When God Plants a Seed...
I'm sure many have been wondering WHY adoption. For our little family, adoption has been planted in our hearts for many years. God has been weaving the story of adoption in our lives for many years & in his perfect timing we have answered his call to adoption. Many probably consider adoption to be what people do after struggling with infertility-- but for us that is not the case. You see, we've always known that we have wanted to grow our family through adoption. No matter IF we could have biological children or not-- we knew adoption was heavy on our hearts from the beginning.
Let's go back in time, to about 2005. I was 18 (ish) and had read some startling information about the one-child policy in China. Around this time many families in China were required to only have one child, and if said child was a girl, many would be abandoned (or even worse, killed) due to favor of male children. I read that there was a huge need for families to adopt these baby girls, and at the young, naive age of 18 the seed was planted in my heart to adopt. I don't know how serious I was as a freshman in college, but I do know that God planted the first tiny seed in my heart for adoption & the country of China. I took this passion for adoption into my relationship with Matthew nearly 5 years later in 2010. The two of us had been dating several months and knew that things would eventually lead to engagement, we had the usual conversations about marriage, children, etc. I told him my desire to adopt, and he immediately agreed that he wished to adopt, too.
Matt actually lost his biological father around age 5, for a few years of his life he had no father figure in his life. He had a wonderful mother and other supportive family members, but was lacking that crucial earthly father figure. A few years passed and his mom met his step-father. Adam came into Matthew's life and drastically changed the trajectory of his life. He was such a strong and positive example for Matt and provided unconditional love and support. Even though there is no biological relationship, the two of them share a deep bond. Matt feels that having the love and support of a non-biological parent strengthened his desire to adopt.
I also grew up knowing the deep love of a non-biological parent. While both of my biological parents are living, I lived the majority of my childhood years with my dad and my "step-mom"-- but God knew what he was doing when he placed J.J. into my life. From day one, she treated me as her own. She unconditionally loved me, and provided a nurturing and caring environment for me growing up. She has been my biggest support system and role model in life. I truly cannot imagine my life without her. The example she provided of loving a child that you didn't give birth to inspired me to provide that for another child. While, I won't be this child's step-mother, I will simply be her MOTHER. Just like J.J. is to me-- my MOTHER. I don't ever like to give her the other title. Because LOVE makes and family and she has always, always shown me love.
You see, God was always weaving our stories together to lead to adoption. He was preparing our hearts and our lives for something so much greater than we ever could have imagined. Once we got married in 2011, we had moved away to South Carolina. We immediately plugged into a local church-- Seacoast Church. This church has multiple campuses, several scattered in the state of SC and the main church campus being in Charleston. I ended up working for this church for a couple of years during my Grad school journey & met several people along the way when traveling to the main church campus each month. The Charleston campus had an adoption community-- where several adoptive families would journey together through the adoption process and beyond. With our hearts for adoption, we attended an adoption conference and a few fundraisers for some adoptive families. During these early married years, we felt so much passion for adoption-- but the main thing holding us back was our age (have to be 30 to adopt from China) and our finances (teacher & ministry + grad school = not a lot of money). We decided to wait until later in life to adopt, and once we both got our master's degrees. Again, more seeds planted through our church ministry & inspiration and encouragement from other adoptive families.
In 2014, we both finished up our grad school programs and decided we really felt called to go on a missions trip. Neither of us had ever served overseas on a week+ long trip, so we applied to a Seacoast Church missions trip & got accepted to go to South Africa for a construction/children's ministry trip! What a perfect combo for us (Matt is very handy and I love kids!) On our trip there, we were able to work daily with orphaned children and it opened our eyes to the needs around the world. Our work in South Africa furthered our calling to adopt. I remember after that trip feeling such a heavy heart for those sweet children and wanting to help them all. James 1:27 really became a verse that I was burdened to follow "Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world."-- We knew we couldn't change the world by adopting all of the fatherless children, but we knew that one day we could be that family for ONE child in this world. That missions trip was yet another seed planted in our lives-- God was planting seeds throughout our lives, knowing one day he would send rain over those seeds & begin to watch these tiny seeds grow into something beautiful.
