Are We Crazy?

Some time about two weeks into this idea we started to think, "Are we crazy? We're barely holding on as it is every month and our family is going to kill us. Not kill us in the, "Oh, you guys are crazy with a capital C kind of way."


K. I. L. L. (with a capital K)


What are we thinking ruining our happy life?


We have it good.


Why? Why this? Why Now?


We send sponsors to feed children in Africa in your name! URGH! Why are you doing this?


We are expecting these responses but...


We are STEADFAST.

We are PRAYING.


We BELIEVE.


We know that once the shock wears off, that once the disbelief wanes...


LOVE will TRIUMPH.


Our family has shown great COURAGE in the face of the unknown.


And they will again with FAITH and HOPE. (we think ;)

Our Research

Researching the plight of the children in Africa is heart breaking and eye opening. First, it is near impossible to estimate the number of children who are orphaned from the AIDS epidemic, poverty and war. Statistics will tell you there are 147 million orphans around the world and perhaps 12 million in Africa alone.  These statistics are hard to trace as many of these vulnerable children are not lucky enough to be in traditional orphanages, they are left to care for themselves on the streets or worse, are exploited.  

We started our research by trying to narrow our search for countries who

1. had the need (they all have the need!)
2. whose family criteria me met
3. whose time frame criteria we could meet in country

In undertaking the monumental task of international adoption, one finds out very quickly that there are a million questions to answer even before filling out the first form.  We've adopted before but our adoption was domestic and that adoption only gave us the most basic understanding of the process needed for an international adoption.

Our first question was how were we going to afford an international adoption. An international adoption will cost approximately $20,000-$25,000.  We do believe that God has Graced us with the desire to pursue adoption and we believe that He will show us the way to provide the needed funds through fundraising.  We have no doubts about this.

The very next question we needed to answer was which country should we adopt from and, again, this was an easy one.  We are looking to adopt a boy between the ages of 3-4. We have a family with 3 children and for some countries this was one child too many so we were tasked with finding a country who didn't think we already had too many!  It was a natural choice for us. Uganda also has a relative short time in country when picking up your child. We also looked at length of stay in country, and how many trips were required. So Uganda...here we come.

One thing we LOVE about the adoption process in Uganda is that they allow for independent adoptions; rather guardianship's. This means that we do not have to register with an adoption agency. This appealed to us because we have adopted independently before here in the US. We feel this process allows for God to lead and for His timing to be perfected rather than for an agency to tell us when our number has come up and has 'matched' us with the next child in line. Yes, it will be more work for and will be harder but we have witnessed the miracle performed for us with our son's adoption and those close to us who know his story can attest to the millions on tiny miracles that had to line up perfectly for him to come home with us and that could only have happened with the help of God and so we trust that He will help us again, this time around.

How it All Began

As we sat in church a few weeks ago watching a video from a trip our priest, Father James, took to his home town in Nigeria, a stirring started in both my husband and I. At the end of the video, a note said to call Father James for information on how to help the people of Nigeria or for information on adoption. Todd leaned over to me and whispered, "We should adopt." It's a miracle that an ambulance didn't need to be called as I was bowled over by this declaration.

We were happy. We had everything. We had the American dream and we didn't need to rock the boat by undertaking something this BIG. He had to know by putting it out there to....ME...that he had just stirred up the biggest grand daddiest's of all hornet's nests. My husband is a big idea guy. He's a big dreamer. I am all heart and this could be a prove to intersect with someone getting hurt but we got caught up in the excitement for the moment. 

                            

                   I will not leave you as orphans.

            I will come to you. 

                                 John 14:18

So in the next few days we toyed with the idea until finally I called Father James and asked for him to return our call. We waited. And we waited. And we waited. Then I emailed him. And we waited some more.

When he finally called us back, he somewhat embarrassingly explained that the adoption that he they were speaking about in the video was an education sponsorship not an adoption. The definition of adoption vs sponsor was lost in translation as his first language is not English.

We spent a couple days feeling a little dumb but we quickly got over it knowing that there are still millions of children in Africa needing loving homes and that God may have used this to light a little fire within our hearts.  Nigeria is not open to international adoption we found out but other countries in Africa had children living without hope, without loving families and without opportunity. We opened our hearts and we were listening and we were going where God sent us. And so started our journey to research where we would eventually go.....