Adoption: AFA Journal

This months issue of the AFA Journal had an article about adoption entitled, Like Father, Like Son, which included many informative links.

A quote from the article:

“A large number of Christians – at some point in their journey – consider adopting, but they don’t know where to go or who to trust in that process,” Sandberg said. “I always say to them: ‘Of course you would consider adopting. You’re just like your Father because He adopted you. If you’re a child of God, naturally you would want to reflect Him.’” Encountering the Father and becoming a true reflection of His glory is what it’s all about for His children.

I thought that was so neat. As we grow more in knowledge of and relationship to God, we want to reflect Him. Adoption is one way that people are called to reflect Him.

Sandberg also states:

“Adoption isn’t ministry,” Sandberg said. “Adoption is choosing to parent and choosing to love and calling a child my own, as God calls me His own. “So if you’re looking for a ministry, you shouldn’t adopt,” she added. “You should … care for orphans … [in some way].”

This statement is true in some ways, but in one specific way I disagree. Adoption is choosing to love and parent a child that is not biologically yours. It is treating that child like they are biologically yours in every way without being blind to their needs to discuss their adoption. In an adoption court hearing you swear to treat them "as if your own" including promising them their share of inheritance. Cool, huh? Adoption is not rescuing a child. It is not treating them like you are their great blessing or with an "if it weren't for me" attitude. But, it certainly can be a ministry. God has led our family to adopt through the foster care system. Children from the system have varied backgrounds and suffer huge, sometimes life-long, consequences due to other peoples behavior. But why do children get into the system in the first place? It is not typically due to their birth parents "choosing an adoption plan" for their kids. They are taken from their parents, usually due to their parents negative behavior (drugs, various abuse, neglect, homelessness, not protecting them from others). Due to the backgrounds of some of the children from the system I think it can be a ministry. However, it must be balanced. An adoptive parent must make sure they are loving, nurturing, disciplining, caring for, feeding, teaching and discipling their children. You can't spend each day looking at your child as a ministry, but some days certainly can feel that way. Each day must be loving them completely in order to bring them to complete healing through Christ. I can do nothing apart from Him. I can't even love my children completely but for Christ.

Welcome Isaiah!

Were you waiting to hear the big news?

We are now a family of 7!

We are blessed by our sweet Isaiah.

He is 16 months and fits in perfectly with all of us.

He is a joy.

What a Week!

Hello All,
I can't believe I haven't written since my disappointment with ClustrMap. Thanks to 60 Toes and PetersonClan for the SiteMeter advice. I will try to update my site with that today.
Do things always happen at your home when your husband leaves!? My husband was no more than 20 minutes out the door for a trip when our septic alarm started whining. I knew exactly what to do as it had sounded about six months ago. At that time the nice gentlemen from the county had to remove the pump from the front yard, while they complained about the huge grass that the previous owners planted right next to it, only to discover that someone in our house had been flushing baby wipes! We had six months of strict "do-not-flush-baby-wipes" or "anything else of a non-septic nature" rules and then the dreaded alarm sounded once again. I must say that the men from the county were here within 30 minutes of my call. In the meantime I am going through the house constantly reminding all those who are here to not flush the toilet. After hearing three separate flushes..."No, you may not use the bathroom as I had already told you to not flush and you did, so now, this time you have to hold it, as I do not want poop all over the inside of my house. To keep your mind off of it do some push ups." I know I sound like a rough Mom! Well, who wants poop all over the house? I also know that if it were me having to go that badly, push-ups wouldn't do anything to help keep my mind off of it. For some reason it bought me 10 more minutes not having the kids in the bathroom. After three hours we found out that the pump had a broken pipe due to the basket getting clogged from something resembling the inevitable baby-wipes. After much thought I concluded that it was not baby wipes, rather those wonderful, "save you from time consuming scrubbing," flushable toilet cleaners. I think I am at fault. Those things weren't on the "do not flush" list. So, am I really at fault? I think not. I think I will just add them to the "anything else of a non-septic nature" rules and go back to on-my-knees scrubbing. You know, the kind that really gets the toilet clean!
So all of that wonderful adventure was plopped right into the middle of everything else we did this week: helped to open Papa and Granmommy's pool, had our water tested for our updated foster care home study (we have to do this every year and every year it's an adventure in itself for some reason), Church and final membership class, homeschooling ("and this is how you pull a septic pump children"), Ladies Retreat worship practice (I leave in 7 days and get to help with worship) and all the normal daily life kind of stuff.
I am excited about my upcoming retreat. I will relay a funny story from last year. During our session times I keep my phone off and check messages in between should Peter need me.
I was excited to get messages from Peter until I heard them!

