Our Promise

Thanks to those of you who have followed our adoption journey as I've shared it here this past month. For our friends in Florida who haven't been with us from the beginning of the process, I hope reading about it has helped you to feel more a part of things by knowing how we got to this point. And for those who have been with us all along, our dear Michigan and Ohio friends and family, I hope you felt our continued thankfulness for all your support. We are immensely grateful!

 

I've tried to cover as much of the process - the good and challenging - from our perspective in a way that is helpful to those considering adoption for their family. It would be great if these posts answered some questions and soothed some apprehensions. It would be even better if that percentage of people who actually adopt increased significantly from just 2% for the sake of expectant parents, babies, and children in foster care not waiting reunification, all to the glory of God.

But regardless of what this series has done for others, I am thankful to rehearse and solidify in my mind the steady leading of God in our lives these past few years. I have benefited from tracing his hand and trust that I am more prepared to give an answer to others of our hope in God as they ask about our adoption.

To end the series today, I wanted to share another page from our profile book (the book expectant parents will view as they consider selecting us to parent their child). It wasn't a requirement for our Michigan book, so this page is hot off the press for our Florida book. It's called "Our Promise To You..." and is the last page the expectant parents will see as they close our book.

Our Promise To You...

We promise to tell your child the happiest news ever of Jesus' great love, wisdom, care, and power.

We promise to show that love, wisdom, care, and power to your child through our lives every day, with His help.

We promise to offer you relief from wondering if your child will be loved and cared for every single day of his/her life through every stage of his/her growth and development.

We promise to love your baby through his/her middle of the night cries to the joy of his/her first smile.

We promise to love your toddler through the tantrums of the trying terrible twos and kiss away all the boo-boos and skinned knees as he/she learns to ride his/her bike.

We promise to love your school-aged child and tuck him/her in every night, helping him/her with homework, quizzing him/her on multiplication facts, being involved in his/her school, and helping him/her develop his/her God-given talents.

We promise to love your teenager through his/her mood swings and adjustments into adulthood, crying with him/her through his/her first break-up, disappointing friendship, and frustrated bench-sitting, and cheering for him/her over baskets scored, reports completed, and recitals performed.

We promise to equip him/her with all he/she needs to succeed in college, his/her career, and as he/she starts his/her own family.

We promise to incorporate your cultural and ethnic background into our family life and tell your story of love and sacrifice, and how God linked our stories together in His perfect plan for his/her good and happiness.

We promise to give every ounce of our energy to nurturing and showering this precious child with all the love we have - FOREVER.

 

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The Money Thing

Adoption can be expensive. It costs about $25,000 for domestic infant adoption. After our first information gathering meeting at Bethany, we were overwhelmed with the cost and discouraged knowing we certainly didn't have that kind of money.

33% of Americans consider adoption. 79% of those are concerned about the costs, the biggest deterrent. Less than 2% adopt. (Source: Abba Fund)

The cost almost deterred us. Matt came to realize if we waited until we had all the money and even tried to plan where it would come from, we would never start the process. He decided since we were in a stable place financially, we needed to start down the path and see how God provided. So that's what we did.

A few days after getting approval of our formal application, I contacted my talented hair stylist and good friend, Melissa, about doing a fundraiser through the salon where she worked. She eagerly agreed and along with friends who made delicious refreshments to sell and other generous vendors who donated portions of their proceeds, they helped us raise almost $2,000. The big fundraising ball was rolling!

Then another friend from church approached us about holding a fundraiser and selling health and beauty products from her company and donating the proceeds to our adoption fund.

And God kept providing through donations in all amounts. We received financial gifts from our fundraising website, some from sweet kids who raised money from their lemonade stand, a large amount from my mom and step-dad's church, a few thousand from a concert my step-dad held, and another several thousand from our dinner at CBC. People contributed goods to raffle and a family from church who owns our favorite Mexican restaurant in Metro Detroit had a day in November when they gave us a portion of their proceeds from sales. We sold tshirts with our "Together We're Loud" logo and had various people sacrificially give a few hundred or thousand dollars here and there. Then we were so encouraged to learn in February of this year that we were awarded $6,000 through Steven Curtis Chapman's Show Hope Grant.

We read books and blog posts about debt-free adoption before we got started which were very helpful. We also learned a little along the fundraising way ourselves. (Just to be transparent, we are hoping to have a debt-free adoption, but have incurred approximately $2,000 more in fees from our transfer, so we will see how it all works out in the end.)

1) It is hard work. I likened it to adding on a part-time job. So many details to plan, things to organize, and thank yous you don't want to miss. Like most work, there is profit in the end, but it really is just plain old work.

2) We couldn't have done it without a huge support network. We had many dear friends from the church of which we were a part during Matt's seminary years who came to several events. We had amazing support and generosity from our beloved church, CBC. They let us hold several events at the ministry center which cut down on our needing to incur costs in renting a facility. And there were other friends and family near and far who gave monetarily, but also let us borrow tables and chairs, gave discounts on tshirt printing, and offered free design services. We were humbled to see so many people join together to help us raise money.

3) Although many people were supporting us personally, we were given a platform to help promote adoption and orphan care. We learned so much in the process and I hope we were able to spur others on in living out pure religion from James 1:27, to take care of the fatherless.

4) To get money, you have to have money. Most grants are looking for substantial efforts on your part indicating you have done all you can to raise as much money as you can before asking them for money. They also want to see that you do an adaquate job managing your personal finances, show financial need, but don't already carry debt. It seems to be a tricky balance. Also, it does help to have good friends who volunteer at the Show Hope table at Steven Curtis Chapman's concerts to put in a good work for you so that Mary Beth herself might look at your application. (Thanks, Troy and Mal!)

5) In much the way physical child birth strips you of your dignity, all the bearing of personal information in the adoption process forces you to be an open book. The level of financial detail some grant applications go into is crazy, let alone all the essays you have to write about why you want to adopt, how you've prepared, your spiritual journey, your theological persuasions, etc. I like writing and it was tedious and a bit intrusive even for me! (Although I do understand why it needs to be that way.)

