We feel like we need to better explain this calling to adopt. We don't want you to think that we read Matt. 25 and decided we would just go adopt a child from Ethiopia. Since we have been married we have discussed the idea of adopting a child one day. It remained just an idea until a couple of years ago. Over the past couple of years God has really opened our eyes through His word about the Christian responsibility to care for orphans. So we continued to seek the will of God in this through much prayer, Bible study, and Godly counsel. God has shown us through his word and has spoken to the core of our hearts. Please don't get the idea that we are doing this to earn God's favor. We are doing this because we HAVE God's favor thru the blood of His Son Jesus.
Finally we started looking for an agency. We went to a conference with Bro. Matt and Katie, however after looking through the information, the only country that matched up with us was Ethiopia. So we went to Gladney and chose to pursue Bulgaria. The week we sent our money and the first part of the paperwork in, we got an email from them and they told us that Bulgaria was no longer accepting applications for international adoptions for children under 4. Our other option with Gladney was Ethiopia. At first, we were concerned with some things. We were concerned about how our community and family would handle the adoption of a dark skinned race. We want our kids to be accepted in the community and family, everyone does, and not knowing was hard. At first.... It is tough to have someone "different" as a part of your family and it had to soak in a little bit. However God gave us both absolute peace. If we were to let race or ethnicity be the deciding factor of us not adopting a child we would look nothing like the Gospel of Jesus. Praise the Lord He does not look at the color of our skin. We feel arrogant knowing that we struggled with these things. We tell you this because we know some of you reading this may have had these thoughts. Or some of you thinking of adoption, but don't really know how you feel about international adoption, need to know that we struggled with it too. God will take care of you no matter what he calls you to do. Amen???
The more we hear statistics of Ethiopia, the more we understand the need of adopting from there. 24% of the country has clean water to drink. Over 75% of the country has to drink from murky ponds or creeks. 1 out of every 10 children die before they are a year old. They really are hungry and thirsty. That's where Matt 25 comes in. We are positive this is what God has for us. We hope everyone gets on board! Thanks for letting us share our hearts!