Message one:
"Hey Babe, just wondering where you keep the cleaners. All I can find is the Windex and I'm not sure if that will do it."

Message two:
"Hey, no worries. I got all the poop cleaned up."

So, if you are me you are wondering:
1) Where was the poop? otherwise read: Oh no, on a carpet, where?
2)Did you find the right cleaners? otherwise read: Did you use Windex on the carpet?
3)What in the world happen? otherwise read: A little more info please.

I know there was a lot of poop talk in this post. I hope I didn't scare you off! When you have four children it tends to be a topic of conversation in the home. Also, my present week as well as my upcoming week have me a little focused on the next adventure that may be right around the corner!

On a nicer note:
Last year, upon my return from the Ladies Retreat, I was surprised to find that my wonderful husband and children had planted four beautiful hydrangea bushes across the front of our house in honor of me for Mother's Day. They are great! I love you five. XO

Quiverfull Through Adoption

God does not grow every family in the same way.
Nor does everyone have the same convictions about children.
This is our story. This is our conviction.

When we were first married (6/95) we had wonderful Godly examples around us of how large homeschooling families worked. We didn't know why these families were continuing to have children and we never asked, we just knew we liked what we saw. Late in the same year we felt pulled to relinquish control to the Lord and stopped using birth control. At this point we had never heard of the quiverfull mindset, so we actually came about our quiverfull conviction before we even knew what that meant. We knew that the Lord is "the giver of life" (1 Timothy 6:13) and that "Blessed is the man whose quiver is full" (Psalm 127:1-5), but we didn't understand the strength of those promises. Also, at this point our conviction was primarily on how many children the Lord would bless us with, not on medical intervention, etc. People would ask us how many children we wanted to have and we would respond with, "As many as the Lord wants to give us, ten maybe?" On a side note, before we were married we both felt a strong urge to adopt. It is amazing to look back at the convictions and desires that He instilled in us before we had any concept of how those would come to fruition. We waited and waited and waited. To this day I have never conceived through God-given natural conception.

Several years into our shaping journey I was diagnosed with stage four endometriosis and we took steps to resolve it. The doctors gave us a choice: have a hysterectomy or have a baby (at which point we had been trying for several years). Our steps led us to in-vitro (not a quiverfull mindset). Only God can make a baby and He did. He made two. I miscarried in my first trimester. But the Lord heard my cry! He reminded us of our first conviction to adopt. He said to us, "As many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father. The Spirit himself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God." (Romans 8:14-16)

God continued to shape us as we sought which direction to go to adopt. We took every required adoption class for every possible direction (infant domestic, international, domestic, older child). He brought us to a place of understanding that His intention was to fill our quiver with what our desires had been at each stage of our lives together. We became approved for foster care and adoption. He had blessed us with years of being "us" and then brought to us our precious baby boy. Five months later we had a girl and 2 years after that we had a boy and a girl. Today they are 10, 7, 4 and 3.

God continues to grow our family as we seek His face. We rely on His promise that a quiverfull is a blessing that He desires for us and then we pray that the fruits of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23) would reign in us as we teach, love, encourage and discipline our children unto godliness (1 Timothy 4:7-8). People ask us how many we are going to adopt and we still say, "As many as the Lord wants to give us, ten maybe?" Our family verse is James 1:27, "Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this, to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world." Whether by adoption or by birth, our children are the blessings that God intended for us and we will not stand in His way as He continues to pour them out on us. We don't want to limit God and what He intends for us. We trust Him knowing that His plans are for good (Jeremiah 29:11).



*Please click here to watch the Dave Thomas Foundation video on the fost-adopt system.

*There were 114,000 adoptable children in the foster care system as of November 2007.