6) The place of need has been a good place to be. As nerve-racking as it is to know that $25,000 bill is coming due, God has given us much grace as we stepped out following him not knowing how we would make all the ends meet. It has been a chance for us to see his kindness, goodness, and generosity to us through others. Our kids have seen him directly provide our adoption needs, so much so that Stella said, "I want to be more generous to others like others have been to us." Sometimes I tend to think that giving of our resources is the best way to teach our kids generosity, but God has shown us that humbly receiving generosity is also a way he chooses to magnify his faithful character.

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Some Fun Stuff - Possible Names, Baby Clothes, and a Rocker

This series has been heavy at times, so I thought as I wind it down, I'd mix it up a bit and throw in a little fun!

Since moving to Florida, I will admit I have become an avid Walmart shopper. We have one literally 2 minutes from our house (and Target is about 20 minutes away now), so it is the store nearest us. But it's also super affordable. Since they started their Savings Catcher program in August, I have gotten back over $30.00 in the past few months alone. Also, I have found some really cute clothes for me and the kids there and some fun home decor. (These pillows: cute for winter and cuter for anytime.)

A few days ago, I stumbled upon this site that chronicles great Walmart finds. Imagine my excitement. :)

I couldn't help but be drawn to these adorable baby clothes they linked to.

Stinkin' cute or what?! They look like they're straight off the rack at H&M!

This fall it hit me that I wasn't shopping in the baby/toddler section anymore and I have been going through serious withdraw from not shoving some chubby baby thighs into jeggings or snapping a necktie appliqued onesie on a little bod. (This baby needs to come quickly!)

Next, how about this mid-mod rocker?! Especially in the always in style, IMHO, happy orange color. :) I've never had a rocker in a nursery and don't even know if I'd use it, but I like looking at it!

Last, and on another note, we've had much time to consider names for our new little babe. We wanted to pick a name that would be appropriate to his/her ethnic heritage and to our family heritage. We have settled on a boy and girl option. (I will caveat that we are open to working with the birth family to incorporate a name of their choosing into the child's name as well, so these are subject to change.)

For a boy, we have picked Carter Matthew. We like that he will be named after his dad (Matthew) and we also like how Carter matches with Schaeffer's name. But we also appreciate the man behind the Carter name, Pastor Tony Carter. We have some very good friends who attend East Point Church in East Point, GA, where he is the lead pastor. You may know him from his work with The Front Porch or his writing in Tabletalk. He and his wife, Adriane, extended such kindness to me and Matt a few years back when we were in GA for a funeral, allowing us to come over to their house on a Friday night and grill them with questions on church planting and how there might be any hope for us white people to have a multiethnic ministry. They showed us around their house, introduced us to their 5 kids, and sat in their living room with us like they had nothing better to do than entertain two strangers who wanted to keep following Jesus and glean wisdom from their experience and biblical knowledge. I'm currently reading Pastor Carter's book, Bloodwork. What a godly namesake!

For a girl, we have chosen the name Aaliyah Sunshine. We like Aaliyah because it is feminine and fits well with Stella's and Ruby's names. And Matt has insisted (although I'm not opposed to it at all) we use my middle name, Sunshine, for her. He loves it and I love knowing she would bear my name, signifying the bright days ahead for her, by the grace of God.

But for now, we wait and pray, trusting our God who already knows the child he has us for, and who will give him/her to us at the right time. He has never been late before, and we are confident he'll be right on time again.

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Thankful for my Adoption

 

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Transracial Adoption - How?

In yesterday's post, I wrote about the concept of missional living to answer the question of why we're adopting transracially. In today's post, to answer the how question, I'll use the term incarnational.

During our transracial adoption training at Bethany, we were required to watch a lengthy video of several adoptees evaluating their experience being raised by adoptive parents who were of a different ethnicity than their own birth ethnicity.

It was eye opening. Definitely, the common theme was evident - if their adoptive parents did not make an effort to expose them to, educate them in, and celebrate their ethnic origin, it was a double grief to the adopted child. The first grief, I've already written about, is grieving the loss of their birth parent and the second grief, in their case, was the loss of their birth culture.

So Bethany had us do an exercise where they gave us different colored beads representing different ethnicities. We had to answer questions like, "What is your pediatricians ethnicity?" "What is the principal's ethnicity at your child's school?" "What is the ethnicity of your neighbors on each side of you?" We dropped the appropriate color bead representing that ethnicity to answer the questions. At the end, the point was to reveal how monochromatic (white majority) our lives are if we are not intentionally building relationships and immersing ourselves in a culture other than our own.

They encouraged us to see our family as having a transracial identity. We should not think of ourselves as a white family with a black or bi-racial child. We should think of our whole family taking on our child's identity in an incarnational way - willingly laying aside our privileges and preferences to identify with our child's birth culture and history and weaving it into our family's new identity.

These trainings were meant to make us count the cost of taking on the responsibility of raising our child who is of a different ethnicity. They wanted us to leave their office grieving the loss of our own ethnicity - not because it's better, although admittedly it is easier - so we could more adequately understand what our child will go through.

And that's exactly the effect it had on us. We left accepting the fact that although our skin color will not change, collectively as a family, we had to be willing to see ourselves and be seen as the ethnicity of our child. So we knew we needed to prepare to experience racism ourselves for the first time in our lives. My mom already had when she told someone we were pursuing an African American placement. The individual said, "Really?! Well, it will be fine when that child is small, but Matt and Erica just need to be prepared for what that child will become as an adult."

Blatant racism that minority cultures have been dealing with for decades. May God help us and use our family for his glory and our good and greatest joy!

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Transracial Adoption - Why?

This is a hard post to write in the aftermath of the Ferguson verdict yesterday. As a family approaching transracial adoption, specifically African American placement, I feel my heart pulled in two different directions. One is the world of white privilege I've always known and taken for granted, and the other is the world our child will come from stacked with decades of oppression and prejudice I have never known. Michael Jackson was wrong. It clearly does matter if you're black or white. And honestly, it makes me scared to death to think of how I can even attempt parenting our child in a way that educates him/her about realities I have never known and equips him/her to live responsibly and graciously in the cruel existence of racism.

So what made us pursue transracial adoption?

