Trusting God

Hello readers,

I am Sarah, Adam’s blushing bride. I want to begin by saying, “Thank you,” to those who have already jumped on board our adoption ship by donating funds for our home study and, more importantly, by praying for us and our future child(ren) during our journey through these bumpy waters. We are still in the first phase and have already reached points of frustration, confusion and revelation. Frustration and confusion are less than fun topics so I choose to focus this post on revelation.

A quick insight: In the past few months Adam and I have gotten married, began the adoption process for our Ghanaian child, began the adoption process for Adam to adopt my son, continued with my schooling, began an art business and continued with our son’s home schooling, all the while Adam is tackling a more than gigantic job at his place of employment. Phew! Needless to say, there are a few distractions that have tried to pull us tighter into the mundane tasks of life, which, more often than not, serve to pull us from God and His purposes. Thank the Lord that He, in His grace and infinite wisdom, knowing we are always prone to wander, and continually sin, blessed us with a support group that is overwhelming; a group of men and women who are also striving to put the Lord first. Our Pastor, Robert Livingston, one of these supportive friends, lead by the Holy Spirit, reminded me of something in his sermon last week. Speaking on Abraham, he focused his sermon on our tendency to need control over our lives and how attempting to take control from God only results in our suffering.

Of all of my tendencies, fighting for control is the most pertinent in my life currently. Which is why, I truly believe, Adam and I are in the midst of so many things that we could never control, particularly the Ghanaian adoption. Truly God has set the spirit of adoption into our hearts and has comforted our minds that we will adopt, with His help. Key phrase: “with His help.” While there is comfort in knowing God set the desire in our hearts, ensuring our minds that He will bring it to fruition, being so uninvolved with the actual details can be nerve-racking. We must trust circumstances concerning our finances, the physical space of our residence, the impact of bringing an orphan child home, the work done outside the home by agencies and government employees, legal issues, and the circumstances that surround our future child-where he or she is at now and what his or her days contain, all of these over the course of a year or longer – all into the hands of our Loving Father. Someone like me tends to feel frantic over trusting so many other individuals in the steps to secure my future child into my arms. However, God is using this to remind me, as He so often does, that without Him – He who controls each of these details – I can truly do nothing. Praise the Lord!

The Bible tells us that the Lord is a father to the fatherless and a defender of widows. Surely, children, particularly orphans, are dearly loved by our father; the father who deemed us as orphans and rescued us into His safekeeping. If something as important as protecting orphans and bringing them into God-fearing and safe homes can be entrusted, detail by detail, into the Lord’s hands, surely our finances, health, well-being, schooling etc. etc., can as well. Let us find peace in entrusting the large and the little things into God’s safekeeping and let us take the opportunity to use the large issues as a witness for those who would not consider entrusting anything to our Holy, omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent Father.

Great Mission International

A:

A few thoughts and all, so..

The typical process for foreign adoption begins a lot like this:

The prospective adopting parents have a home study conducted in the states. This home study is necessary for the initial approval allowing the family to adopt. It is conducted by a social worker who inevitably determines whether the family is fit to adopt or not. (Components of evaluation include income/financial management, living space, physical/mental fitness, family readiness…) If the family is deemed fit to adopt, the social worker will tell them how many children they may adopt, of what age range, of what special needs criteria, and so on. This is submitted with an application called the I-600a. With both these documents in hand, the family can begin business with an adoption agency. Based on the criteria that family has been approved for (and any additional criteria they specify within those parameters), the agency will get to work on placing the prospective parents with a child. The family is essentially placed in a waiting list with everyone else who has the same specifications. When the family makes it to the front of the line, and a child becomes available through one of the homes that the agency is linked with, the prospective parents are informed, and ultimately give the “yes” or “no” to proceed. The family then goes to court and becomes legally linked to the children they have been placed with. The adoption process ensues from there.

Every piece of additional criteria the family imposes, the longer the wait. You will only take a 1 year old? Get in line. A 1 year old boy? Get in a longer line.

