My adoption story..so far.

It is the desire of my heart to be able to offer a forever home to another child. A child who would otherwise not know the security of a loving family.

The first time I truly expressed this longing, it was only to God, because I knew He would not look at me like I was out of my mind. So, for an entire month it was our secret. Then I shared with other safe people, like my friend Bekah who has such an amazing heart for others; and of course my best friend Erin who said she wasn't all that surprised; and to Lindsey who said "I always knew you wanted more children, you just didn't know it yet!!" Lindsey's response was my favorite :)

But I was concerned about what John would think. So I prayed and prayed and I figured that if God really wanted us to adopt that He was powerful enough to lay it on John's heart. So I waited, not so patiently, and struggled with whether or not this would be a wise decision for our family. But the fact remained that there are children that need a homes; and I was willing to provide one.

So one night after we had watched the gut wrenching movie, Hotel Rawanda, John looked at me and said "you know, I wouldn't mind adopting a little baby from Africa" Talk about being flabergasted! I tried to act cool and said, "I know, me too." Then I went upstairs and did a victory dance in my bedroom and thanked God for that very clear answer to prayer.
We talked about it a little and asked our parents to pray about it for us. But we didn't feel like the time was right.

During this time I had been looking mainly at adopting from Ethiopia, I know that there are so many abandoned children there and they are truly beautiful. But due to the expenses for Ethiopia adoptions at that time, and a suggestion from my friend Lindsey about God's Littlest Angels. I ended up researching a Christian orphanage that's run by two missionaries; and started feeling like this could really work. Plus, French is the country's official language. However, we still didn't feel like the timing was right. Then, after I had fully surrendered it to God, not understanding why he would put this desire in my heart but not allow me to act on it; within a short period of time John got a call that ended up being a new job in Portland.
So, we moved.

After we got settled, the adoption feelings came back. So we started praying and talking and asking for prayer. I deliberated, and wrote out pros and cons, and asked other adoptive parents questions, and stressed, and then prayed some more. Finally when I thought I was going crazy, I had a few of my adoptive friends tell me that taking a small step out in faith and see how I felt afterwards. Around that time I recieved a powerful e-mail from my friend Lisa who heard a sermon by Tony Campolo, all about orphans in Haiti. In this e-mail Lisa really went out on a limb speaking from her heart about us adopting.
Since there wasn't an adoption class that we could attend to get more info. about God's Littlest Angels, the only small thing I could do was find other families who adopted from GLA and ask them about their experiences.

I contacted two families from Oregon that used GLA to adopt their kids. I first spoke to Teresa and peppered her with questions about GLA, the adjustment period, the actual orphanage, the race issues, anything I could think of. And when I hung up with her, I was so excited! The funny thing was, she hadn't said that everything had been easy or perfect...for just a few moments I had given my heart to adoption and it felt perfect. I talked to another mom who said similar comments. Both of the women were pleased with their experience with GLA.

But the "what if"s" came back and for what seemed like an eternity (a few weeks) I vascillated, back and forth, one moment thinking, YES we can totally do this and a few minutes later, thinking, nope we've got a good, comfortable thing going here with our family as it is now.
Again I turned to God and started thanking Him in advance that "he would not allow us to get off the path He had chosen for us"...whatever that may be. I searched the Bible for an answers and clung to the verse: "If you don't know what you're doing, pray to the Father. He loves to help. You'll get his help, and won't be condescended to when you ask for it." (James 1:5-6) And "Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know." (Jeremiah 33:3)

Finally, after talking to Laura who's adopting from Haiti, and one especially deep conversation with my sister, I made up my mind. John was in Alaska at the time and when he came home we talked and decided together we would step out in faith and adopt!

So here we are. All the paperwork we can do now is somewhere in Haiti. And the wait begins.
But I am content, knowing that God was working long ago when I sang to Him "if you can use anything Lord, you can use me." He took me seriously, and brought me to this place.

Anticipating, Alicia