The Decision

The conversation about having a third child came up fairly often, as several of our friends got pregnant and others discussed adding another child to their growing families. Every time it came up I got a unique feeling like I really wanted a third child, but I felt like our family was complete and I had NO interest in being pregnant again so I wasn't sure what direction we should take. I had decided that we would pray about it and seek God's direction because we aren't getting any younger and if I was going to get pregnant we would need to try for a baby in the next couple of years (I like to plan ahead). Well as this conversation came and went, God sent a young lady into our lives who needed a place to stay and she was pregnant. She moved into our guest room in September and about 3 weeks later had a beautiful baby boy. God used these two to help direct us in our decision making process. While this young lady was 19 years old and not truly an orphan it renewed in us our responsibility to be Christ's hands and feet on this earth and fulfill his call to care for those in need. It has been through this experience that our conversation of adoption resurfaced. It has been somewhat of an on going conversation since even before we were married. I have always had a passion for adoption and Joey patronized me in conversation but never seemed interested in committing and I was NOT interested in pushing him into it. I knew that if it was God's purpose for us to adopt He would have His way. Through just a few casual conversations I could see that Joey's attitude toward the idea of adoption was very different, which lead me to do a little more research and reading on the topic. I made a call to a very helpful friend and felt like I had enough information to give Joey to think about for a little while. I was thrilled he was even willing to discuss it seriously. For some reason (God's direction) our conversation turned to international adoption even though all of these years I felt like we would adopt domestically if we adopted at all. After a very one sided conversation Joey simply replied, "I'll pray about it." Needless to say... this was far more positive than he had been in the past. So I continued to read and email people with questions and every time I looked at Joey and smiled for about 3 weeks he simply replied, "I'm still praying about it." I asked him if he would be willing to meet with the Agency that I had been communicating with and he said yes but assured me it was just a meeting and that he was only there for information (I knew it was more than that). Our first meeting with the Director of the agency was cancelled because of an interstate closure. I have to admit I was disappointed but realized that the adoption process would probably be full of setbacks and disappointments, but God willing great joy and fulfillment. The next week we had our actual meeting with the agency director. If you had asked me what a good meeting would have been like I would have said a good meeting is one that Joey leaves feeling better about the idea of adoption. The meeting wasn't good, it was great. When the agent asked the first question and Joey began to share his heart I knew that he had received an answer to his prayers even if he hadn't shared it with me. When we left the meeting I will never forget, we got in the car and Joey said, "People do this...People adopt." I said, "Yeah, but not just people." To which he replied, "No...we have been called." And with that conversation it is our goal to abandon ourselves and follow God's call to adopt a child from Haiti. The first step is the application process. Hopefully to be complete by mid-February.