts and gave our whole family a longing for an adopted baby is simply amazing.
Once we said, “yes” to adoption, we ventured slowly into the adoption world to find out as much as we could. We prayed about both international and domestic adoption, knowing very little about either. We began hearing from various sources that there is a great need for adoptive families for minority children in America. It was then that we decided to pursue domestic adoption. We were still unaware that adoption is so expensive! Had we known the full amount we would need on the front end, we might not have had the faith to continue! We had no idea where we would get such a large amount of money. We have learned through this journey that God faithfully provides what is necessary to accomplish His will. We stand in awe of how the Lord so abundantly supplied all that was needed for our adoption. We are so grateful to Katelyn’s Fund for being a part of God’s provision!
With a “yes” in our hearts and faith that God would meet our financial need, our only obstacle left was time. We waited and waited as our profile was presented to multiple birth mothers. We prayed and we hoped. We were starting to think that maybe we were too old to be chosen (50 and 48), or maybe we had too many children and would never be picked. Then into our discouragement came the phone call that changed everything! Our discouragement melted away when our agency chose us for a baby who had just been born. “If you want her, she’s yours…” We’ll never forget that day, or the 18 hour drive through the night to a hospital in another state, where we met our new daughter! Once we had her in our arms, we counted up the weeks and months that we had waited for her. We realized that her due date was exactly 40 weeks from when we finished our required home study assessment. God’s timing was PERFECT and He had it all planned out from the beginning. This journey has been an amazing faith building season for our entire family and we are all in love with the precious treasure God has entrusted to us!