Since college, we have had a burning desire for missions. We are missionaries at heart, even though we've never served long-term in a foreign field of ministry. I wrote about it here, all the different avenues we pursued, asking God to, "Please send us!" He chose not to, and we are content with his will. But, we do see the benefit of being stateside missionaries (because we are all really called to missions anyway) who are frustrated that we've been left behind. And we've come to see our desire to adopt transracially as fruit of that desire. If we can't go to them, we will bring them (or at least one of them!) to us! Afterall, parenting in and of itself, is a mission field, right?!

Early on in our parenting (Stella's first birthday as a matter of fact), the first baby we got her was an African American doll. Yes, it was a very small beginning in and effort to opening our daughter's eyes that God's creation isn't full of white people. We wanted our family to be a context, from its inception, where we and our kids would see that he really is "Lord of the Nations" and one way his great glory could be explored was through learning about people from every tribe, tongue, and nation. In essence, we wanted our home to be a place of raising non-ethnocentric, global students for God's glory. No small task.

We attempted to do this in different ways. Matt and I were in Detroit a lot when most long-standing Michiganders were still living in the white flight mentality. I remember going to the Jazz Fest in 2002 as one of the few whites venturing into that context. I remember holding on to Matt's arm as we made our way through the crowds. The racial tensions were so thick you could feel them. One African American man looked at us and jumped back, mockingly clearing the area and sarcastically said, "Oh! Let's make way for the suburbanites!"

Fear and conflict have never been seen as obstacles for my eye-of-the-storm loving husband. (So we were not surprised when our most-like-him daughter wrote on a paper at school that her career choice is "Storm Chaser.") So, he decided to consider a possible church plant in Detroit. We visited a black church in the city to try to learn the ministry context better. We'd often put ourselves and our kids in situations where we were the minority - a playground at Belle Isle where Stella and Ruby were the only white kids, a restuarant off the beaten path in Detroit where the African Americans would ask us, "How did you find this place?" (Which by the way, served one of the most delicious smoothies I've ever had - the "Blessed and Highly Favored.") We set up several appointments and looked at apartments and condos in the city. Matt met with a city developer to see the best area for a possible church plant. He complied statistics and wrote a proposal. But again, God directed otherwise.

God is always at work and wastes none of the circumstances when directing the paths of his people. We see now how those early desires and good (though sometimes misguided) intentions, laid the ground work for us to become a transracial family. We still had a lot to learn, but that initial burden to open our hearts to people not like us and find ways we could change and become more like them for the sake of his name, has led us here - opening our family to receive a child we don't want to make like us, but like Jesus.

More tomorrow on how God has continued to teach us and prepare us to be a transracial family.

 

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A Father's Heart

(This post originally appeared here in June 2013. As I wrote yesterday, it is the outpouring of what God was helping me think through as we attended adoption training to help our child with the grief of a lost birth parent relationship.)

I held it like it was you, that red crochet heart. It hung on my bed post reminding me you were out there, just not here. And how can a 7-year-old reconcile that?

Mom said you loved me and I wanted to believe her. But tears soaked my pillow many nights that second grade year, because if you loved me, where were you?

Sometimes a mom can love enough for a mom and a dad. She did. And she'd sit with me and tell me about you. Good things, actually. It made me smile to hear you were voted "Most Popular" by your eighth grade class. I thought it was cool that you sang in a high school rock band. And my friends now would laugh to know that you worked in your family owned bakery since there's little I hate more than baking. I'd replay those few facts I knew about you over and over in my mind acting like you were familiar and hoping that would change reality.

When I was brave, I'd look at the picture taken on one of the last visits I had with you when I was three. It's of us sitting in a bean bag, reading a book. I'd imagine what it would be like to feel your reassuring arm around me again. I couldn't remember and I knew a little girl needed a strong arm to steady her in this scary world. But all I really had was that red crochet heart you sent me one Valentine's Day.

And it's not just that we didn't have you, but it's who we got in your place. We got more heartache and pain. But when he was gone, Mom got Jesus, and we said you can have all this world - with families good and bad - as long as we could keep Him.

He never left us. Never hurt us. Never went back on His word. He was perfect. I know. I read it and couldn't pull my eyes off the page. I underlined over and over all of those promises He made to the fatherless. And I started to believe them. I started to believe I could trust Him. That I had found the perfect Dad. Or rather that He had heard and found me! "If [the fatherless] cry out to me, I will certainly hear their cry." (Exodus 22:23) He rescued me and quieted me with His love just like I knew a Father's heart should.

And He keeps hearing. When I enrolled in a Christian college that was clearly unprepared to deal with me and my Gen-X baggage, and was harassed by my admissions counselor because I couldn't provide your address or any information about you, I cried out and He heard. Then in Freshman Orientation when the Vice President piled up statistics about being doomed to repeat the cycle of dysfunction if you were from a broken home like I could be scared out of sinning but would always be a second class Christian, I cried out and He heard. And when a girl in my dorm approached me like I was wearing a scarlet letter and said, "Do [the young man's] parents know he's dating you? I mean, my dad would never let me date someone from your kind of background," I cried out and He heard. And when I pulled out my birth certificate a couple months ago and saw the line under "Father's Name" staring back at me blank and bare like I didn't even have one, I cried out wondering how my heart could buckle so quickly under the weight of something that's empty, and He heard.

The thing about the past is that it doesn't stay put. It comes with you and you have to keep dealing with it. That's something we have in common, right? But because Jesus has dealt with it, we can too.

A few years ago when we talked for the first time in over thirty years, I told you like I've indicated here, that our life was hard without you, but that I didn't have grievances to air, only a message of hope and forgiveness to share. And that's the case today.

And even though you still say you want to talk soon but have fallen short again, I understand and so does Adam. He fell first and dads and moms have been doing the same thing ever since.

Even though at one time I wanted more than anything to be known as your daughter, to have my last name be yours, I've found security in a Heavenly Father who has demonstrated His heart of love for me in this, while I was still a sinner, Christ died for me. And my acceptance into His family doesn't require a certain pedigree or family heritage. He doesn't require a specific bloodline because His love for me and you is based on the precious blood of His Son, who by the way knows a little about being born into the shame of scandal. I guess I'm in good company, after all.

