Our Story

And so it begins...

We had been talking about adoption for several weeks. Our children, Paige, 9, and Paris, 8, fully assured us that they wanted to adopt before we came to the conclusion ourselves. At that time we were supporting an orphan who was with Harmony Outreach. They are an organization that takes in orphans with special needs in China. They sponsor surgeries for these children who have heart disease, cleft palates, and spina bifida among other things. When Brian and I decided we wanted to adopt, we initially thought we should adopt a girl, because we have so much experience with girls. We had also decided on someone with only mild special needs because we didn't know if we were prepared to handle anything more severe.

Even though we had decided to adopt we still felt like we needed to pray and ask God if that is what He wanted us to do. So we prayed for several weeks and felt more and more led to adopt, but the more I looked at the pictures of the children at Harmony Outreach the more my heart went out to Josiah. I cried more over him than any of the other children and kept wondering if there was anyone out there who would be willing to adopt him. The more I thought about him the more I heard God tugging on my heart and then one day I clearly heard God speak, "Whom shall I send, and who will go for Us?" It was a question He asked Isaiah the prophet when no one else was willing to do what God was asking. Isaiah repsonded, "Here am I! Send me." And those were the very words that rang in my heart when I heard God asking me if I would be willing to go to "the least of these." Jesus will one day say, "'Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: for I was hungry and you gave Me food; I was thirsty and you gave Me drink; I was a stranger and you took Me in; I was naked and you clothed Me; I was sick and you visited Me; I was in prison and you came to Me.' Then the righteous will answer Him, saying, 'Lord when did we see You hungry and feed You, or thirsty and give You drink? When did we see You a stranger and take You in, or naked and clothe You? Or when didwe see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?' And the King will answer and say to them, 'Assuredly I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me.'" Matthew 25:34-40

Though theses were the words that rang in my heart when I thought of Josiah, I was not at all sure that Brian would be on board with it since we had previously discussed adopting a girl with mild special needs. Josiah has nerve damage or missing bones causing his arms to be completely paralyzed. We do not know what might be the cause of this, so we don't know if it is a possiblity that his arms could work again. I decided I wasn't going to say anything to Brian about Josiah until I had time to pray about it. That day Paige approached me and said that she wanted to adopt Josiah. That was the very thing that I felt God was speaking to my heart and I told her so but that I wasn't sure how her dad would feel about it. I told her not to say anything to him about it yet but that we should just pray. Later that evening as we sat down for dinner we were discussing the fact that we were all in for adoption. At that time Brian said, “What do you think about adopting Josiah?” I wouldn’t have been surprised if my jaw had hit the table. It appeared that God had been speaking to Brian about Josiah as well. The words God had spoken to him were that some people view Josiah as a special needs child (seeing him as being defined by his needs) and some people view Josiah as a child with special needs (seeing him as a child who has special needs but is not defined by them) but that Brian saw him as just special. We all knew that Josiah was very special. He was so full of joy despite his limitations. He seemed like he was determined to overcome as we read on his profile that he used his legs and feet more like arms and hands. We were simply amazed at him. God gave us eyes to see Josiah as a child in desperate need of the love of a family, to see his special needs as secondary to that, and to think less and less about his limitations. We knew his sweet spirit, ingenuity, and perseverance would be engrained on the hearts of all our extended family as well. We took this as confirmation that the Lord wanted us to adopt Josiah.

We knew this would be a huge commitment on our parts to adopt someone with Josiah's needs, so we didn't take it lightly and just jump right in, we continued to pray. We did at that time contact the orphanage director to let her know we were interested in getting more information about Josiah. When we didn't receive an immediate response from her we decided to leave it in God's hands. If God wanted us to adopt Josiah then He would get us information about Josiah.

An entire week went by and still no one had contacted us. We were starting to wonder if this is what God wanted after all, but that day we received the monthly newsletter from the orphanage. On the entire back page of this newsletter was an article about Josiah. God had gotten us information about Josiah in an amazing and unexpected way. We realized that a week is not enough time to develop an entire newsletter and send it out in the mail. God had anticipated our need for information about Josiah ahead of time. Jesus says in Matthew 6:8 "'For your Father knows the things you have need of before you ask Him.'" We later found out how amazing this information really was because the orphanage director had been away and unable to check her email. While she is located in China, it is the branch of the organization located in the United States that is in charge of the newsletters and they had not been in contact with the orphanage director for that week either. The article was written by the Director of Operations for Harmony Outreach (the orphanage where Josiah resides). She had just taken her first trip to China in April 2010 to visit the orphanage and she was very struck with Josiah. In April was also the first time that Brian and I actually heard of Harmony Outreach and became involved in sponsoring an orphan. From the time that she visited Harmony House in April, again the very time that we got involved with Harmony, she and her entire office in the U.S. began to pray specifically for Josiah. I can only imagine that their prayers affected our decision in who we were going to adopt. Her desire to see Josiah have a forever family is what prompted her to write the article in the newsletter and little did she know that God had already answered that prayer through our family. This is what her article said:

