Decisions

When making the decision to adopt, we were faced with many choices.  What agency to apply to, where to adopt from, what age and gender did we want our child to be?  Once we determined that the Lord was leading us to adopt a little girl from China, another question was posed to us: did we want to adopt a healthy child or a child with special needs?



We began to look at listings offered through our adoption agency of amazing little children, each with some physical or mental need that made them "harder to place" with an adoptive family.  Looking at these sweet faces and knowing that their needs would potentially make their wait for a family longer was heart-breaking.  We quickly made the choice to adopt a special needs child.  We didn't make this decision lightly.  We are very aware of the extra emotional, physical, and financial commitment this can require.

Thinking back to the time that we made that decision, God was quick to remind us that our son, Jace, would have been on that Special Needs list had he been an orphan.

Many of you reading this may be aware of what our family experienced with Jace's birth.  He was born with an unexpected GI birth defect that put his health and well-being in a precarious place for a while.  It was a faith journey like none we had experienced previously and we are so thankful to our Lord that we can look back on it now and see how He carried us through.  We were faced with major challenges during the two years we dealt with Jace's illness and were asked to make decisions and follow procedures that we hope to never face again.  We know the joyous, rambunctious, tender-hearted, Jesus-loving boy that Jace has come to be and thinking of him sitting on a list of "harder to place" kids is hard to imagine.  

Jace at his 6th Birthday.  He loves superheroes and

he tells us his personal super power is 

"telling people about Jesus"

Now we have been matched with our precious Emsley and she also has medical special needs.  Very early in her young life, she developed a problem with one of her kidneys which required surgery and the removal of that kidney.  We are not sure yet of the ongoing medical needs Emsley will have as a result of these early issues but we do know that God will be with us and will provide for our emotional, physical, and financial needs each step of the way.  We are trusting God to provide all we need to care for our girl just as he provided all we needed to care for our Jace.  

Emsley at 10 months old