Well, life continued on for us-- we ended up having 2 beautiful biological children. A boy and a girl. Many would say "the perfect family"-- getting the best of both worlds. We could have easily said we were content with our family just the way it is. Two perfectly healthy, thriving children. But, no-- God placed a heavy burden on my heart again early this fall (2019) to pray over adoption again. Our pastor at church spoke one Wednesday night about "getting uncomfortable for God." It really hit me hard. Matt had just started a new career, in which he was making a little more income than teaching & has the potential to grow his income quite a bit over the next several years. Something we never saw possible with his career in education. Things were pretty comfortable financially-- for once, money wasn't stressing us out. We had a 4 & 2 year old and really felt like we had a good routine as parents of two children. I felt God was saying it was no longer time to sit a stay comfortable. I prayed for weeks about what I felt led to do to get "uncomfortable for God" with. Was it to go on another missions trip? Was it to give more to our tithes? Nope. Adoption kept coming up in random conversations with people and it seemed so odd to me-- so I started researching adoption information again (it had been several years).
After a couple of weeks of prayer and research, I felt God moving even more. So many little "signs" keep pointing to adoption and NOW being our time to start this journey. Nothing about NOW felt right, other than feeling it was truly a call from God. We may not have been fully ready financially, but were in a much better place to feel comfortable stepping out in faith. We knew it would be ALL God moving mountains and providing the income to allow us to fulfill this calling. It wasn't until October that we finally applied. At the end of October we were accepted into our agency and have been working towards adoption ever since. I will share much more about our journey in other posts. But for now, here is a bit of background as to HOW and WHY we chose to adopt.
I apologize for a really LONG first post-- but our story is unique and has a lot of background info. It's so much easier to write about it here than to share on social media. My hope is to continue sharing about our journey to keep friends/family informed, and as a way to look back and share with our daughter one day. I won't promise to have perfect grammar and spelling or always have perfectly organized thoughts. This is just my way to share my thoughts and our journey with you all. I hope that you will continue to follow along! This journey is going to be long and not always easy-- but I pray to always find the JOY in our Journey.
Let's go back in time, to about 2005. I was 18 (ish) and had read some startling information about the one-child policy in China. Around this time many families in China were required to only have one child, and if said child was a girl, many would be abandoned (or even worse, killed) due to favor of male children. I read that there was a huge need for families to adopt these baby girls, and at the young, naive age of 18 the seed was planted in my heart to adopt. I don't know how serious I was as a freshman in college, but I do know that God planted the first tiny seed in my heart for adoption & the country of China. I took this passion for adoption into my relationship with Matthew nearly 5 years later in 2010. The two of us had been dating several months and knew that things would eventually lead to engagement, we had the usual conversations about marriage, children, etc. I told him my desire to adopt, and he immediately agreed that he wished to adopt, too.
Matt actually lost his biological father around age 5, for a few years of his life he had no father figure in his life. He had a wonderful mother and other supportive family members, but was lacking that crucial earthly father figure. A few years passed and his mom met his step-father. Adam came into Matthew's life and drastically changed the trajectory of his life. He was such a strong and positive example for Matt and provided unconditional love and support. Even though there is no biological relationship, the two of them share a deep bond. Matt feels that having the love and support of a non-biological parent strengthened his desire to adopt.
 |
| Matt with his dad Adam. It is an honor to see these two as father & son. I'm thankful that Adam was there to raise Matt into the man he is today. |
I also grew up knowing the deep love of a non-biological parent. While both of my biological parents are living, I lived the majority of my childhood years with my dad and my "step-mom"-- but God knew what he was doing when he placed J.J. into my life. From day one, she treated me as her own. She unconditionally loved me, and provided a nurturing and caring environment for me growing up. She has been my biggest support system and role model in life. I truly cannot imagine my life without her. The example she provided of loving a child that you didn't give birth to inspired me to provide that for another child. While, I won't be this child's step-mother, I will simply be her MOTHER. Just like J.J. is to me-- my MOTHER. I don't ever like to give her the other title. Because LOVE makes and family and she has always, always shown me love.
