Big Decision

Desperate kids make us sad. Especially when we can't do anything about them. Seeing those needy kids in my travels felt bad, like a heavy load to carry. But I'm so glad for every experience!

So here we are, all these years later and we can do something! We can make a difference in the lives of two kids. After all of my Why's and What's, God is answering me.

It did take a few years to get to this point though. So we move back from China when I was big pregnant with the twins and lets just say we felt overwhelmed with 5 kids 5 and under. This lasted for years.

Enter Catalyst. There is a Christian leadership conference that Jon and I have gone to the past few years that we absolutely LOVE! In '09 there was this big focus on adoption and Mac Powell was on stage with his wife and newly adopted baby. We all got big X key chains with 147 on them to remind us of the 147 million orphans around the world. I still use it.

My very normal sweet and I at Catalyst '09

So Jon and I talk about adopting. We think it's a great thing. We think we can do it. Then we get home. My dear hubby is like, Seriously? What were we thinking? We have a lot of kids and it's crazy around here. We can't adopt. I was bummed but I could sure see his point. I remember praying and just saying "God, this feels pretty big on my heart but if this isn't from you, ok. If it is, than I'm just trusting you to work in Jon's heart."

Enter Catalyst again. Last October at the conference they told this story of a family of 5 that came the year before and were very touched by the plight of orphans and went home and did it. One year later they were back with their little girl from Korea. 

At a break, my hubby took my hand and said he thinks there is someone I would like to meet. I'm thinking "Francis Chan!!?" He leads me over to the Bethany table where this very same family is available in person to talk to people. I pretty much told him he better not be messing with me or I was going to cream him. He said he wasn't. We talked to the dad and told him our reservations about adopting because we already had 5 kids. I will always remember what he said. "So what's one more?" 

I think we just knew that we should adopt. God's peace came and we started looking. We looked at every Asian country. We looked at Ethiopia. We settled on Uganda.

Can I just say that action feels so good!