In Honor of Adoption Month: How We Got Here {The Adkins}

Alan & Megan Adkins are 1 of the many families we met last summer at Pine Cove Family Camp. We had a mutual friend that helped us connect, but both having big families & a heart for adoption, we had plenty to naturally connect on. So glad when God drops these unexpected kinds of people in your path to encourage you and build you up.

I absolutely LOVE their story. So real and so honest.  Reminds me of a quote I recently saw a friend post:

"There's two sides to orphan care. On one side you rescue a child from their brokenness. On the other, a child rescues you from your selfishness."

Here is "How We Got Here" from Megan Adkins:

"I think our family is proof positive that Gods plans cannot be thwarted (can you ever use the word thwart other than using it with the word “plans” - it’s a weird word, right?). Even with less than perfect motives from our selfish, self serving selves - His plan always emerges victorious!

I would love to tell you that I had a clean heart the entire time while pursuing adoption for our family. There were definite times of clarity and a desire to have a heart like His, for sure. For instance, the moment that I was scraping food from dinner into the trashcan and realizing just how much excess we had - that was Gods heart awakening in mine. I cried over that trashcan at the amount of waste in food, shelter, time, resources, etc. that our family had to give, but were being thrown away daily.

I wanted adoption to be part of our families story. I wanted to have the biological story AND the story by ADOPTION. So, to make my (our) plan work, I put all sorts of limits and stipulations on the entire thing. We would do one child, no special needs, legal risk only. Young so as not to have the child have too many issues or barriers to attachment. Although I do believe that each family should pray about what they feel equipped for in the area of adoption, I cannot say for sure that I prayed about any of the above. And I kinda fantasized about what type of adoptive family we would be. I mean, we might even be the kind that needed to be on a poster or something (as ambassadors of adoption of course). People would maybe look to us and see how amazing we were, YEA US! We are AMAZING!

Enter Jake.

A real person. Jake, who didn’t ask to be adopted. Jake, who has his own struggles. His own gifts. And, Jake who has blessed us immensely with his megawatt smile, his merciful heart and his BOUNDLESS energy!

Jake, who DIDN’T reach for me for the longest time. Jake, who stiffened even as a baby in response to hugs. Jake, who didn’t know AND didn’t NEED all the expectations that I had put on him before he even arrived at our door.

Jake was 14 months when he joined our family. At that time I had a 5 and a 7 year old, and a 6 month old baby. We were building a home and living in a temporary apartment. I was stressed. And I needed this new little one to ASSIMILATE. Ha - Jake didn’t get that memo. He was needy. Whiny. And didn’t instantly LOVE me. Imagine that.

I was so focused on my part of this adoption story that I did not fully take in what it meant when a baby had experienced the loss of TWO caregivers (bio mom, and a previous foster family). I didn’t factor in that attachment was to be my number one concern. I didn’t factor in that meeting all of his needs was showing him, day by day, how much the Father loved him, and how He too, would meet Jakes needs.

I was selfish. (I am still selfish)

5 years later, I have grown some. Though the urge to drive my own plan down everyone else’s throat still happens daily, I am becoming more and more aware that saying yes to God’s plan, also means saying Yes to admitting learning that His ways are involved in every aspect of His plans. And I am learning that He is patient, OH so patient in teaching this stubborn selfish, me- centered heart that it is in serving that will bring His kingdom to earth as it is in Heaven.

Since the adoption of Jake, (5 years later) we learned of 3 of his biological sisters that were in care. We immediately were faced with the choice to pursue in order for them to be together, or pretend that they never existed, and continue on our track to raise our current 4 children. Did we pray this time? ABSOLUTELY. We knew if a little 14 month old baby could still have struggles with attachment, and with trauma, and with loss - that these sweet girls who had been living in several homes for the past 5 years and had experienced trauma in their lives that NO person should experience, would have a tough time.

We knew that the urge to be compassionate is not a constant. That it would be a fleshly desire to want them to rush through the healing process (and ASSIMILATE) - and that we would need Jesus’ help the whole time to give them the room and time to heal.

Even knowing what we knew, it has been challenging. The girls have been here 15 months, and I would say that we are seeing amazing leaps in healing for all of them. We know not to trust OUR ways (even when our ways seems so comfortable - and may have even worked before!)

I am so grateful that my own selfishness did not deter God’s plan for our family. Our children, all of them, make our family rich with diversity, fun, and a cacophony (we are hopeful for a harmony to happen any day now) of personalities that make every single day an adventure.

We are so incredibly grateful to be their parents. We are so incredibly grateful to serve a Father God that loves us more than we can comprehend, and who reaches down and equips us daily for the work here. We are also so grateful to be made AWARE of the weaknesses we have - because it shines the light on just how STRONG He is. 

