Our Adventure Begins

It has been almost nine years since we started down the path toward adoption...
Almost a year since we started on the path toward Zachary's adoption...

Here is how it all began...

November 2004. Our family was traveling home from a day in San Antonio watching David's high school's football team win the state championship.  Well, we had been attempting to watch the football game while our kids -- ages 2, 3 and 4 -- were crawling over the seats and begging for snacks.  We stopped for dinner at Wendy's in Waco, and that is when we saw it -- a sign that read, "Why not you?" The sign was referring to adoption. Why not us? Why not? I was a stay-at-home mom. We had a great home, great kids. And David had a great job. Right there in the Wendy's we felt  that God, himself, was asking us, "Why not you?"

Being Stalked

We thought a lot about "Why not us?"  One day, a book appeared on my nightstand.  I am really not sure how it got there.  It was called What Child is This?  It is about a girl in the foster care system wishing for (and finding) a home.  A great book!  And very eye-opening.  I wept my way through the book and hoped that somehow we had the courage to do what the family in the book had done -- give a child a home.

We read another book entitled, The Relentless Tenderness of Jesus, by Brennan Manning.  In Chapter 3 of the book, he compares two types of believers: settlers and pioneers.  Before reading it, I assumed that both were equal ways of living out the Christian life.  Before reading much, however, it became apparent that Brennan Manning didn't have much use for settlers.  And it also became clear that I was much more of a settler than a pioneer.  I mean, who doesn't like an ice cream party at the courthouse with the sheriff keeping everyone safe?  Another great book!  And, again, very eye-opening!

That book (Chapter 3, in particular) reminded us of a song that we loved -- "The Great Adventure" by Steven Curtis Chapman.  "Saddle up your horses.  We've got a trail to blaze, through the wild blue yonder of God's amazing grace..."  We listened to it wondering how we could live out a great adventure when we had three preschool-aged children and a mortgage.  But at the same time, we wanted Mallory, Emily and J.B. to see us as people not afraid to "follow our Leader into the glorious unknown."  And the idea of adopting a child continued to stalk us.

In January 2005, right after Mallory's 5th birthday party, David and I attended an introductory meeting about adopting a child through the Texas foster care system.  From there, we filled out a mountain of paperwork, attended 12 long evenings of training over a three-month period and had a home study done.  Somehow we passed the home study even though our normally calm and laid-back 2-year old son, J.B., (who rarely spoke to adults, let alone strangers) answered the socials worker's inquiry, "What will you do if your foster brother or sister takes one of your toys?" by saying, "Punch him in the face."  By November 2005, we were dual-certified by the state of Texas to provide foster care and to adopt out of the foster care system.

An Adventure For Sure

During our training to adopt from the foster care system, our trainers suggested to us that if we were hoping for a child younger than our own (which we were), then we needed to consider fostering first.  They prefer to place children in as few homes as possible, so if termination of parental rights occurs, they want children to go straight to their forever home, if possible.  It made sense to us, so that's what we did. 

In December of 2005, we got a call that a little boy was being removed from his home, asking us if we would take him in foster care.  We were very nervous, and very excited, and ran to the store for a few things he would need.  15-month old Ethan -- a lively, little bulldozer of a toddler -- burst into our lives.  The first night we had him, we went to home group and before we knew it, he was standing on the top of the table.  He was a climber and an adventurer.  He didn't want to keep his clothes on, so we eventually had to buy him several pairs of overalls, which were the only things he couldn't figure out how to take off.  He was an adorable, spunky little guy.

We had Ethan for 18 months.  He traveled to Yellowstone with us, and to Springfield, Illinois, and Big Bend.  We also went camping a lot at that time in our lives! We loved him -- though I found it hard to really let my heart go, because I didn't know for sure how things would turn out.  During that time, he went back to his mother's for about a month, but then came right back to us when, sadly, she couldn't keep it together.  Over the 18 months, things would go back and forth as far as termination was concerned -- we would likely get him, then it looked like his mom could get it all together, then it looked like we would get him.  Eventually, his mom's rights were terminated, and somewhere out of the blue, his grandmother from Florida was found.  Ethan had never met his grandmother before, but she was raising two of his half-siblings, and she was granted custody of him.  And then Ethan left, and we have never heard from him again.  His photos are in our family photo albums and an ornament with his photo is one of the first memories we put on our Christmas tree each year.

