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.
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.
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