Stella's question caught me off guard earlier this week as we were picking out a Father's Day card for Matt. She asked if I was getting a card for you. I never have, but maybe this can be it. And maybe you and others like us will read it. So, from a daughter's heart that has been radically changed by the overwhelming love of her Father, let me show you His heart. He loves reckless sinners with a reckless, profuse love. Our wild living is no match for His forgiveness. In fact, He meets our sin with extravagant grace. I know because I've experienced it!

"[W]hile [I] was still a long way off, [my] father saw [me] and was filled with compassion for [me]; he ran to [me], [and] threw his arms around [me] and kissed [me].

"[He] said to his servants, ‘Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on h[er]. Put a ring on h[er] finger and sandals on h[er] feet. Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let’s have a feast and celebrate. For this [daughter] of mine was dead and is alive again; [s]he was lost and is found.’ So [we] began to celebrate." (Luke 15:20, 22-24)

The Father's looking for you too, ready to open His heart of compassion and arms of love and meet you where you are. There's nothing more I pray for you this Father's Day than for you to know Him. I can imagine Father's Day is difficult for you. But this one can be different. It can be filled with the joy of new life, a changed heart, repentance, and restoration! And so, tomorrow I wish you, Dad, a Father's Day worth celebrating!

 

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Adoption Exists Because Sin Exists

In a post last week, I shared the joyous theological truths that resonated with us and motivated us to pursue adopting a child. Physical adoption, on so many levels, is indeed a beautiful picture of those spiritual truths.

Our parents, Adam and Eve, were God's children but sin separated them, and thereby us, from him and to death. In Adam all die. But the perfect Adam, Jesus, came and lived and died in our place to make a way for us to God. He initiated the process, not because we were good enough, or the right ethnicity, not because there was anything in us that he should desire us, but because he loved us. He pursued us and gave us new birth from above so we might be one of his children for all eternity with the full right of sons. (That "sons" is significant. We shouldn't be too quick to throw daughters on there too. I've learned many things from our Galatians series, and that's one of them!)

But like in every other aspect of life, the beauty of something is seen brightest and best, juxtaposed against all that was and/or might have been. Our spiritual adoption exists because sin entered the world. And so it is with physical adoption. It too exists because something went wrong along the way. But often, the hard side of adoption scares us. We don't like to hear it.

To a child, though, what might have been isn't so easily pushed aside and left behind. We see a bigger picture - the rescue, the restoration, the reconciliation. But he/she sees and feels the loss and the abandonment. And, so we too, need to feel his/her grief if we are to help him/her through.

An adopted child experiences the most assumed natural affection from a parental relationship being adjusted significantly and sometimes served completely. I'm not saying that parental affection wasn't there. Often times that is the very thing that motivates an adoption plan. But unless you have felt the loss of a parent, by that parents choice, I dare say little can compare to what this change in relationship does to a child. I don't claim to be an expert, but I lived it and felt it with one parent, and as we sat in some adoption training, I couldn't believe how my grown up heart still flinched in pain as we worked through this topic from the adopted child's perspective. (Tomorrow I will repost an article I wrote that was fruit from that training.)

Once again, though, I had to thank God for my past, for the loss I'd experienced, to help me - though I realize on a smaller scale - enter into our child's sufferings. To understand the tears in the pillow and the questions from other kids and the hurts that might never go away even when wrapped in layers and layers of sacrifical love.

And that's where our spiritual adoption differs significantly from physical adoption. Spiritually, we have the guarantee, the assurance of the Spirit in our hearts, that we shall one day be all that we should be. We will ultimately be healed and restored from all the separating and severing and scarring sin has done, because we have a perfect Father who loses none of his own and has the power and goodness to keep all of his promises.

Physical adoption is an imperfect reflection, a distant echo, a muted harmony of that perfect reality. We bring our insufficiencies to the parenting table to meet little humans with needs that we can't even begin to satisfy. And this is where parenting an adopted child looks a whole lot like parenting in general. We set our sights high for all we want them to become and overcome, and teach and train to that end, but all our hopes for them are wrapped up in God and his power alone. Being a parent is sometimes a call to suffer. It is sometimes a call to heartbreak. It is a call to let your own reputation rise and fall with your child's. You are connected forever for better or worse. Don't get me wrong, parenting is also a call to joy unspeakable, but we don't need to be told that, do we? So we imitate our Father in heaven. We imitate his sacrifice for us, through his Son, to his own hurt. We imitate his weeping for us, his service for us, his tender, empathetic care for us, and his deep love for us. We do this with all the strength he provides and sow wildly and intentionally to the Spirit, not giving up, waiting expectantly for harvest time.

 

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How Open Are We Willing to Be?

One of the harder things for us to work through in the adoption process was our openness preferences. What does that mean? It means the type of birth scenario we were open to stepping into...involving everything from expectant parent's IQ, mental health history, and potential drug and alcohol use during pregnancy, to the child's medical conditions (surgically correctable or not) and diseases (STDs/HIV positive), to different ethnicities, to how much contact we were willing to have with the birth parents as the child grows. Answering these hard questions required our being clear on what our priorities were in adopting, what our strengths and weaknesses were as a family, and our over all mission as a family.

Once we had that grid to work through, it made it a little easier to respond to the tough questions. Bethany also helped us work through some of the questions in the different trainings we attended. As pertains to the amount of contact we were willing to have with birth parents following the adoption, we divided up into 4 different groups based on what we preferred : open adoption (face to face contact between birth parents and child with adoptive parents present), semi-open adoption (sending email updates, texting pictures, etc.), closed adoption (no contact with birth family - rarely happens in adoptions now), kinship adoption (a family member of the birth family adopts child). We listed the pros and cons of our preference as adoptive parents. Then they had us divide up into one of the four groups based on what we think the expectant parents/birth parents would prefer and list the pros and cons from their perspective. Then, they asked us to divide into one of the four groups based on what we thought the adoptee would prefer and list the pros and cons from their view. I cannot say enough about how helpful this exercise was to opening my eyes and seeing things from the perspectives of all the different parties involved in adoption.