Older children and children with medical conditions are usually pushed through much more quickly.

My wife and I have decided early that we were not going to impose restrictions on our adoption based on what we thought we knew. We want God to lead us to a specific child, regardless of his or her criteria, and go for it. We don’t want to restrict God from working through our adoption. Our goal is to have as broad a range of criteria approved for us as possible.

Especially since there is one restriction we know we want to make. We want to adopt from Great Mission International.

GMI is an orphanage in the city of Teshi, Ghana. A wonderful man named John Nyavor runs and pastors the orphanage. He loves those children so much and invests himself in filling his home with the word of God. He is doing great things over there. We had an opportunity to talk with John and are sold on him with all our hearts. We want to be sure to let God pave the way to his orphanage for us, but regardless of where we adopt from, John has our support and prayer forever.

I was able to engage in a conversation with one of the older children in his home. He is a fine young gentleman. He is approaching 18 years old and is enrolled in a technical school, learning to become an auto mechanic. To hear his testimony and his dedication was inspiring. He could not have thought any higher of Pastor John, who he credits much of his opportunities to.

I am looking forward to becoming more deeply engaged with this orphanage. I pray that God can use me for their benefit even outside of our adoption.

Please pray for John Nyavor and the work he does for orphans in Ghana, Africa.

Dear Heavenly Father,

We thank you for GMI. We thank you that you move in the hearts of men like John Nyavor, that you have called him as your hands and feet, to care always for your children. Lord we ask that you would prepare a home for all of John’s children, current and future. Please bless his ministry and breath your word through him, that he might continue to preach your gospel with strength and courage moving forward. In Jesus’ name, amen.

friends, strangers, and agencies.

A:

My wife and I have been deeply blessed in the way that the Lord is methodically preparing our hearts, our home, and our community for the adoptions that He has called us to. Personally, I have been filled with a fire to learn and re-learn all that there is to know about every step of these adoption processes.

I have quickly discovered that the processes can be daunting.

I thank the Lord for the network of support and community that he has built and continues to grow for us. We have been surrounded by loving and genuine people who have been through these processes, who have experienced the hiccups and the pangs of letdown, who have wrestled through the delays and constraints, and ultimately experienced the joy and blessing of completing an adoption.

This network starts right at home in our church community, where our pastor and his wife have become dear personal friends to us. A little about Robert and Monica. While my wife and I were unmarried and dating, my wife’s home was condemned due to a severe mold issue. The mold had infiltrated the inner walls of the home and spores had saturated the air inside the home. Jack became very sick and eventually would have his tonsils removed from the swelling and aggravation it caused him.

During this trial, Sarah and Jack had nowhere to go. My wife turned to Pastor Robert and Monica for prayer, and in response, they offered her and Jack a place to stay. They opened a room in their home to my future wife and son, unconditionally. During that time, we were able to save and combine our resources, which inevitably paid for our wedding. It was also during this time that we became aware of their efforts to adopt. We entered into constant prayer over their adoption of two children from Ghana. Those two children became three. Through our reunion with their church, we have grown in friendship with another young married couple, who is in the process of adopting their own little girl from Ghana.

Through one great gesture of kindness, Robert and Monica laid the foundation for the exposure, influence, and inspiration that would lead my wife and I to consider foreign adoption ourselves. My wife and I had known and discussed early on that we were like-minded in our desire to adopt children. Robert, Monica, and the Source Church opened the doors to a community that would walk with us, embrace us, support us, and guide us through that process. We are so thankful for them.

It was through Monica that we were referred to a discussion forum chalked full of questions, advice, support, encouragement, and information by people who are engaged in Ghanaian adoption. This online network is as Robert described it to us– it’s own subculture. It is incredibly comforting to have access to so many people who have walked your walk and speak your language.

One of the first pieces of advice that we received from Robert and Monica was that independent foreign adoption is a frustrating, difficult path. They suggested that we consider adopting through an agency when we go through our process. Monica was kind enough to direct us towards one that she had connections with and was highly reputable. This agency is called AAI.

