Nate & Amy Braun
Children: Caiden (4), Micah (2), and adopted daughter Faith (2)
Church: Community Christian Church, Minooka, IL
Hi! We are Nate and Amy Braun from Minooka, IL which is a southwest suburb of Chicago. We have been married for 5 years and have two precious biological boys named Caiden (age 4) and Micah (age 2). We attend Community Christian Church where Nate is currently serving as a leadership church planting resident and student ministries director. We have always talked about adopting because we felt that this is something that God calls ALL Christ-followers to consider. We started our adoption journey to our daughter Faith (age 2) in March 2015 and brought her home from China in January 2016! She has blessed our family beyond words!!!
We named our daughter “Faith” because it took every bit of faith that we had to start our adoption process at the time that we did. Nate had felt called into ministry for many years and had just quit his full-time (well paying) engineering job to finish seminary and start a ministry residency when we submitted our adoption application. Our income was literally cut in half and we knew that it would take a miracle to be able to afford to bring our daughter home. We also knew that Faith had some extensive special needs and there were many “unknowns” with her medical condition. After a lot of prayer we took the leap and God provided at every single step of the way.
One major answer to prayer during our journey to bringing Faith home was receiving the Katelyn’s Fund grant. We were blown away with the support we received from them, not only financially, but prayer support and encouragement. During our Skype interview with the team, I think we were all in tears as we prayed over our adoption process and Faith’s precious heart. It was just incredible and something that we will never forget!
Faith’s adoption day was January 5, 2016 and all of our prayers were answered. She has adjusted beautifully to our family and her brothers love her to pieces! She is easy-going, joyful, smart, stubborn, eager to please, and silly. It has been amazing to watch her blossom and make so much progress in just 2 months of being with her forever family! We had every reason to say “no, this isn’t the right time” or “we can’t afford it” but we are SO THANKFUL that we said YES and trusted God to provide!!! Thank you for letting us share our story!
“Jesus looked at them intently and said, “Humanly speaking, it is impossible. But with God everything is possible” Matthew 19:26 NLT
