Tuesday Testimony is a time when we focus on testimonies of some of our grant recipients. May you be blessed by their stories.
We discussed the possibility of adopting before we married. After we had been married a couple of years, we trained at The Master’s Mission, hoping to enter remote missionary service. Following our year of training, God called us to serve His kingdom domestically through a local youth ministry and service in the local church. In 2004, we were blessed with our first biological child, Timothy. In 2005, we were challenged with the birth of our stillborn daughter, Amber, who had died in the womb. This gave us an even greater appreciation for children and a better understanding of what a blessing they are. In 2006 and 2008, we were blessed with two more biological children, Gracie and Jonathan. Shortly after his birth, we decided that our next child would (if the Lord wills) come to us through adoption.
We believe that adoption is a great opportunity and felt that especially since the Lord had called us to serve Him domestically and with the conveniences of our society and an abundance of physical provision, we had a duty and privilege to share our blessing with others. The more we looked into it, the more we were persuaded that, for us, adoption was a great means to fulfill the great commission (by sharing the gospel with our child(ren), and if given opportunity, their birth family).
We see adoption as a picture of our adoption in Christ, bringing us into His family forever. It is also a means to stand against the wave of abortion in our land and to demonstrate the Biblical truth that children are a blessing. Because the family of God is filled with people of all ethnicities, we think it would be a privilege for our earthly family to be diverse and are pursuing a trans-ethnic adoption. We are also hopeful that our adoption experience will give us further insight into how we can encourage other families to engage themselves in the care of children who need loving homes in some way.
We sent in our preliminary application with Bethany in February of 2009 and compiled the other necessary paperwork over the year that followed. Our home study was completed in October of 2010 and we are excitedly anticipating a new child in the Lord’s time.
We are grateful for the Lord’s provision in getting us this far and are eagerly waiting on God’s timing to grow our family so we can share God’s love with a new little one. We cannot express in words how very grateful we are to Katelyn’s Fund and its supporters for their partnership in our adoption. It was a tremendous blessing to get the message that we had been approved for one of their grants. We are touched by the kindness and the prayers of the team members we spoke to on the phone and by the generosity of those who support Katelyn’s Fund. Thank you for making such a difference in our lives and helping give us the opportunity to make a difference in the life of a precious child. May God bless the efforts of His people for the Kingdom and the gospel go forth with power!