We had thought that adopting Ethan was our great adventure, the task that God had called us to do.  But God had other plans.  Looking back, we can see how it might not have been great for J.B.  As soon as Ethan left, J.B. came out of his shell.  We thought he was a quiet, shy boy (without a lot of personality), but it seems he may have been overshadowed by Ethan's exuberance.  And, Ethan liked to bite J.B. -- and that was obviously not good.  As far as Ethan, he went to live with two half-siblings who were exactly Emily and J.B.'s ages, so God had prepared him for his next adventure by placing him in a home where he would fit into the same role as in his new home.  We tell ourselves that he is doing great... We hope he is!

So What Next?

Summer 2007.  Our hearts were a bit heavy.  Our direction was a bit unclear as far as adoption.  We weren't sure if we had misread the signs that we were so certain were from God, or if the adventure we had just experienced was the end of this chapter-- just a short season of adventure in our lives.  Those next few years were very busy, and we poured ourselves into the three amazing children that God had blessed us with!

Mallory was getting ready for second grade, Emily for first grade, and J.B. was in going into pre-K  The girls attended a private, Christian school, but sending all three of them was not actually feasible on one income, so I went back to work.  I was blessed to get a job teaching at the school that the kids attend.  (I am just about to wrap up my sixth year there.)  The first year back to teaching, as a mother, was difficult beyond belief.  I cried all of the time and wound up with a crazy ailment called Burning Tongue Syndrome.  The symptoms are self-explantory; the cause is purely mental -- stress.  When I taught before I had kids. I went in early and stayed late.  That's not possible when you have kids. I always felt like I was doing everything half-way -- being a mom, being a wife, being a teacher.  There was certainly no time for adventure -- or for another child.  Somehow, I made it through that year.

The next year, I was talking to a colleague of mine and realized that there were some things I wanted to know about teaching reading that I did not know. I wanted to learn, so that I could do my job in a way that would glorify God.  So, I enrolled in a master's program at the University of Texas at Arlington.  For the next four years, I took one class a semester, and, though at times I didn't think I could make it through, I eventually earned my master's degree in literacy education. 

David took the opportunity during this time to serve children and families through CASA -- Court Appointed Special Advocates.  He attended another 30 hours of training, very similar to the training we had done before serving in the foster care system.  He worked for almost two years with a family with a very messed up life, and watched them get their lives back on track. During those years, we periodically thought about adopting -- wondering when, and if, that was God's plan for us, knowing that He would reveal to us the right time. 

By this time it was May 2012.  Our kids were now 9 1/2, 11 and 12.  Everyone could pour their own bowl of cereal and tie their own shoes.  Teaching was going much better for me.  With David's help, I had found ways to balance responsibilities -- at least to an acceptable degree.  David was doing great -- steady as always, a wonderful husband and father.  I was done with school.  Even our coaching careers were coming to a close -- the girls had moved on to club volleyball, and J.B. to club baseball, so David only coached softball and basketball and I hung up my coaching hat.  In the meantime, Emily had really developed a way with children -- she always had a posse of preschoolers with her at J.B.'s baseball games.  Mallory had just become a certified babysitter.  Our kids could occasionally stay home alone!  It seemed that we were in a new chapter of life.  Time for another adventure?

Mallory's Adventure

Mallory was 12 years old at this point.  She had grown into a beautiful girl with an amazing love for the Lord.  Her heart's desire was (and is) to serve God.  For two years, she had asked to go on one of the mission trips that our church sponsors each summer.  We had put her off the past couple of years, but it seemed like it was time to let her go.  David and I neither one had any desire to travel internationally.  But, it seemed, that I was less opposed to going than he was.  After a lot of prayer, we felt a sense of calling that she and I would travel across the world and see what God was doing on the other side of the globe.  And it turned out that all of this would connect back to the topic of adoption, and the question, "Why not you?"