Change of heart?

I sent an e-mail to my mom to tell her we’d finally begun the process to adopt an international child. Knowing the desire God put on my heart many years earlier, she responded, “It’s about time!”

I couldn’t agree more with her. I dreamed of the day I’d meet my princess, my daughter, in El Salvador.

Soon after applying, though, we found out the process would actually take at least two full years, if not more. The El Salvador program was a new program, still in the works, with several test families still in their own process. The longer wait time didn’t bother us since it gave us more time to save money for all of the expenses involved. Expenses we couldn’t even fathom at the time.

Oh, did we have a lot to learn about international adoption! We didn’t have a clue. We took our time gathering all the necessary paperwork for our home study, the first step in a long, tedious, overwhelming process.

Several months passed while the piles of paperwork grew higher. We wrote our testimonies and our desires to adopt. We recorded every detail of our finances on paper. Several friends and family members answered questionnaires about us. Meanwhile we saved money like crazy to pay for this first step.

Finally, after about six months, we saved enough money to turn it all in to our agency. A social worker could now arrange our first of three required visits to complete our home study.

Throughout those six months, I researched the present orphan crisis in El Salvador, and I joined several online adoption groups. I wanted to know more about the process from others who either walked this road in the past or currently walked it with us. I loved reading everyone’s stories, their reasons for wanting to adopt and specifically why they chose El Salvador. They inspired me.

I soon connected closely with another member of the group and formed an instant bond with her. We shared several things in common, including our teaching experience in the bilingual/ESL field and our study-abroad experiences in college. We both desired to bring up bilingual children. Mike and I never desired to look into fertility options because we always felt called to adopt someday. She and her husband felt called to pursue adoption first before ever finding out if they could have biological children.

So thankful to find this friendship, we both encouraged and prayed for one another via e-mail. We never actually met because we lived on opposite sides of the country, but that instant connection grew into a friendship I still cherish to this day, several years later.

However, following the online group actually left me more discouraged every day. I quickly learned the program with El Salvador never truly established itself the way the agency hoped and expected. By reading online how other couples struggled and how long they’d already been in the program, I realized this process could last for years. Bitterness already took root among those who began their process more than two years earlier with still no progress in sight.

Did God truly call us to this program and this country? Did our child already await us there? These questions weighed heavily on my heart, but we continued to collect the necessary paperwork and funds to continue.

Our social worker soon contacted us to set up our first of three meetings with her. In two weeks, we’d meet up at a local coffee shop. Things progressed, despite my change of heart and the new uncertainties about this decision.

One morning during those two weeks, I spent a long morning alone with God out on my front porch. I cherish that luxury of time during the summer while my husband works and my son sleeps the morning away. Those questions burdened my heart and mind that morning as I tearfully poured out my concerns to God. I’d lost all sense of peace over this being His direction. Adopting a child from El Salvador looked more impossible every day. We felt so sure God led us to that specific agency and country, but I now felt almost foolish to even consider continuing in that direction.

“Father, if our child truly awaits us in El Salvador, then we will plunge ourselves into this process and pour out every penny necessary until you choose to unite us with her.” (We’d requested a girl between the ages of three and seven, close in age to David). “But if our child waits somewhere else, please show us.” I waited expectantly for more guidance.

Sensing God's timing

Grief. I expected it to last longer. Though completely unplanned and unexpected, this pregnancy seemed so timely. Details fell into place as soon as we shared our news. A late November birth would work well with a school schedule, allowing me both a time off for maternity leave, as well as a few extra weeks with the Christmas holiday. Two people already offered us quality, affordable daycare within only a few days.

Yet as quickly as we discovered the pregnancy, God took our new baby home. I suffered a miscarriage a few weeks later.

“Our baby got sick, so sick we could never take care of it. God took our baby to Heaven to wait for us there.” The tears still welled up in our little boy’s eyes despite my attempt to explain the miscarriage. He’d just lost his first sibling, and it affected him more deeply than I understood at the time.  We all struggled with the initial shock over the abrupt ending to our pregnancy.

I took a day off work to spend some time alone. After several hours in one of my favorite coffee shops, with a soothing drink and a notebook, I heard God speak to me so clearly through my poetry.

