Why adopt?...Why China?

We have had many questions posed to us, rightfully so, over the past three years. Anything from "Why not just have another one of your own?" to "Why China & not domestic adoption?" In all honesty, we have asked these questions ourselves, and our answer is that we are being obedient to God's call on our family at this time.
On April 10 of 2005, Brian & I were given tickets to see Steven Curtis Chapman in concert. (Thank you AJR...You started this whole ball rolling!) Steven is such a huge voice for the orphan, and not just those in China, but children all over the world. Both Brian & I were touched by his own adoption stories, and particularly by his video "When Love Takes You In". We didn't say anything to each other concerning adoption for about a week. Neither one of us had a clue that God was working in the other one's heart. When we finally shared our individual thoughts, the Holy Spirit confirmed to each of us that this was His doing. That is when the thought of little Gracie was born in our hearts!

In January of '06 we mentioned the idea to our children and began to pray about adoption as a family. The biggest obstacle at that time was the financial aspect of international adoption. It took our faith-filled Ali to say "If God has called our family to this, won't He meet our needs if we are obedient to Him?" So, OK, (ouch) it was time to take that first step of faith. In April we contacted Children's Hope International about pursuing an adoption with their agency. We were given two names of families in our area who had completed adoptions through them. Not only was one family from our area, but they lived on the street behind our house. There goes God again, showing up in the smallest of details! Meeting with them and seeing their sweet girl from China was yet another confirmation in our hearts to move forward. On May 10 our application was accepted by Children's Hope.

Why China? Our hearts had been tender toward that country before adoption was even thought of. Another friend (Thank you MJW!) had given us the book The Heavenly Man. The story of Brother Yun rocked our world. We were challenged to pray and believe God for the impossible, and challenged as well to pray for the persecuted church in China. To this day, our family has a heart to see the Gospel spread in a country that is currently seeing a huge surge of Christianity growing under a communist government. Another prayer close to our hearts has been that Gracie will somehow be under the influence of a believer in her orphanage and also that her parents would know Jesus so that one day they would see their daughter again in eternity.

The parallel of adoption and salvation was mentioned in church this morning. We are so grateful to have this opportunity to live out a picture of God's relentless pursuit of us as His adopted children. We already love Gracie as our own, and can't wait to get our arms around her!

"Not to us, O LORD, not to us, but to

Your name be the glory."

Psalm 115:1