God has been developing this desire to adopt since Spring 2009. My husband, Dee, emailed Mark Richt's
"Beauty of Adoption" video. Mark Richt is the University of Georgia's football coach who adopted two children from the Ukraine. This is a beautiful picture of how God loves the broken things of this world.
In May, I learned that a family in our church, the Gordons,were adopting a two year old girl from China. A month later, they took the long plane ride to Beijing. I watched my first
"gotcha day" video, on facebook, while they were still over there. Pretty amazing to watch a family come together for the first time. That video truly touched my heart. Jia is a precious little girl.
After Jia's adoption, I started talking to people in our church that shared the same interest. This encouraged me to think more deeply about adoption. One of my friends, Caroline, sent me, Lucy Lane's "Gotcha Day" video from the blog:
We Love our Lucy Lane and I cried through the whole thing! I received it through email while I was at the lake with my family and I made them all watch it too. God was working in my heart and opening my eyes. My husband Dee was excited that I was developing a heart for adoption.
About a month later, my friend Andrea called to tell me she and her husband were going to adopt from Ethiopia.
Babe of My Heart
I was thrilled for them and told her we also wanted to adopt one day, but this was just not the right time. Life is too crazy with two young kids. Little did I know what God was doing in my heart. A of couple weeks later in August, Andrea posted an incredible blog by a girl named
Katie Davis. It wasn't until the end of September that I decided to check it out.
Katie is a 21 year old girl from Brentwood, TN who has adopted 14 children in Ug*nda. She also feeds, clothes and provides school for 400 children. About two years ago she started this ministry called Amazima Ministries. This ministry raises money for these children in this Ug*ndan village. Her life is a true picture of what it means to be selfless and fully trust Christ for your every breath. Her stories truly humbled me. Here I am complaining that I have to take care of two children and I don't have "me time" anymore. This totally changed my perspective. God used her to open my eyes to these precious children in Africa that have no mommies and daddies. I spent three days reading her whole blog. The work she is doing over there is amazing and has encouraged me to know my Jesus more. It was on her blog that I learned these statistics.
*There are 145 million orphans worldwide.
*15 million have lost one or both parents to AIDS
*Over 11.6 million live in Sub-Saharan Africa
For the next week or so I discussed the possibilities of adopting with my husband. We knew God was leading us to adopt a child, because we now shared this same passion. The only thing that stood in our way was money. We just added onto our two bedroom, one bath house to make it a four bedroom, one bath house. Our 1940s house ended up needing a lot more work than we intended to do. I thought, "So why is God putting this on our hearts now?"
After doing a little more research, we realized that money should never be a reason not to adopt.
This video inspired us to just trust the Lord to provide. There are many organizations that give grants for adoption and many ways to raise money to bring orphans home. So now we are praying that God would provide the money if this is his will.
God has opened our eyes to the orphans of the world, just like he opened my eyes to his truth several years ago. I have been loved much, so that I am free to love!
