How to even begin? After four years of marriage, God has led us to a new path. There is so much we do not know, but we have had incredible people come into our lives to help us understand the next steps to take.
God has allowed us the challenge of infertility. Like most challenges, it is not something that we would have chosen on our own, and it is a difficult struggle to face. However, we believe that walking through infertility together has drawn us closer as a couple, as we need to communicate with each other to walk through this.
In Fall of 2010, I (Lynn) continued my graduate work in English as a Second Language. This required a four hour round trip commute weekly, and I was blessed with finding a local student with whom I could carpool. Many of our conversations on those long drives tended toward the topic of adoption, and of the things that he and his wife had already discovered. In November of 2010, a couple at church spoke about God calling them to adoption and how they brought two beautiful daughters home from Ethiopia.
These events led Angela and I to start talking about what part adoption might play in our lives. We prayed about this, and we felt like God was telling us to move forward, step by step.
The first step that we needed to follow was to move into a different house. Angela had moved into the house I owned when we got married. We had wanted to have more space anyway, but we clearly felt like God was leading us to a different new home where we would start a family together. We spoke with Angela's parents about this, and they encouraged us in the process. We worked the first few months of 2011 to finish her parents' basement into an apartment for us to live in while we got our house ready to sell. Several close friends were very instrumental in these two simultaneous remodels. We moved into her parents' house Easter weekend, and we had the house ready to go on the market in June. After two months on the market, with no views at all, we decided to list the house as a rental. At the end of August, we found great renters who have been in the house ever since.
We began our house hunt in late July. We found a great real estate agent who is a friend of Angela's parents, and she worked very hard to find us a house that met our needs, and even some of our wants. We moved into our new home on Oct. 21. Our corner lot, with a 2-car garage, almost twice the living space, and more...has been a great blessing, and our hearts have felt that God has now opened the door for us to begin the official adoption process.
In October, I met another family in our church who have also dealt with infertility and adoption. Recently, they had dinner with us and told us their story. They were a great encouragement to us, and gave us so much useful information. Just over a week ago, we met with the director of Adoption & Beyond, the agency this couple had used, and we received a notebook that outlined the extensive home study process, along with the significant costs. The director told us that an adoption budget for an agency adoption with them should be set at $20K.
Our Sunday School class has been incredibly supportive, and by God's great wisdom, an adoption lawyer and his wife recently joined the class. The lawyer pulled me aside on Sunday and told me the importance of cautious optimism throughout this journey, recognizing that adoptions do in fact fall through, but that God had the right child for us to call our own. We have an official appointment with him at the beginning of February to ask more detailed questions about the legal side of things and the private adoption process. The lawyer told me that he does many, many adoptions a year (this was very encouraging to me), and that if we were to find a birthmother on our own, the cost would be much closer to about $7K. We do not know the path God has in store for us, but this figure seems much more doable in our sight. However, we want to humbly approach God in boldness and faith, never limiting Him in how He wants this adoption to take place. If we follow this journey in our strength for our glory, we know that we will not be as blessed as if we follow this journey in a faith that must be dependent on Christ Jesus day by day to meet our very needs.
A close friend of mine has talked with me most of the way through this journey over the last several years. When he heard of Angela's and my heart for adoption, he felt led to give us the funds to cover the home study and some initial adoption costs. We are so blessed by friends who give out of the abundance that God has given them, and we are humbled to see this as a confirmation that God is clearly directing us down this path.
Blog posts are supposed to be short and sweet, but it is hard to condense years of thoughts into a few short words. I will end with this verse that has tugged on our hearts for the last year:
"Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world." James 1:27
May God bless you as you consider the path that God has for us, and listen to the still small voice for the path that He has for you, as well.
Lynn