Thank God for honest people willing to share, even their less than shiny parts, for the glory of God! For more on the Adkins' on-going journey in orphan care & adoption, check out Megan's blog: www.gracegritandwit.com. It is a GOOD one!!!

In Honor of Adoption Month: How We Got Here {The Hardings}

When Kyle & I's life got turned upside some 7 1/2 years ago in a way we never imagined and we we welcomed 17 year old Dawn into our family, Aric & Glenna were there every crazy step of the way. And fittingly, we have had the privilege to walk their adoption journey with them. These guys are our best friends, so, naturally this story and what God has done in their family is especially dear to us. It's a good one! Love the bottom line that Aric says: 

       "We had no idea what God really had in store for us."

I think that probably stands to be true for all of us! Here is the Hardings' "How We Got Here" adoption story in the words of Aric:

Glenna and I were that couple that always said, “We believe God is going to bring a situation along that we will know we need to get involved” when it came to adoption. I think in the back of my mind I never thought that would happen.

We had just had our fourth child and found ourselves in the NICU of Texas Children’s Hospital watching him on an IV for about 10 days as they treated him for a kidney infection. Each morning would begin with the doctors making their rounds and each morning my wife Glenna and I would hear about this other little boy in the pod next to Jasper.

“There’s no mother…”

“CPS has been notified…”

“Premature by three months”

God began to stir something in Glenna and I separately and we both came to this place where we knew that God was calling us to get involved.

It was a little scary at first, but once we took that first step we were off and running. We slammed the licensing that should take months into weeks. We met some of the most amazing people in our pursuit of getting this little boy.

It seemed like one step forward and two steps back for a long time. The whole time we are praying that God would open the door for us to bring him home.

We had no idea what God really had in-store for us.

About Christmas time we finally found out that CPS had placed the little boy with some extended family, but God had used that little guy to push us off the ledge and get involved in orphan care.

Two weeks later on a Wednesday, we got a call about an emergency placement for a little one month old girl, named Aliza. We thought she’d be bunking with us for a few days, but those few days turned into the first year of her life. We absolutely fell in love with her.

That doesn’t end our story though. God had a harder but necessary road to take us down to paint the family portrait that he had in store for us.

We would end up losing her in a difficult court battle to some family on the other side of the country. We took the next 9 months to lick our wounds a bit, and then we (Glenna at first and then me) felt God calling us back into orphan care.

A year and three months after we had lost our little girl we received two little boys into our home, named Monroe and Judah. They were a blast. They were a breath of fresh air. They were our kids.

We headed down the road to getting them adopted which in the state of Texas is typically 6 months. We were able to adopt within 5 months and the week that we finalized our adoption on the boys we got a call from CPS that Aliza, our little girl, needed was being brought back to Texas and more importantly back to us.

We are only weeks away from finalizing our adoption with her.

When we first were sitting there in the NICU we could have never imagined the plan that God had for our family. So thankful we took that first step. 

photo by: Stephanie Nyo

Aric is the worship pastor at Clear Creek Community Church, West campus and Glenna is a photographer and homeschool mom. If you are interested in learning more on the Hardings journey, you can check out these websites:

www.aricharding.wordpress.com 

www.glennahardingphotography.com

In Honor of Adoption Month: How We Got Here {The Gaffords}

I love this family. Such a sweet picture of God's faithfulness. How often we have our own plan in mind that just never works out the way we want it to; we get angry and even think God has forsaken us, but then it turns out that God had an even better plan for us,  in HIS time.

Here is the "How We Got Here" adoption story from 2 great people, Marcus & Chrystal Gafford:

Adoption. What it took for me to know I was ready and what it took for Marcus to know he was ready were totally different.

I had considered adoption for as long as I can remember. When I discovered abortion was an option on this earth I realized that I would be eager to adopt.

Marcus on the other hand is a plan A type of guy. So when infertility reared its ugly head in our relationship it had us at a standstill. And that's where we stayed for almost 4 years.

I think part of him knew that saying it was okay to adopt would unleash a beast inside of me that had been trying to claw its way out for a long time. But on our anniversary he took me to dinner and gave me a card that said he was ready.

Today I asked him how he realized he was ready. He said he knew when I sent him a text message while he was at work telling him that I had found out about a little girl that needed a family. For him it was all about a little girl who needed a Daddy.

For me it was about finding an outlet for love that had been growing in my heart. For him it was about feeling moved by someones deepest need. Waiting on God's plan has been far more rewarding than we could have ever imagined.

Our daughter who was brought into our family the little sister has now become a big sister. Twice.

~Chrystal