I read an article recently positing that adoptive parents are prone to view the adopting experience solely from their perspective asking questions like, can we do this? Can we afford this? Can we love enough? And these questions are a good starting place. But really adoptive parents need to be challenged to think outside of themselves. They aren't the end in the adoption. A well-adjusted grown adopted child is the end they need to keep in mind. This goal adds to the questions that should be asked. What can we do to help our child process his/her difficult family history? What can we do to help our child deal with his/her grief and anger over lost culture and birth parent attention? What can we do to prepare our child to deal with racism?

Over the next few days I hope to deal more with those issues.

 

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Dear Expectant Parent

As a way for expectant parents to get to know the different families seeking adoption, each adoptive family has to put together a profile book, introducing themselves. The expectant parents are given several profile books to look through and study to see which family seems like a good fit to parent their child. Then a face to face meeting (almost like an interview) is set up through Bethany where the expectant parents meet with the potential adoptive parents to see if indeed the match is a good one. A pregnancy counselor told us that it is so exciting to see the way God draws the two together and the amazing details only he can orchestrate. She said it is not unusual for her to feel like a third wheel in the interview because, often, the adoptive parents the expectant parents pick are just a more stable version of themselves. So they have music interests in common, have similar senses of humor, and even enjoy the same hobbies.

 

Below is the letter we wrote to the expectant parents who are viewing our profile book. It is the first page they see when they open the book, opening our arms to them as they are, and inviting them to get a glimpse into the life we seek to offer their child.

 

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Adoptive Parents Aren't Heroes

Talk with a pregnancy counselor at Bethany if you have a savior complex about adopting and you will be set straight pretty quickly. The pregnancy counselors are unashamedly pro-expectant parent, feeling their grief and conflict through it all and advocating for them every step of the way.

The pregnancy counselors were part of almost every training we had through Bethany. They opened our eyes to what expectant parents really are like and the turmoil they go through in making an adoption plan. The expectant parents are really the ones making a heroic choice in the situation.

I remember holding back the ugly cry during one of the first videos they had us watch. It was a video a birth mom recorded for her son while they were still in the hospital together recovering from delivery. She is explaining to him that it is because she loves him so much that she's making this choice for his life. (And that's really the true representation of how the majority of expectant parents feel. This is the hardest decision of their lives.) Whew. Try watching that with a dry eye.

Yes, some of them are in these circumstances because of their own life choices (although some of them aren't) but that doesn't change the heartbreaking reality they are facing. Unplanned pregnancies happen to women in all life phases. For example, the demographic of expectant parents our FL Bethany office sees aren't teens but adults in their 20s (this is older than the MI demographic). I needed to be educated on who expectant parents are and what their perspective is to help me be a better adoptive parent in explaining our child's difficult story to him/her. I also needed to make sure compassion and not judgment was my heart disposition toward our child's birth parents. If we have an open adoption this will go a long way in our relationship.

Bethany required we watch the story of Tyler and Catelynn on MTV's 16 and Pregnant. Tyler and Catelynn were actually clients through our Bethany office in MI. I've hyperlinked to it for anyone interested in watching.

 

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Let's Do This

 

In March 2013, we filled out the initial online application for Domestic Infant Adoption through Bethany Christian Services. By May 2013, we had completed the formal written application and received approval from them that we were ready to proceed to the Home Study phase!

A few things here regarding why we chose Bethany. Choosing an agency was actually pretty easy for us. (We didn't look into any other agency, so unfortunately I'm not a good resource as to the different agencies out there.) Being a counseling major in college, I had done a little work with the local Bethany office in Greenville and was very familiar with their services and years of experience. We wanted an agency that was well-established and had a good, ethical reputation. Also, as I mentioned yesterday, on Sanctity of Life Sunday, Matt had become acquainted with one of the employees from the Bethany office nearest us in MI.

One of the questions we asked early on was how they handle expectant mothers who contact them. We were concerned that the expectant mothers not be manipulated in any way to make an adoption plan for their child, unless that was something they initiated. Bethany assured us that their first goal in dealing with calls from expectant mothers is to provide them services and support to keep their family together (if that's what the expectant mothers want). (And as a side note, they are adequately equipped and have many ways to offer whatever support an expectant mom and her baby may need.) It is only if the mother indicates that she is unable to parent her baby and brings up the option of adoption that it is discussed. We are probably all familiar with horror stories of expectant mothers being forced to make an adoption plan or having their baby basically kidnapped from them for adoption so money can be made. Although we'd like to think that type of thing doesn't happen in America, our techniques here can be more sophisticated, involving steering expectant moms by verbal manipulation to come to the decision we think they need to make. The rights of those in distress need to be protected. And this is where the true freedom of choice is involved for expectant moms. They should be absolutely free to chose the life they want for their child. Is it in the child's best interest for them to parent or for them to make an adoption plan for someone else to parent their child? Just because they might be in a difficult, unplanned circumstance, or poor, or even struggling with chemical dependency doesn't automatically mean that they are incapable of parenting their child and determining what is best for their child. We were thankful for Bethany's priority in keeping families together and also in supporting expectant mothers and their needs in any way necessary.

Also, we wanted an agency where we could get education and support through the adoption process for ourselves. We came with many questions, but also, in some ways, we didn't yet know what we didn't know. Bethany did an excellent job in the trainings they offered in stripping away any romanticized reasons we had for adopting so we could examine our motives and see where we needed to get more education and/or adjust our expectations. They did this in several ways which I plan to explain in my next few posts.

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What's Packer Got To Do With It?

Over the course of a year, God was leading us along in learning more about adoption and seeing how we personally could be involved. I was working through the information I received and was aware of the growing burden I had to help expectant mothers who were in a difficult circumstance. While God was doing these things in my heart, he was working in Matt's heart too.

Adoption can often be thought of as a female thing. It's the woman who initiates it, etc. But it has been so encouraging as we've been more involved in the adoption community to see men who are passionate about following the biblical command of helping orphans. It's not just a woman thing!

Matt attended a Sanctity of Life service in January 2013 that left quite an impression on him. He heard a Bethany Christian Services employee talk about the need for adoptive parents in the state of MI. He saw that by adopting from birth, we could help prevent another child from entering the foster system down the road.