 |
| This is J.J. my mom-- my example of unconditional love and grace. |
You see, God was always weaving our stories together to lead to adoption. He was preparing our hearts and our lives for something so much greater than we ever could have imagined. Once we got married in 2011, we had moved away to South Carolina. We immediately plugged into a local church-- Seacoast Church. This church has multiple campuses, several scattered in the state of SC and the main church campus being in Charleston. I ended up working for this church for a couple of years during my Grad school journey & met several people along the way when traveling to the main church campus each month. The Charleston campus had an adoption community-- where several adoptive families would journey together through the adoption process and beyond. With our hearts for adoption, we attended an adoption conference and a few fundraisers for some adoptive families. During these early married years, we felt so much passion for adoption-- but the main thing holding us back was our age (have to be 30 to adopt from China) and our finances (teacher & ministry + grad school = not a lot of money). We decided to wait until later in life to adopt, and once we both got our master's degrees. Again, more seeds planted through our church ministry & inspiration and encouragement from other adoptive families.
 |
| Matt and I in Charleston at an Adoption Gala Fundraiser. It was so encouraging to see other families just like us pursuing adoption & finding support through friends/family. We didn't have much to give, but we felt led to support adoption in any way possible, even one year into marriage. |
In 2014, we both finished up our grad school programs and decided we really felt called to go on a missions trip. Neither of us had ever served overseas on a week+ long trip, so we applied to a Seacoast Church missions trip & got accepted to go to South Africa for a construction/children's ministry trip! What a perfect combo for us (Matt is very handy and I love kids!) On our trip there, we were able to work daily with orphaned children and it opened our eyes to the needs around the world. Our work in South Africa furthered our calling to adopt. I remember after that trip feeling such a heavy heart for those sweet children and wanting to help them all. James 1:27 really became a verse that I was burdened to follow "Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world."-- We knew we couldn't change the world by adopting all of the fatherless children, but we knew that one day we could be that family for ONE child in this world. That missions trip was yet another seed planted in our lives-- God was planting seeds throughout our lives, knowing one day he would send rain over those seeds & begin to watch these tiny seeds grow into something beautiful.
 |
| On our missions trip to South Africa in June 2014. |
Well, life continued on for us-- we ended up having 2 beautiful biological children. A boy and a girl. Many would say "the perfect family"-- getting the best of both worlds. We could have easily said we were content with our family just the way it is. Two perfectly healthy, thriving children. But, no-- God placed a heavy burden on my heart again early this fall (2019) to pray over adoption again. Our pastor at church spoke one Wednesday night about "getting uncomfortable for God." It really hit me hard. Matt had just started a new career, in which he was making a little more income than teaching & has the potential to grow his income quite a bit over the next several years. Something we never saw possible with his career in education. Things were pretty comfortable financially-- for once, money wasn't stressing us out. We had a 4 & 2 year old and really felt like we had a good routine as parents of two children. I felt God was saying it was no longer time to sit a stay comfortable. I prayed for weeks about what I felt led to do to get "uncomfortable for God" with. Was it to go on another missions trip? Was it to give more to our tithes? Nope. Adoption kept coming up in random conversations with people and it seemed so odd to me-- so I started researching adoption information again (it had been several years).
After a couple of weeks of prayer and research, I felt God moving even more. So many little "signs" keep pointing to adoption and NOW being our time to start this journey. Nothing about NOW felt right, other than feeling it was truly a call from God. We may not have been fully ready financially, but were in a much better place to feel comfortable stepping out in faith. We knew it would be ALL God moving mountains and providing the income to allow us to fulfill this calling. It wasn't until October that we finally applied. At the end of October we were accepted into our agency and have been working towards adoption ever since. I will share much more about our journey in other posts. But for now, here is a bit of background as to HOW and WHY we chose to adopt.
I apologize for a really LONG first post-- but our story is unique and has a lot of background info. It's so much easier to write about it here than to share on social media. My hope is to continue sharing about our journey to keep friends/family informed, and as a way to look back and share with our daughter one day. I won't promise to have perfect grammar and spelling or always have perfectly organized thoughts. This is just my way to share my thoughts and our journey with you all. I hope that you will continue to follow along! This journey is going to be long and not always easy-- but I pray to always find the JOY in our Journey.
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