Blessed By Adoption

Happy National Adoption Month

Adoption Blessed Our Family...

Happy National Adoption Month

Adoption Blessed Our Family…

At a young age the Lord put foster care and adoption on my heart. I’ve always enjoyed children

and often played with kids younger than me. When my friends played house with their dolls I played

orphanage with mine.

I was in middle school when a student who was in foster care joined my class. Becoming familiar

with her first hand experience grew my interest. In the 6th grade I wrote a report on homeless children and

their care. I’d expected to learn about kids and families living on the streets without a home. My intent

was never to write the report about foster care. My research continually pointed me to information about

foster children rather than kids living on the streets. The end result was a report about foster care. I was

beginning to understand the depth of the problems and needs involved.

As a teen I was watching television and came across a show called 20/20. I watched as the

reporter strolled an orphanage and spoke about the Romanian orphan crisis. Weekly I followed the story

and it broke my heart. I decided that someday I’d work at an orphanage in Romania. Although, I never

made it to Romania the stories I heard grew my heart for children in need.

At 17 I took an R.O.P. class in early childhood education and was hired at a local preschool. When

I graduated high school I began taking child development courses in addition to teaching preschool. I

never forgot my plans to be a foster parent and someday adopt. My vision of what my life would be like

when I began just wasn’t happening.

I was waiting on God to get His order of events right when I developed pneumonia. The Lord was

giving me a wake up call. I’d been expecting God to make my path easy. God was calling me to take a

much bigger step of faith than I’d originally envisioned. It took a near death experience to get my

attention. I’d selfishly set up prerequisites for God to meet in order to win my obedience. It was time I

get to doing what the Lord had put on my heart to do.

Shortly after leaving the hospital I began taking foster care classes at a local junior college. I

wanted to learn all I could so I went to weekly classes, watched videos, and read articles and books. After

some time, I began working on the required steps towards becoming a foster parent.

I received my foster care license when I was 28. A few months later my first foster children came

to stay with me. Over the next year and a half I fostered them. It didn’t take long before I became quite

attached to them. Fostering was a roller coaster. The hardest part of fostering for me was never knowing

what to expect. As time went on the boy’s birth mother showed incredible strength as she worked towards

reunification. The children returning to their birth mom was a happy ending but I really missed my foster

sons.

I felt the best thing for me would be to take in another foster child right away. Weeks then months passed

with no calls for placement requests. Seven months later I still didn't have children placed with me. It was

not for my lack of trying. I regularly called social workers at many nearby offices to let them know I had

openings but I got very few calls and no placements. At the time I was licensed for children 2 years and

up but I was doing whatever I could to get a placement. For that reason, I contacted licensing to get

approval to have babies in my home. I finally got the approval.

A week later the social worker that had originally approved me for foster adoption called me. She

explained that she was now a placement worker and said, "I have a baby for you!" Kevin was the baby

and he was a blessing from the start! A few weeks after Kevin came to live with me a visit was scheduled

with his birth mom and his two sisters. Kevin's sisters had been placed in a separate foster home.

My mom and I took Kevin to that visit and when we met his sisters (Jessica and Joy) our hearts melted.

We adored them from the very beginning.

Throughout our drive home, my mom and I talked about how we wanted the girls to come to stay with us

too. I was only approved for two children at the time because I had only one bedroom available. I ended

up moving my room into our living room which left the dining room for family time. My room was

prepared for the girls. It took us a few months to get approval from licensing for the extra room and for 3

children.

Kevin came to live with us on June 22, 2007, and the girls joined us on September 13, 2007. God knew

beforehand that we were to be a family and he was working that out all along. I tried to take things into

my own hands when I received no placements for seven months. I didn't understand why I was having to

wait so long when I knew there were kids who need homes.All I can say is God knew Kevin needed to be with me and he worked out the timing. He then allowed

everything to come together just right and the girls were able to join us.

I had gone into foster-adopt planning to take one child and ended up with three. God's funny that way. He

knows what we need better than even we do. I can't imagine life without each one of them. They give my

life such joy and purpose. They keep life fun and give me so many reasons to laugh. God blessed me with

my three children and made my life so much richer.

God's ways are truly higher than our ways, and His thoughts higher than our thoughts.