On the floor of Harmony House - our orphanage we were entering on the other side of the world - sits a three-year-old, lost from view by the group of children staring at the arriving foreigners. He waits patiently as I greet children I've previously known only by their pictures. As children press forward, leaving him behind, my eyes fall on Josiah. I call out, "Josiah," and he flashes me a smile that can only be reflective of the light of heaven.

Josiah remains seated because he cannot arise to meet me, but his beaming face is more welcoming than all the others. As I make my way toward him, his gaze holds me as surely as his arms would if he could only move them. I sit on the couch and lift him to sit beside me. Patting my chest I say, "Lin-da." Touching his I say, "Jo-si-ah." This three-year-old, -accustomed to being called Yang Hanghei - listens intently as I once again identify myself. Then he proudly proclaims, "Leen-da!" It becomes a game which he loves, and the other children, gathered around watching, are introduced to me by one of their own.

As must surely be the case in any orphanage, each child seeks attention. A couple of kids pick up the chant, "Leen-da." Others shyly stand back just watching. Two even recoil when my eyes meet theirs in greeting, beginning to cry and flee to the safety of the closest nanny's arms. But Josiah is unperturbed. Eager to impress me with his abilities, he manuevers his little body off the couch, onto the floor and toward a small toy. He deftly picks it up with his toes and throws it to me. It is a game, and I fetch and return it to him. Unfazed when another child grabs his toy, he substitutes another to continue the game.

Who is this child with useless arms and hands who so captivated my heart over the next few days, his sweet little round face and sparkling eyes so full of hope? We know he was born August 11, 2006, and came to us ten months later from Hengyang Orphanage in Hunan Province. We can only surmise that he was abandoned because of his malformed little body.

And what of his future? We know God says He has plans for each one of us - plans for good and not for evil, plans for a hope and a future (Jeremiah 29:11). Does that include Josiah, with his strong legs but with feet malformed so that he can only stand on the tops of his feet and ankles? Josiah, with his useless arms and hands who uses his feet to feed himself and wave goodbye? Yes! Especially Josiah!

Will you be God's instrument to further Josiah's hope and future? He is ready for his Forever Family. Were my husband and I not in our late 60's, we would certainly now be filling out paperwork to adopt him. Please contact us if God is speaking to you to provide a loving home for our sweet Josiah. He will teach you more than you can ever teach him!

Again we heard God speaking through this newsletter, "Whom shall I send, and who will go for Us?" We contacted the woman who wrote this article. She gave us the name of an adoption agency to contact because we still had to find out if Josiah's file was even available on the list of children that could be considered for adoption. Once we contacted the adoption agency we spoke to the woman in charge of the China program (each country has their own regulations on what they expect of adoptive parents so they have specialists for each country program). When I told her we were interested in Josiah from Harmony House and told her his special needs she exclaimed, "Oh, I think I have met him! I visited Harmony House last year and I remember that he was a joy to be around and he had a beautiful smile." This woman visited lots of orphanages and saw many children yet she remembered Josiah specifically.

We clearly saw God's hand in all of this, yet still we did not fill out the application to begin the process. We found out after speaking to the adoption agency that the cost for adoption is significant. At this point we prayed and determined that we were going to wait upon God alone for the finances to begin the adoption of Josiah. We did not want to ask anyone for the money as we believed that if God was calling us to do this that He would be more than willing to supply our every need. “Those who wait upon the Lord will not be ashamed.”

So for seven weeks we waited, and waited, and waited. During this time we questioned God over and over about whether or not He wanted us to do this and again wondered if God was really in this adoption. Every time we had decided that God wasn't really in this and that we were not going to continue to pursue the adoption, having not told anyone our decision, within a day we would receive an email with pictures of Josiah from Harmony. This happened three or four times. One time we had decided we weren't going to adopt and within an hour, still not having told anyone of this decision, the Executive Director of Harmony sent us the link to a woman's blog who had just been to Harmony during an adoption of her own. She had taken a picture of Josiah, along with some of the other kids. This is what she said on her blog about Josiah:

The children captured my heart immediately. Many of them already have forever families working to bring them home. Harmony House has seen around 40 children adopted over the years. The sweet faces and eyes work into your very soul. One 3 year old boy is an example of how God's love is making a difference in this orphanage. He has no use of his arms and his feet turn in making them unfit to walk. Yet, the boy is full of joy. His smile lights up the room and he captivated my son, Alex.