Around the same time, he read J.I. Packer's chapter on adoption in Knowing God. His first response was new found gratitude to God for bring him into his family as a co-heir with Jesus, having the full rights of a son. He saw the opportunity for our family to be a living, breathing representation of the gospel. Once far off, now brought near. Barriers dividing, like ethnicity, broken down. A diverse family, united in spite of the challenges, because they are loved equally and extravagently by their dad.

Adoption changes everything - for us inwardly because we are secure as God's children and for how we view all of life outwardly because this is our Father's world. He has left his dearly loved children with an inheritance that equips them to carry out his will in his world. What were we waiting for?!

"[A]doption...is the highest privilege that the gospel offers...In adoption, God takes us into his family and fellowship—he establishes us as his children and heirs. Closeness, affection and generosity are at the heart of the relationship. To be right with God the Judge [justification] is a great thing, but to be loved and cared for by God the Father [adoption] is a greater." (J.I. Packer, Knowing God)

"Our understanding of Christianity cannot be better than our grasp of adoption... If you want to judge how well a person understands Christianity, find out how much he makes of the thought of being God's child, and having God as his Father. If this is not the thought that prompts and controls his worship and prayers and whole outlook on life, it means that he does not understand Christianity very well at all." (J.I. Packer, Knowing God)

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Nobody Said Choosing Life Was Easy

(Note: This article originally appeared here in January 2013. It is a significant part of the story of our adoption journey and we want it documented in this current series.)

On this 40th anniversary of the Supreme Court's landmark decision legalizing abortion on demand in all fifty states, I want to publicly thank my mom for choosing life. In doing so, I am in no way criticizing birth mothers who choose life and bravely made an adoption plan for their baby. I am also not degrading those who had an abortion and have lived with regret and remorse. I hope to write more on that later in the week. And, I am certainly not advocating that the biblical view of the married two parent family can be set aside because it's old fashioned and unnecessary in the 21st century.

What I do hope to show is that grace is greater than sin.

When I stand outside the abortion clinic in Dearborn, I see the young girls and women who pull in, alone, desperate, conflicted, and down right terrified, and imagine an 18-year-old named Jodie feeling those same things. I see one light a cigarette, inhaling and exhaling a few times, hoping to draw some courage from the nicotine to take the next few steps. I see her glance around at us there on the sidewalk, ready to offer help, and turn her head away quickly so as not to meet our eyes. Then I see her get out of her car, throw her cigarette on the ground, extinguish it with her foot, and set her gaze on the entrance door. As we call out to her, I know she wants to believe what we're saying is true. I know she wants to believe that there are other options. That even though her life will be hard, she can make it. That she really isn't alone. But she keeps moving forward anyway, trying to silence the voices. About ready to reach out for the door handle, she abruptly turns around, running back to the car with tears streaming down her face. It seems she changed her mind! She starts her car and speeds out of the parking lot.

That might seem like a happy ending. And, indeed, it certainly is for the most important chapter. But the story is nowhere near over and so I weep for her still. Because even if she chooses life and to raise her baby, I know how incredibly hard it's going to be for her. I know the jobs she'll have to settle for just to make ends meet. I know the social life she'll give up, because really, who wants to date a girl who admits she has a 1-year-old at home? I know the academic and vocational dreams that will be put on hold, some permanently, because her attention will be divided. I know the family tensions that will be present because of the constantly pressing need to find childcare and, at some points, even housing. I know the financial strain that will weigh on her day in and day out. And I know because Jodie did choose life. She allowed me to be born alive - not dead - as she could've easily done in her circumstances in 1975. And God has shown me much grace through that scared and lonely teen mom, who allowed me to take my first breath.

Not only did she give me life, but she also sustained my life. I don't believe we are captive to the doom and gloom statistics I hear regarding babies born out of unwanted pregnancies, because I believe in a God who is sovereign over statistics. He can take desperate situations and heart breaking realities and weave a beautiful tapestry, sewn with a blood-red thread, pointing to the cross that breaks the power of sin and death. He can turn the hearts of the mothers toward their children, motivated with all the natural affection common grace can offer. And I know because God did that for us.

My mom taught me many good things precisely because of our difficult circumstances. I would not have learned these hard lessons to the same degree otherwise.

1) There is something worse than taking nine years to complete your undergrad degree. Many women have climbed the corporate ladder successfully, stepping on toes all the way up. For some women, the most injured in the process, aren't the co-workers they've jilted and undermined to get where they are. At the bottom of the corporate ladder are thousands of babies, crushed underfoot, as their moms chose their death over the potential death of their career.

My mom's climb was incremental and slow, but as a successful business woman at age 55, she's shown me that pragmatism is no way to live your life. It's good to have big dreams, but not at all costs. She taught me it not only matters where you end up, but how you get there. And I got to have a small part in her climb.

While most parents were pulling all-nighters helping their kids complete last minute projects (and believe me, we did that too!), I was proofreading her papers. Every weekend seemed to be "Take Your Daughter to Work Day" for us. When she worked in accounting, I'd help her sort checks in numerical order, count change from the vending machines, and any other small task that would help her get it all done. I remember staying up into the wee hours to help her complete a huge project for her marketing class. Who knows how many magazines we scoured and cut our way through looking for examples of different advertising layouts.

Mom taught me it's good to reach the top, but it's even better to get there the right way.

2) You can choose life precisely because of the Women's Rights Movement. They want you to believe having a baby will ruin you, but it is that equality for women that allows you to give birth and still have opportunity. Anne-Marie Slaughter might be right that Women Still Can't Have It All, but that doesn't mean they can't have anything. Her article was fairly pro-family for a feminist writer, but still, I shudder to think how many abortions it set in motion. Even if the "arc of a successful career" isn't just right, or in my mom's case, is completely wrong, chances are, you still have a good shot at success.

3) Life is hard. I knew about interpersonal struggles, financial problems, death, and abandonment at a young age. My naive, rose-colored glasses of adolescence weren't in place for long. But that has been a good thing. I was under no impression that my ultimate hope was in this world. I knew how messed up it was. And in time, as God showed me where true hope could be found, I appreciated even more the bright promise of eternal life against the dark backdrop of this sinful world I knew.

