After some prayer and consideration, we decided to pursue an international adoption. A couple days before Christmas of 2019, I started filling out our application with an adoption agency that works with China. We agreed that we needed to adopt an older child that may have been overlooked and we are not spring chickens neither. Why China, being involved in an exchange student program for 3 years has made us realize that this is what God has been preparing us for. Our love for them has opened our eyes to their culture and our ability to share Jesus with them.
Most if not all of the kids available for international adoption from China are considered special needs. This can be a little over whelming when you start to fill out a medical form that is listing pages of medical problems and diseases you have to decide if that is something you can accept or not. This will make you question if adoption is what is right for your family or not. It made me uncomfortable at times. Was I willing to say a child didn’t need a family because there medical issue was more than I wanted to handle or be inconvenienced by? Would I have left my own child at the hospital because of one of these issues? The answer is no, I would not had thought about leaving one of my natural born children behind but can I truly say that about some of the items listed for a child I don’t know or have never seen? Don’t miss understand me, there were items we said no to. I wish I could say that I said yes to everything but that is not the case. We had to look at ourselves and make judgments about what we thought we could handle and consider could they take care of themselves after we are gone? Would one of our other kids have to continue care for this child/adult the rest of their lives? These are choices that need to be discussed. Agreement needs to be reached. If either of us pushed the other into something that the other didn’t want it would be a wedge in our marriage when the problems came and they will come.
Jesus doesn’t promise us a easy life without problems or hardships. He does promise us in Hebrews, “I will never leave you or forsake you” and in John chapter 14, “I will not leave you as orphans; I am coming to you” We are to also follow His commands and “Learn to do what is good. Seek Justice. Correct the oppressor. Defend the rights of the fatherless.” I fall short of so many of these and other commandments but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t strive toward the mark He has set for us.