Enter Anita.

Anita is the rep with AAI that Monica referred us to. From the get-go, she has been the epitome of helpful. It is evident that she loves her work and takes pride in providing the highest level of support for those families that seek her consult. She has been honest, quick to respond, and compassionate. We are excited to continue working with her.

Anita helped us uncover two unpleasant details today, though.

1.) In order for Ghana to approve my wife and I to adopt, we will need them to make an exception for a generally stiff rule that states that both adoptive parents need to be between 25 and 50 years of age. My wife will be 27 next month. I am a year and a half away from 25. Anita offered us the encouragement that these exceptions can be negotiated. We are faithful that God will pave the way. If we are hit with a major stall, we will need to trust that we can move and act only within God’s timing. I am encouraged in that I know that our Father wants only to bless us and our Ghanaian son, who He foreknew.

2.) The child we carry on our hearts is 3 years old currently. Ghana’s guidelines insist upon a 21-year minimum age gap between adoptive parents and their adoptive children. If we are held to this rule, the oldest we will be able to adopt will be 2 years old. Children under age three are not often available for adoption in Ghana.

I know this information should upset me more than it does, but my faith and my hope tell me snags, details, and holdups are nothing for the Lord, who provided the calling that led to the roadblocks.

So those of you willing to pray with us that God will make the way for our adoption, we would appreciate it greatly. We have knowledge of a boy that we are fervently praying will be trusted unto us. It appears that the path to that boy has become a bit bumpier already.

I’m glad you guys are coming along for the ride.

Goodnight friends.

-Adam

In the beginning…

Hello everyone,

My name is Adam. I represent half the authors who contribute to this blog, the other being  my wife, Sarah. I adore her. Sarah and I are loving but absolutely mediocre parents to Jack, the five-year-old boy to end all five-year-old boys. Sarah brought Jack with her into our marriage after years of heroic single-motherhood. We are currently in the process of my adopting the little bugger. I figure I might like him more if he has my last name. (Just kidding, Sarah.) In truth, Jack has been my son since the day I met him. There are no two peas more poddier. I am antsy for the completion of his adoption so that we will be legally recognized in both status and right as a singular family.

Parallel (or perhaps, perpendicular) to the adoption of my stepson, my wife and I are just beginning the process of adopting an orphan boy from Ghana, Africa. We have one particular boy in mind. We can’t spell his name and I’m pretty sure we botch the way it is pronounced pretty regularly. We have seen only a handful of photos of him and we know almost nothing about him. What we do know is that there is a heavy connection in our hearts for this little boy. We pray that our home can be his. Reality and circumstance suggests that it is a long shot that by the time we could lock him in as ours he would still be available for adoption. But the Lord has spoken to our hearts to try with all our might. I have faith that God is good.

This blog has been created for my wife and I to spout our thoughts and emotions through these two adoptions. We invite you to walk with us on our journey through this exciting season in our life together. In full exposure, our hope is that just one of you will be led to adopt yourself someday.

A little FYI: When I am posting, I will make sure I precede my posts with an “A:” <– that is for “Adam.”

Ex.

A: Hello, this is Adam.

^^A little redundant, that example is. I’m thinking ahead, though. I intend to save myself the trouble of introducing myself as author of every post I write.

This is the part where I am supposed to tell you some things about myself. This way, you might care about what I have to say. In truth, I have zero qualifiers and my credibility as a valuable resource for information or entertainment is limited at best. My wife thinks I am funny. My son thinks I’m smart. I am hoping in time that will reverse. I am a Communications Analyst for a mid-size hospital in a mid-size town. Sometimes, I’m not even sure what my job title means except food on the table and high blood pressure. I am a poor musician who plays with the enthusiasm of a good one. I love Jesus more than my wife and my wife more than my son(s) and I don’t care how uncomfortable that order makes you because it’s simply true.

One of the reasons I love my wife is for the look she is giving me right now. We haven’t been hitched long, but I have learned enough to know that this look means I have about a minute to get to the dinner table.

Good night, friends.

Adam