It was as if God was telling us to hang in there a little longer. Don't give up yet. Josiah will be worth the wait. At this time I was reading George Mueller and he repeatedly said that the only reason God was not providing for him at that time was to try his faith and patience. He kept using the verse, “Let patience have it’s perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing” (James 1:4). Over and over it was impressed upon me through the word that I needed to have patience to wait upon the Lord. I repeatedly used “those who wait upon the Lord will not be ashamed” during my prayer to remind myself, of what His word said. One day, after about five weeks of waiting, I felt I was past the point of being able to wait any longer and on the verge of tears wondering if this was even going to happen. I heard a still small voice say, “Just hold on a little longer.” Later that day in my reading I came across this verse, “For you have need of endurance, so that after you have done the will of God you may receive the promise: ‘For yet a little while, and He who is coming will come and will not tarry. Now the just shall live by faith; but if anyone draws back, My soul has no pleasure in him,’” (Hebrews 10:36-38). In my mind it was an echo of the still small voice I had heard earlier. Endure so that you may receive the promise. Just hold on a little longer. It was another encouragement to wait upon the Lord.

That week Harmony contacted us to see how things were progressing and we asked that they pray for us as we were still waiting for the Lord to provide. About a week later we received an email from Harmony Outreach, the organization that is caring for Josiah, asking for urgent prayer for some issues and attached to that email was this:

“... A family has come forward saying they believe God would have them adopt our sweet little Josiah—an answer to our own prayers. However, the expense is more than they can handle alone, and they are asking for prayers that God would open doors and show them how to proceed with this desire He has laid on their hearts. ... Please join your faith with ours that God will bring these adoptions to pass.”

We were surprised to find that our prayer request was among those that were on that list of urgent prayers, as we thought they were only going to keep it among those at their office. The following week we received an email from a woman named Jacqui who wanted to encourage us in the adoption process as she has adopted from China three times and personally knew Josiah. She told us how amazing he was and that after seeing him when she had gone to China that it had been laid on her heart to specifically pray for a family for him. Everyone that she knew who had met him had fallen in love with him and were completely taken by him.

Brian wrote back and told her that we were specifically waiting on the Lord in this whole process and that we weren’t going to take a single step unless He went before us. She then wrote us back saying that she was bursting at the seams to share some news with us and to call her. We were so hopeful that this was what we had been waiting for, that God was finally moving in this adoption process. We sat down, prayed, and then gave her a call. Hearing that we were waiting on the Lord for every step was a confirmation to her that the Lord was in this. She started out by saying that the Lord had given her a verse for us about when Jesus sent out His twelve apostles to do His workd. Luke 9:3 "And He said to them, 'Take nothing for the journey, neither staffs nor bag nor bread nor money; and do not have two tunics apiece.'" She felt that God was confirming to her that He was sending us out to do His work and that He would provide for it. As proof that God was providing she had a friend, who also loved Josiah very much, who contacted Jacqui to tell her that she and her husband made a donation to Harmony Outreach on our behalf. We were praising and glorifying God for His help and that He was mindful of us. All we had to do was contact Harmony and they would cut us a check for the donation. Within one week of God telling me He would come and He would not tarry He provided! When we called Harmony they said that not only had one person donated but there were three different donations. Praise God!!! It was confirmation enough for us to finally begin this process and know that the Lord is going to provide.

We will continue to seek God for His help, leading and guidance through this whole process as we have no human prospect of fulfilling the requirements of this adoption. We know that the Lord owns all the silver and gold and that nothing is impossible with God. If this work is of the Lord then He will provide for it in a mighty way. It is our hope that God would be entirely glorified in this situation since there is nothing we can do to move this work forward in our own strength. We are left in the capable hands of our God and we know that He will do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think.

Rachel

Thursday, July 29, 2010

Praise God! We had our realtor come out today to assess the value of our home because we need our net worth to be a certain amount. This is one of the requirements that China has in order to adopt from them. Our assessed value came out to be significantly more than what we thought it was going to be. With the equity we now have in our home, in addition to all the other items we own, the required amount is not even a stretch for us. Our realtor also happened to bring his wife with him and she works at our bank as a mortgage loan officer. She told us that it may be possible for us to do a streamline refinance at a rate that is 1.5% lower than the rate we currently have. We are praying that this would be a possibility. Every little bit we can glean is more that we can put toward this adoption. Please pray that the hand of God would be apparent in this situation, that we would clearly see His leading as this opportunity was not sought after but seemingly brought to us.

Rachel