Mark & Jennifer Mozley Family
Soon to be adopted: Ruthi.
Home Church: Atlanta International Church, Atlanta, GA (currently serving in Asia)
My wife and I have never had children on our own, although there was no medical reason why we couldn’t. We considered adoption early on in our marriage but after much prayer, decided that the timing was just not right. We needed our early years to focus on our marriage (we married later in life…the first marriage for us both). We moved to Africa. While there, our love for kids grew, but Mozambican laws make it very difficult for foreigners to adopt. However, once we moved to Asia, and our team began caring for special needs children, the possibility of adopting a child became real. Many families in our extended team began fostering children and eventually adopting them. The story of a little girl with hydrocephalus and cerebral palsy touched our heart. Her birth parents abandoned her after pouring their life savings into an operation. Her second set of caregivers did the same thing. After two failed operations, a baby ministry in Shanghai helped her get yet another operation…after which, she came to our team’s children’s ministry. Six months after she arrived, we began fostering little Ruthi. My wife, Jennifer, felt in her spirit that we were supposed to adopt this little girl. While that helped in our overall decision, I wanted further confirmation from God. When I read the verse that “pure religion is this, to take care of widows and orphans…”, it dawned on me that this was the norm…God’s default mode if you will. I figured that this was what I should be doing in the first place and if it wasn’t Father’s will, then He would have to shut that door. Frankly, no doors were being shut, but being flung wide open.
There were a few other factors came into play with our decision to adopt. Being in that atmosphere of seeing the effect that attention and love had on the life of a child has been overwhelming. Also, being around fellow team members who had adopted kids and modeled a wonderful family atmosphere was certainly an inspiration as well. However, our biggest inspiration came from meeting and just being around little Ruthi. Being around her week after week, it was wonderful seeing her change and to experience the affects of how she was changing our lives as well. In short, she captured our heart and we feel like, in so many ways, she’s the one who is adopting us. We have been fostering her for almost two years now and our lives have been profoundly affected for the positive in every possible way. Ruthi teaches us so much about the heart of God every day. We are so grateful to Katelyn’s Fund for helping making our adoption possible. We could never have made it this far without help from your wonderful organization.
