What do dinosaurs have to do with adoption?

Out of all the mindless shows that are on TV, many of which I am guilty to watching, one that has quickly become one of our family favorites is Dinosaur Train on PBS.  This is one of my daughters favorite shows and being that it was on PBS, we trusted it was okay for her to watch and never really paid too much attention to it until here recently.

As we have been moving through the adoption paperwork and process, we have been trying to talk to her about what is going on and what to expect.  We have told her that the new baby may look different, and depending on age, talk different.  We think she is getting it a little, but she is 4 and I could convince her of most anything.  And then one day, we sat down to watch TV with her and let her choose whatever she wanted us to watch, and she chose Dinosaur Train.  I was a little boy once, dinosaurs + trains sounded bearable to me.  It is better than watching the Barbie Nutcracker movie for the hundredth time.

We sat down and immediately were captivated by the introduction.  The show begins with Mrs. Pteranodon watching her eggs hatch in the nest.  Three Pteranodon eggs hatch (Tiny, Shiny and Don) and then a 4th egg hatches a different dinosaur named Buddy.  This mother dinosaur gives a great response to the other kids and the adventure begins.  Here is the clip below to check it out.  What a great lesson about adoption for kids.

I am 31 and I now drive a minivan.

Well, now that we have gotten the blog started and are anxiously awaiting the introduction of our newest family member, we figured it would be a good idea to tell a little about ourselves and how we got to where we are today.

My wife and I both grew up in central Kentucky, just miles apart in similar kinds of families. We both grew up in church, went to VBS and did all the stuff “religious” families were supposed to do. We had the foundation of faith growing up so making the transition from “good kid” to “good kid with Jesus in their life” was an easy one. We both grew up with God, took Him to high school with us and then off to college. My wife went to college to become a speech language pathologist and I graduated with elementary and special education degrees. She works in the school system of the community we live in and I work in the school system in the neighboring community I grew up in. While we were dating, she first mentioned her call to adoption. I did not think much about it and said that sounded good. Fast forward about 8 years, 6 years of marriage, 2 girls, 2 miscarriages, and 1 call to adopt later and here we are.

But these things don’t define us. It’s not who we are.

My wife and I are both followers of Jesus Christ. We are by no means “religious” people, but two people that actively seek a daily relationship with Jesus. We are not bound by the rules and regulations that religious people and institutions have set up for Christians. We are pursuing a life that is free. We are by no means perfect. We fail each day. We will continue to fail. But the pursuit continues because of the past, present, and future forgiveness promised to us. This lifestyle has led us on various mission trips both here and abroad. We have travelled to Poland together on 3 trips with our church, Cynthiana Baptist. I have been a total of 5 times. The dark past of this nation is still evident today. But the purity and beauty of the children will melt your heart. Having worked with children each time we have been over there, one can’t help but fall in love with them. Despite the language barrier, these kids are hungry for attention and affection.

Shortly after the miscarriages last year, we were reminded of my wife’s call to adoption and began praying hard about it. After surrendering to the call, we found out she was pregnant and that she has some blood clotting issues and needed to be on medicine for her sake as well as for the sake of the pregnancy. So here we were, with a 3 year old girl, pregnant, and starting the adoption process. Should we continue, should we postpone, forget it all and a thousand other things were going through our minds. We continued to pray and decided that God had placed this calling on our lives for a reason. It wasn’t so that we would think about doing it, or talk to others about doing it, but God wanted us to do it. We serve a mighty God and we know that he is in control of this adoption. We can’t pay for it out of our pockets, but God has been working that out through friends, family, our church, and mystery donors. It’s probably not the way we would have drawn it up. Who wants to trade in an SUV for a minivan anyway? Praise God we are not the artists in charge of our lives.