It started with a Word...

I met my husband three years ago.  On our second date, he asked what I thought about adoption for a family.  He's not much for surface conversation.  When I finally decided, a few months later, that he just might be a keeper, I really started thinking about his question, because of the weight that it carried.  As we continued to talk over the months of dating, we realized how aligned we both were on our hope to adopt one day.  Brian and I both feel that God has placed a call on our lives to have biological and adopted children. Once we were engaged, we really started to flesh out the logistics of what we wanted our family to look like.  Our "plan" was to have a biological child, then adopt, then have another biological child, and adopt again.  Oh, how I should have known. :) God rarely moves according to my schedule!

Because we are in our 30s, we knew we wanted to start a family soon.  As the months went by and "our plan" was not happening, the conversation of adoption kept coming up.  In conversations with each other. In conversations with our friends. In conversations with strangers.  Through reading scripture, through books, through magazines.  Basically everywhere.  You get the point.  Brian and I really began to be convicted about "our plans."  Though they were not bad, they also weren't leaving a lot of room for God to move.  So in September, we decided that we would be open to adopting first. I started researching countries and agencies and pretty quickly we landed on Africa. 

Through researching, I found that the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)  was open to US residents for adoption.  Know where the Congo is? Nope, neither did I.  It's a very large country in the middle of the continent.  It was in a violent civil war from 1998-2003.  In addition, many of the rebels from infighting in Rwanda came across to eastern DRC.  Eastern DRC is now an area where many boys are taken to become child soldiers and girls are taken to become sex slaves for soldiers.  TheDRC is now labeled as one of the most dangerous countries in the world to be a female.  My heart broke to read about the lives of children in the DRC. There are over 5 million orphans, and many, many others that are unaccounted for after being taken by guerilla armies.  After talking together, Brian and I knew that if we were able to adopt from the DRC, that was our country. 

We applied to One World Adoption agency a week ago, and this friday we were accepted into their program!  We are excited and nervous about the roller coaster ride that is international adoption.  As with any third world country, there are so many variables, so many things that could go wrong.  We know that our baby will probably be malnourished and even have suffered some type of trauma.  We know that we know NOTHING about raising a baby.  Not even how to change a diaper.  We prefer hanging out with teenagers.  But what we do know is that God has clearly called us to this journey of adoption.  And though we may have to wait longer than nine months for our baby, we are still waiting expectantly for the next member of the Word family.  :)