So as my mom taught me, we too want our kids to know sin, in their own hearts first, has consequences. We want them to see that sin makes life hard. We even want them to see us struggle through sin and argue from time to time. Because in our marriages, families, and churches we need people who don't blush at sin. Who aren't shocked by it, and who don't ignore, minimize, or hide it, but know how to deal with it. We need people who are less prone to throw the first stone and more prone to see the Physician came, not for the well, but for the terminally sin-sick. And that's all. of. us. We need people to love God and others much because they realize they are the ones who have been forgiven much.

4) You can be your child's friend. It has been said that teen moms and their kids grow up together. In some sense that's true. And there are advantages to it. Like sharing clothes, shoes, and make-up! But really, in all honesty, I liked being with Mom. She told me "no" on the important things, but she also said "yes" to a lot of unimportant things. She didn't parent for my approval, but she also didn't distance herself from me. We were a team. "Just the two of us. We can make it if we try. Just the two of us, you and I," we'd sing in the car together. And my friends would envy our closeness as she and I would sing what we called "our song," Huey Lewis' "Happy to be Stuck With You." We even had our own choreographed hand motions to go along with it.

5) Grace overcomes guilt. Being a mom is a guilt-laden profession. I've said before, I'm only seven and a half years into it and already have a long list of regrets. I can't imagine what it must feel like to start out with the cards stacked against you, so to speak, and to be fighting an uphill battle.

But, I've seen grace abound where sin abounded. I've seen joy and peace surface where there was none before. And I've seen a mother and daughter emerge from the battle, scarred and wounded, but hand in hand, because God offers forgiveness. And, to be honest, even those wounds are sweet, because they tell of His protection when Satan would've been pleased to devour us. They point to His power to seek and save, and keep what is His, at all costs. Even His own life. And because of that very good news, Mom and I can face our past, each other, and the future, through the power of His indestructible life.

Life. That's what this day is about. Life here and now. Fight for it. Give it. Sustain it. And eternal life to come. Preach it to yourself first, then share it with the world who so desperately needs saved from all this death.

 

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What Schaefer Taught Us - Final Part

While I could post more about what we learned from our time with 40 Days for Life at American Family Planning on Schaefer Ave, I think after today's post, I will have conveyed at least a few of the most important lessons as pertains to our journey toward adoption.

Today, the one last aspect I want to highlight about our time there is more personal. When I stood on the sidewalk at the clinic watching the women exit their cars and walk through the doors, I remembered my own start in life, unplanned and difficult. I saw my mom in those women and saw myself as the life-changing problem in their wombs that had to be dealt with.

As God often does, when we set out to help other people, he shows us how much we're the ones who actually need help. And although I had dealt with many particulars of my past years before, there was something about being in that circumstance that made my empathy surface to a whole new level. It reminded me that the past doesn't stay in the past and as much as we want to deal with it and put it behind us, we can never really let it go.

And I'm glad I can't be free from my past, because it's precisely why I was empathetic toward those women in desperate situations. Because I saw what my and my mom's life had become, against the odds, and had so much hope for them. And if they didn't have hope for themselves, if they couldn't imagine how that baby might actually stabilize their instability and sober their insobriety, I wanted to help them have hope, whatever that might look like. Whether by hearing our story and lifting their eyes from their present circumstances to what might be, or even in a more tangible way, like loving and raising that baby in their womb for them, that they just didn't feel equipped to parent for whatever reason.

Tomorrow I'm going to repost something I wrote after our first few visits to the clinic, telling a portion of my and my mom's story. It is still the most read post on this little blog, getting over 1,600 hits. While the numbers don't mean much, they do tell me that it was one of the most helpful posts I've written and that it is a message that needs to be heard. And because it reflects such a significant part of our adoption journey, it deserves to be documented in this series about our family's adoption.

 

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What Schaefer Taught Us - Part 3

In April 2013, we were thankful to see American Family Planning at 4132 Schaefer, close its doors for good. Stricter legislation to regulate abortions was instrumental in this closure, since Dr. Ann didn't want to comply with the new requirements. We knew God had answered our prayers and was even being merciful to those who didn't readily recognize it, removing the ease of obtaining abortions in that area. In June, Matt was asked to participate in the Memorial Service for the thousands of babies who lost their lives there over the years. For the first time in all of our visits to the property, we were able to legally set foot in the parking lot, which actually felt more like a graveyard. The sun peeked from behind the clouds that hot summer day, in contrast to the bitter cold mornings we had spent there just a few months before. It was a kind reminder to us that the Son is risen with healing in his wings. Ultimately in the next life, but still in this life for those facing the tremendous difficulty of an unplanned pregnancy and for those who continue to deal with the post traumatic stress of having an abortion. Here are Matt's timely words.

 

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What Schaefer Taught Us - Part 2

Margaret Sanger, former President of Planned Parenthood, said infamously in the 1930s, "Colored people are like human weeds and need to be exterminated."

Her goal of genocide and Hilter-like eugenics has been alarmingly successful with more African-American babies being aborted than born in places like New York City.

The strategic placement of abortion clinics in minority areas contributes to this. (I do realize this is a controversial issue. Some observe that it is in those minority areas, which are often low-income areas, where clinics should be since those are the people who are the most adversely affected by an unplanned pregnancy and those are the places where unplanned pregnancies occur more frequently.)

Then there's also the contribution of white manipulation, heavy-handedness, and oppression which my friend Hope shared with me.

Hope, a previous member of an African-American church in Detroit, told me of Planned Parenthood approaching church leaders of black congregations and offering money to them so they would refer members of their congregation for abortions. This wasn't to "help" the poverty-stricken during a time when they were trying to get on their feet economically. This was all part of Planned Parenthood's goal in the "Negro Project," to eliminate those they saw as unwanted and undesirable in society.

Who inculcated these minorities and lower-income individuals with the mindset that it's better for them to walk to the nearby, conveniently located abortion clinic to get an abortion than it is to walk there to get condoms? Planned Parenthood made the bed for them and they are lying in it. Abortions are how Planned Parenthood wanted births controlled. Not condoms. Condoms don't always work. But killing does.

Unfortunately, there is conflicting opinion on the matter of abortion in the African-American community itself. One outspoken pro-life black pastor declared, "The most dangerous place for an African-American is inside the womb." This statement created no small stir among African-Americans in the recent past, some trying to use it to educate on unprotected sex and its consequences. Other blacks dismissed it and were offended by what they called racist wording.

