A few days ago, I made a comment about adoption and have heard a few of you were curious about that comment. So here is the scoop:
WHY?
All through out scripture we read that God is very concerned with the orphan and the fatherless. The truth is that we are all orphans who are living in an "in between place." This world we live in is full of pain, sickness, loneliness, and fatherlessness. We were created for true one-ness with our father, God. In Genesis, we read about Eden. This is the place where everything was right and good. Man and God were together, fully known, fully loved, fully vulnerable. However, all this changed. Man's disobedience led to a separation from our true father, our true family.
So what does all this have to do with adoption/orphans, you ask? Well, our disobedience has plunged the world into brokenness and death. The orphan crisis that we now see is a direct result of this. The really great news is that God didn't want things to stay this way. He sent Jesus to bring us out of this brokenness and death. Through Jesus' life, death and power over death he began to initiate a new way of life, a new kingdom, and it is SO GOOD! Because of Jesus our sonship (daughter-ship) has been and continues to be completely restored. (Wow, I had no intention to be so theological about all that!)
Anyways that is the underlying motivation for us wanting to adopt...mainly, Jesus. I
(Kristin) also had an experience while I was living in Greece where I believe God really began to break my heart for refugees and that led to him breaking my heart for orphans. (maybe that will be another blog post, bc I am already getting pretty wordy :)
WHEN?
This is a tricky question. If we could do things in our timing we would love to have a baby in our arms in about 1.5- 2 years. However, adoption(just like trying to plan for a bio baby does not always happen in our own timing). We will be coming back to America around the winter holiday season 2013 and would love to bring our son/daughter back. That is what we are praying for and would love for you to join us in praying for this.
FROM?
We strongly desire to adopt a baby from India since we will be living there. However, we do believe we will adopt more than one child so we are trying to figure out if we will adopt our first baby from India or from somewhere else. We really want to adopt an infant for our first child. Later we would like to adopt an older child. From our research so far it looks like most of the time in India older children are available for foreigners to adopt, but we are still looking into that. We would really, really love your prayers. If only older children can be adopted from India, we will probably wait a few years before starting that process which means we are pretty open to other countries where infants are able to be adopted. I would love any thoughts/input from those of you who have adopted about this....
The good news is that since we will be living in India, it looks like after we live there a year the process of adoption may be a little easier for us than for Americans living in America who want to adopt from India. Right now, India is changing laws and so some American agencies have stopped accepting applications for Americans living in America to adopt from India for now. So sad!
So that is kinda where we are at right now. Very thankful that we are fully adopted sons and daughters into God's family and longing to adopt a son or daughter into our family :) Thanks for your prayers and love!!