“Your child already lives, and waits, for you.” A simple phrase from Heaven touched me deeply.

I left that coffee shop with peace in my heart rather than the heavy grief I arrived with a few hours earlier. More than peace, I felt an inexplicable joy. The time came to begin our adoption journey.

Six months later, we found ourselves sitting through an Adoption Conference our church advertised for months.

 “I can barely contain my excitement! Your time has arrived! We are finally here!” I silently screamed of my enthusiasm to God, but I really wanted to climb on the roof and shout it out for all to hear. Okay, so that’s not really my personality, but I could hardly believe the day finally arrived.

 

I dreamed my whole life to adopt a foreign child, yet I nearly lost sight of my dream over the last few years. The opportunity now stood before us as a couple, and we embraced it. We listened to each speaker at the conference tell their own story of adoption, extinguishing our fears of the unknown. What once seemed impossible and overwhelming now held possibility. We both sensed God’s obvious timing to begin our adoption journey.

Over the lunch hour, my husband, Mike, and I joined another couple at a table, and we shared our reasons for coming to conference.

“So what brings you here today?” I asked, almost assuming everyone came with the same enthusiasm.

“We’ve struggled with infertility for years. We’ve spent so much money on so many doctors, treatments, and procedures, but nothing seems to work. I don’t know if I’m ready to think about adoption yet, but we’re here to check it out.” She desperately wanted to bear a child of her own and didn't feel ready to give up trying. For her, adoption meant defeat, having to accept Plan B. God had not yet placed the desire on her heart.

 We, on the other hand, never once felt even a twinge of desire to look into fertility options as a couple. God already blessed us with the biological birth of our son, David, six years earlier. We grieved the miscarriage of our second pregnancy, but we did not long to bear more children of our own. Too many children lived without the love and security of a family. We both felt God would grow our family through adoption someday.

Our marriage started off much rockier than we imagined, and we already scraped our way through a series of financial disasters that kept us from even envisioning an adoption process any earlier. Now, upon seeing the anguish written on this woman’s face over a decision to adopt and, at the same time, feeling incredible excitement over our own decision confirmed God’s timing for us.

I felt like I stood on top of the mountain that day, yet quite a distance still separated us from the mountain. We’d only taken a few steps in that direction.

After the lunch hour, we specifically attended a presentation by an adoption agency starting a brand new program in El Salvador. We wanted a little girl from a Spanish-speaking country so we could continue to raise her in a bilingual home. We’d watched our son build a sweet friendship with a girl his age, so we thought maybe a sister close in age to him would fit well in our family. After we sat through the entire session and found how to get started, we felt convinced God led us directly to them.

“A complete process to adopt from El Salvador should take about eighteen months, and then you will spend about three weeks in the country before bringing your child home.” The presenter’s predictions sounded completely doable and also like a wonderful travel opportunity. I could hardly wait! The excitement brewed within me!

By attending the conference that day, we found a Christian agency, picked a country, talked with a representative, and walked out with the application in hand. We didn’t even stay around for the rest of the day’s events. We left early to pick up David from a babysitter, and I completed our application online before I even made it to bed that night.

 

Young and clueless

Pics of where and when our journey began

 

Preparing to spend a semester in Argentina, 1997

 

 

Pola and Ana Julia (my host mom and sister)

 Buenos Aires, Argentina

 

 

Me drinking "mate", the most beautiful part of Argentine culture (if you ask me)

 

 

What I didn't know, though, was that my son was born in Bogota, Colombia on Thursday, November 6th, 1997 while I lived in Argentina that semester. A lot of years and tears still separated us, more than I ever dared to think. 

 

 

Seven months later, Mike and I headed to Mexico for the summer of 1998, continuing on the journey God planned for us to travel together, completely oblivious to His actual plan.

 

Tasquillo, Hidalgo

Mexico

Camino de Vida

UFM Ministries

1998

Book Introduction

God sets desires deep inside us early in life to guide us in the direction of His will. Even as a young preteen, I hoped to one day mother someone else’s child. A calling to adopt gripped my heart, along with a desire to become bilingual and to work on a mission field.