Amidst the confusion, one person was clear on what his goal was in the abortion industry. That man was Dr. Joon-Nahm Ann, abortionist at 4132 Schaefer in Dearborn, MI.

Upon entering the back door of his clinic one of those freezing mornings in February of 2012, he looked at us and gave us the Nazi salute. And who were the women sitting in his waiting room that we had watched go in the front door just minutes before? A disproportionate amount of African-American women.

Coincidence? Or precisely the way Sanger planned for it to be?

 

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What Schaefer Taught Us - Part 1

In God's providence, Kim Bean from 40 Days for Life contacted us in mid-November 2012, asking if we would take over the leadership for the next 40 day prayer vigil coming up in February 2013. We met with her at the end of November to see what would be required. As we prayed about it in the following weeks, we decided if she would agree to co-lead the next campaign with us, we would do it.

She agreed and on a frigid, snowy Saturday morning in February, we layered up our clothes and our hearts and topped the hill on Schaefer Ave in Dearborn, getting that same sickening pit in our stomachs as when we watch Schindler's List. The darkness of what went on within the concrete walls of that little white box of a building seemed to make the sun hide its face.

We knew the laws and we knew we'd follow Kim's experienced lead.

Contrary to what the media will have you believe, pro-lifers aren't a bunch of Bible-thumping, clinic-bombing, lunatics untouched or unaware of the complications of the issues surrounding the abortion debate. Many of them are people who go on the front lines to find people who need help and resources and seek to give whatever they can to help that expectant mom through this significant unplanned event in her life. Some are liasons equipped with all the information an expectant mom would need to know, able to refer her to medical facilities, or housing options, or utility funding. Others are out there to give what they can of their own possessions, their car, their house, their money, and their time not just for the sake of the baby but for the sake of the expectant moms and dads who are in desperate situations. And they aren't just committed to these people for the 9 months of pregnancy. They are committed to making lasting relationships to help see them take healthy steps for their future. One family owned a nice bed and breakfast in an unscale area and offered the rooms to families needing housing.

Pro-lifers also aren't ignorant that the people who work at these facilities need jobs to support themselves and their families. So relationships were built with them to see what their needs were and if we could help find them a job outside of the industry. One of the workers would wave to Kim and even crossed the sidewalk to hug her regularly before her shift started and thank her for her kindness and help. She wanted out but felt trapped.

Amazing commitment and love. Not judgment and condemnation. Where do you read these stories in the headlines?

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We Have Obama To Thank

As Pastor Ken says, "Everybody works for God."

And President Obama is no exception.

The November election of 2012 was formative for us. A pro-abortion president was reelected for another 4-year term. As I stated in Sunday's post, earlier in 2012, we had briefly explored 40 Days for Life as one option for how to more actively stand for life but hadn't settled there yet. I'm not sure excalty why this was the case, but the election of 2012 brought with it the full weight, for the first time in our adult lives, and subsequent realization of the morally slippery slope we were on as a country and it hit us square between the eyes. Maybe we were at a more settled state in our adulthood, no longer working our way through the very preoccupied seminary years. Maybe we were at a more settled state in our family life, emerging from the darkness of dealing with long and difficult pregnancies as well as having growing children whose eyes were being opened to the sad world around them. We were keenly aware the slip had been happening for many years (read decades) before, but for whatever reason, we had clarity at this point and knew this was our time to try and take matters into our own hands instead of passively relying on conservative politics to do what needed to be done.

Journal entry from November 8, 2012:

"Obama winning reelection has made us certain about getting involved in [some type of] Right to Life action. We're going to have to be more active this way, since our time in the voting booth is one thing, but not quite enough."

 

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I'll Go There

In yesterday's post, I mentioned that I had some uneducated apprehensions about pursuing adoption. I'm going to be honest about these apprehensions because I think it will be helpful. It's easy to post articles like I've see float around social media on "What NOT to Say to Adoptive Parents," but truthfully, I'm going to be an adoptive parent and have had to wrestle with some of those very things we want to self-righteously shame other people for asking/saying. Someone humbly and patiently bore with my ignorance so I could gain more knowledge and I'm grateful for it. And we're adopting, in part, because of it!

1) Will I love this child like the child/children I gave birth to? Will I feel like he/she is "my own"?

2) Will I be tempted to spoil them/over compensate because of their difficult story?

3) Will I find my child from a different ethnicity as beautiful as my children with my and my husband's genes?

4) Has God eradicated from my heart the sinful racism I was born with so that I can genuinely appreciate and educate my child in his/her birth culture?

5) Will my child have a propensity to different/"scarier" sins because of being adopted/their birth parent's history?

6) What are birth parents really like? Are they the stereotypical irresponsible teen drug addicts sleeping around with whomever, whenever?

7) What if the birth parents change their mind?

8) How expensive is adoption and how do you get that much money?

Adoptive parents aren't people with super-human ability to overlook and love more than other people are. We've had to address our own fears and lack of knowledge as we approached adoption. If we are humble and recognize that, perhaps we can actually help answer peoples questions and objections and assist them in gaining correct information. I've heard many people place adoptive parents on a pedestal. But honestly, sometimes adoptive parents can feed that perception. If you can be a parent in general, chances are you can be an adoptive parent too. All parenting is hard, sometimes heartbreaking, but often joyfully rewarding work. Different situations have their unique challenges, and while the specifics will look different depending on those circumstances, you need support for both, you need basic education for both, you need adjusted and realistic expectations for both, and you need faithful, sacrificial love for both. So don't let the fact that you have questions and fears stop you from considering adoption as a viable option for adding to your family.

NOTE: I'm speaking in this post of adoption in general and the need to normalize it and not make it seem extraordinary and doable only for those whose love is "elite" or who struggle with infertility. Obviously there are children, particularly children from severely abusive backgrounds, as well as special needs children and babies born with drug addictions, who have exceptional medical and psychological needs. These children may require additional care and their adoptive parents may need more training and education. I'm not minimizing or ignoring those circumstances, just not dealing with them specifically in this post.

 

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