So, I've never been one for keeping secrets. I've been known to spoil surprises meant for myself or spill the beans on a surprise I may be planning for someone else. When I was pregnant. I was the type who told everyone as soon as I got a positive test. None of this waiting until 3 months to share the big news! Just in case you are worried, though, I can be trusted to keep others secrets, just not my own. :o) That being said, I'm sure everyone (especially those on Facebook) has figured out that I have a heart for adoption. My heart breaks for children who have no home, no family, no hope. I've always felt that I would love to adopt one or a two of those forgotten children. Also, I have a brother that is adopted, so it just seemed apart of my life growing up that I new could be great for my own family some day.
This is a feeling that until recently, Paul did not share. When we married, I knew that Paul did not want to adopt. Something I accepted and figured I would be blessed and happy to have biological children with the man I loved. And I was....for several years. We were wrapped up in our lives, having our children, first Breanna, then Sean. I figured our family was complete. And I could accept that and felt blessed.
A year or so after Sean, our youngest, was born we started attending a new church, East Valley Bible Church, now called Redemption - Gilbert. It was here that the seed of adoption was once again planted into my brain and my heart. There are many families in our church that have adopted domestically and internationally, some that become our personal friends. There are also many that do foster care.
It seemed the more I tried to ignore the tug at my heart every time I heard something about adoption, the more stories I would hear. The more statistics I would become aware of that would just break my heart. I tried not to hound Paul about all the adoption stuff, but it seemed more and more "in our face". It got to the point that I actually asked God to change my heart, make me content with the family I was already blessed with. Not that I didn't feel blessed. But, I just had a feeling, a tug toward something else for our family. I asked him to take the longing away. So, of course, he introduced me to more people that had a personal connection with adoption.
This was about the time I had a friend who's brother and sister-in-law started the process of adopting from Russia. I started following their blog, tinygreenelephants.com. Amy has a way with words. She's super inspiring. I also had a friend from college that started her adoption journey. So, I began following her blog. Needless to say, a fire started in my heart. I started feeding bits of information at a time to Paul. A statistic here, and story there, a picture of some cute, little orphan that needed a home. I started praying for God to lead my husband and our family to whatever God would have us to do...to either help me find another way to get involved in my passion for the orphan cause or change Paul's heart...just something to help me have peace with this whole "adoption thing".
I had no idea at this time that God was already working in Paul's heart.
A few years ago, Paul had an opportunity to volunteer at a camp for foster children, called TRAC. It is ran by an organization called Hope and a Future. Being at that camp, seeing the face of an orphan, hearing their stories, started to soften Paul's heart. Plus, he couldn't ignore how much God kept putting the issue of adoption in our path...over and over again. He also brought friends into Paul's life, through the camp, that had adopted and currently also do foster care. And so the seed began to grow. Paul put off telling me about his willingness to adopt for quite some time. In his mind, he knew that the moment I found out that the ball would start rolling, that things would take off. And so they did.
So, here we are now. We would like to adopt. We hope for a waiting child from China. but are open to where God ultimately leads us (I'll tell you more about how that came to be later). We are preparing to, hopefully, have a home study toward the end of the year. We are beginning some fund raising efforts, first with a garage sale, coming up this weekend. Breanna is jumping into this with great zeal and is already making some fun bracelets to add to the raising of funds.
So, the not so secret secret is out. What I would like to do is have you join us on this journey through this blog. I've not been good at blogging up to this point, but hope to be better now. I want to share with you the ups and downs of the process of adoption, the hopes and dreams, the heartaches and the triumphs. I'm sure it will be an awesome journey and I'm glad to share it with you. Stay tuned....