Since I grew up a pastor’s daughter, my church pretty much raised me. I found myself at church every time the doors opened. We arrived first and left last, not missing a single service, prayer meeting, choir practice or youth activity. Obviously, the Scriptures imbedded themselves in my heart at a young age, but I still vividly remember the missionary stories read to us during the children’s church hour. They fascinated me, captivated me. I held on to every little detail. Someday, I hoped I might have my own missionary story to write.

Though my dad’s pastor salary left no room for traveling adventures outside the U.S., I somehow developed a love for and fascination with other cultures, places and ways of living. The American Dream bored me. To me, it represented an empty life, void of real meaning or adventure.

I took Spanish classes through middle and high school and fell in love with the language. I used it often with any of my Spanish-speaking contacts. My yearning to speak Spanish fluently led me to Buenos Aires, Argentina to study abroad the first semester of my junior year. I lived with an amazing Christian family, attended a wonderful church and studied Spanish in a university amongst a group of international students from all around the world. The experience changed me forever.

Six months after coming home from Argentina, my fiancé, Mike, and I spent a summer in Mexico living and working with missionary friends. Mike performed maintenance duties for a Bible camp while I helped out with campers and also taught English classes for local people in the community. God used that unforgettable experience to show me how He fulfills the desires of our heart when we allow Him to set those desires within us.

In 1999, I graduated from Grace College in Winona Lake, Indiana with a degree in Christian Ministries and a minor in Spanish. I dreamed of one day teaching English overseas, preferably in a Spanish-speaking country. A few months later, I married my high school sweetheart, who shared similar desires for the mission field. It didn’t take me long to plan out our life together.

Oh, I had so much to learn. Mountain top experiences awaited us as a new couple pursuing our dreams, as well as deep valleys that left us clinging to God for our very existence. While following our calling to adopt, we fell in love with two precious orphans. The journey to adopt these sweet children took us into a deep valley we never expected and one we never wanted to travel. This story describes our survival through that valley, one covered with a beauty more breath-taking than we ever imagined.

“No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him.” 1 Corinthians 2:9

 

 

Introduction to my blog

Hello, there!  I'm so glad you stopped by. I have a new book coming out very soon that I just know will tug at your heart strings. I'll be blogging little "bites" of my book here, so you don't want to miss a post.

Have you ever adopted a child? Mothered a child who is not biologically yours? Visited an orphanage? Been involved in foster care?

Or perhaps you know an adoptive family? An adopted child? A family providing foster care? A couple pursuing children through adoption?

My heart beats for children who don't have a family of their own or who are unable to stay with the family that brought them into the world. I am both a biological mother and an adoptive mother (of an older child), as well as a "stand-in" mother (also for an older child), but our journey toward parenthood was longer and harder than I ever imagined.

I originally wrote and self-published our story in a book called From the Mountain . . . to the Valley   . . . and Back! through Westbow Press in 2012, the self-publishing division of Thomas Nelson Publishers. However, our story continued in such a way that a sequel was required to tell the rest of our journey to our son. After I finished the manuscript for the sequel, I went back and revised my original manuscript in order to make the books match as a series when the sequel comes out later this year. (Note: The revised edition of the first book will come out several months before the sequel.)

I will be pulling my first book "off the shelves" from Westbow Press shortly so I can present you with the new and revised book called Unexpected Tears (through Authenticity Book House). Our experience included many unexpected tears -- tears in the waiting, tears of grief, and later tears of joy. In my new book, I share more intimate conversation and detail not included in the original book.  It also reads much easier with shorter paragraphs, better sentence structure and more dialogue. (Thank you, Rockwall Christian Writer's Group, for everything you continue to teach me about writing. I think I broke every writing rule in that first book, but I am excited about the revised edition now that I have gleaned so much insight and expertise from you.)

I did things a bit backwards, but I am pleased with how it is finally coming together. I hope you will be, too. Stay tuned for my first post from the book, as well as a few pictures to draw you in.

If you already read my first book, please share this blog with someone who hasn't and repost for me on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, other blogs, etc. If my story helps connect just one more child to their forever family, then all the tedious work behind these books was worth every ounce of energy and time.

I love this quote from Create Space. I decided to do it, to add to it, and then to do it again to make it better.