You really never know how things will turn out when you are faithful to what God wants you to do. But in the end, it’s always worth it.
Last October Laura and I officially submitted our paperwork to start our adoption process. We felt that God was calling us to adopt a child for a long time, but finally we felt that the time had come to actually start the main process. We really felt that it was a calling rather than a response to not having children of our own yet. Shortly after we completed our home study where a social worker basically does an interview of us and evaluates whether the way we live is consistent to being an adoptive family. We got through the initial process very quickly since Laura already knew the ins-and-outs since that’s what she does at Bethany Christian Services.
Once the home study was done and we got approval from Korea we started to think about how we would ease into telling our families about it. Of course we had mentioned to our families that we were interested and we got those general responses like “oh, that’s a good thing to do” and expected comments like “you should have your own children first.” From the time a home study is completed, families usually have at least a year before receiving a referral (when you are matched with a child and they provide detailed information of the child) so we planned on breaking our families in over the course of the year.
Now I must admit that we did get pressure from our families to have our own children first and both parents started pushing us to get tested to make sure there aren’t issues with getting pregnant. So to appease them we were in the process of going through those tests. We never really thought that there was anything wrong with us, but thought that it just wasn’t time for us since we felt that we were to adopt first. Nevertheless, my tests came back fine and we were in the process of getting Laura tested.
Everything changed on Christmas eve. One December 24th Laura received a phone call at work saying that we had gotten our referral! CRAZY!!! We had gotten a referral in about two months, a process that was supposed to take about a year! We were ecstatic! This was totally a God thing to put all this together so quickly! Her name is Suh-Yoon and this is her 7 month picture.
We started talking about baby names, room colors, wondering what her personality would be like, how she would be growing up, and all kinds of first-time-parents kind of stuff! And after much deliberation, we decided to name her Josephine and we would call her Josie!
Now, getting the referral in two months posed a couple problems. First problem was that we had to come up with $18,000 within three weeks. We had raised about $600 and we thought we had about a year to raise the rest! The second problem was that we thought we had a year to break our families in to the idea that we were going through with adoption and now we had to break the news much sooner that we had thought.
On December 26th, while having Christmas lunch with Laura’s family, we broke the news. And it didn’t go so well. Her family didn’t take it so well as their main concerns were things like that we needed to have our own children first to know what it’s like to be parents, how we weren’t financially ready, to how bringing an adoptive child into the family won’t be easy (blood-line thing). Many of the concerns really weren’t unique to adopting a child, but that didn’t matter. Telling my parents was even worse. They weren’t just against it, they forbade it. They didn’t even forbid it on reasonable grounds and it was mostly on “you just can’t do this.” They event made threats like “if you go through with this, don’t even bother visiting us” (which I actually found silly because I heard the same thing when my brother married a Caucasian woman). Needless to say, we learned that changing the hearts of our families would be the greater miracle than coming up with $18,000!
The next couple of weeks was a roller coaster ride to say the least! Some days we’d wake up and say that we have to go through with the adoption considering how quickly everything worked out. And some days we’d wake up saying we just couldn’t go through with it and that it would be unfair to bring a child into a family where the child wouldn’t be welcomed. Back and forth, back and forth, we would struggle. Despite our struggle, we financially proceeded as if we were pursuing the adoption and applied for grants and beefed up our fundraising efforts. All the while, we really weren’t sure if we could actually go on with it.
Our final decision had to be made by Friday, January 15 and that was the pivotal week. We were deeply searching for direction and confirmation and on that Tuesday, the day’s devotional confirmed what we had to do. The devotional came from My Utmost For His Highest and it talked about how our obedience will cost others more than it would cost us. About how the struggles we would face would be our delight because of our obedience and not so much for those who don’t recognize the call. It even pointed out that being disobedient would bring immediate relief to the situation, but it would grieve God. Wow. We had to go through with it. We started this because it was our calling. We have to go through with it and be obedient to God’s calling despite the consequences.
On a side note, at this point it looked like we would be on track to raise the $18,000! LifeSong for Orphans, Karis Community Fellowship (our previous church), Atlanta Korean Baptist (our current church), and our friends came through with supporting us!
We sought council from our close friends and they all encouraged us to take a time to fast and seek peace about our decision and so we started our fast on Wed and would communicate our decision on that Friday to Bethany Christian Services. After the first day of fasting Laura had told me that she was late and I knew that there’s a lot of reasons why a woman is late, but just in case as a precaution since we were fasting and we agreed to just take a pregnancy test.
I heard her take the test. There was silence. There were papers that ruffled, the pamphlet that comes with the kit. She comes out and announced “I think I’m pregnant!” My first reaction was, “go test again” to which she replied, “I can’t pee again!” I was numb. My mind was blown. I experienced emotions that I never knew I had. (On a funny note, we ended up testing three times just to be sure)
Now I’m proud to introduce you to peanut.
To be honest, finding out that we were pregnant was bittersweet. It was bittersweet because we knew that we couldn’t continue with the adoption because of the country policy that prohibits adopting a child within a year of having your own child. We had to say goodbye to Josie, who we considered to be our daughter. However, it is sweet to experience God’s faithfulness. We weren’t necessarily seeking to get pregnant, but this was a way to test our faith as well as bring peace to our family. Now that we are pregnant, we have already experienced how our families will be far more supportive of our future plans to adopt a child. God had a plan all along. God always has a plan. We have only gone on hold in our adoption process and we still plan to be obedient in our call to adopt!
We are nearly done with our home study portion of the adoption process and it feels like we’ve been in the process for a very long time! There’s been lots of paperwork and talking with people to say the least. There’s lots of “white space” too. There’s plenty of time to wait for things to happen such as paperwork processing and appointments, but the best thing about the wait is that I’ve had the opportunity to really learn about adoption in a deeper way. I’ve been reading tons of material on everything from the theology of adoption to how Muslims are working in orphan care and adoption. To say the least, my perspective has certainly broadened and really do see adoption in a different way than I had seen it at the beginning of my adoption journey. So, for the remaining course of our journey, I will be sharing with you the things I’ve learned about the doctrine of adoption, the history, and about the worldview on adoption. Most of all, I hope that you will truly come to understand what it is to be adopted by God.
Can you believe it! A Chimp taking care of a puma orphan! Nature is a reflection of the character of God!
In the last couple weeks I’ve been able to work with many village children and children in a particular orphanage. I’ve also visted a couple other orphanages in Phnom Penh. What’s interesting is the different between all the children.
We had the opportunity to go and worship with the children at a local village just outside of Phnom Penh. The local missionary we are working with has established three locations where he has service with the children. To get to the village we had to cross two major rivers that come from the north that go through Phnom Penh. We traveled north east of the city for about 30min by van on dirt roads most of the way.
I did have the privilege of preaching to these kids and it was certainly a humbling experience! Preaching to kids always reminds me of how complicated I’ve made the Gospel of Christ and how difficult my own language is. The culture in the US almost seems to prompt us to use great organized and well constructed messages rather than communicating a simple message. Still exploring these thoughts…
Cambodia is among the poorest countries in Asia filled with a devastated history of deception, injustice, abuse of powers, and corruption. But now the country is on a rise. The condition within the city is drastically improving. While economic conditions are improving, the spiritual condition is grim. Much of the country is dominated by Hinduism with a country’s God as a 5-headed Cobra. It’s a country in spiritual bondage.