Our Adoption Journey

and the

Power of Prayer
Composed on October 25th, 2011 The following is a testimony of all the Lord has done through our adoption journey, which began long before we knew it was happening. I know that our story has only begun, but want to glorify God for all of His promises, blessings, power and greatness thus far. I wrote this testimony out for the purpose of speaking it at a church event on October 29th, 2011, and am so glad that we now have this narrative of our story. I ask, for security reasons that you hold the information contained in this story in confidence. Its a matter of protecting our childrens identity for their safety. Thank you. Our formal adoption journey began exactly a year ago to this date, October 29th, 2010. But Gods plan for our adoption journey began decades before that. Adoption had been on my heart since I was a little girl. When people asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I would say, A mom! When thinking about being a mom some day, I never thought of it in terms of pregnancy, but always in terms of taking care of a child that needed a home. This prayer of adoption stayed on my heart throughout my life. When I met Nathan and discovered that he also wanted to adopt I knew it was another component of God listening to and answering my prayer, which immediately became our prayer. We knew since before we were married that we would expand our family through the process of adoption, but werent sure if we would also have biological children as well. We spent a lot of time in prayer about it. We began leaning towards not having children via pregnancy, but felt we needed some confirmation, so continued to pray. About a year into our marriage, I was diagnosed with endometriosis; a disease that many women experience that often leads to infertility. When the doctor told me this was my diagnosis, I responded with a simple, ok. She mentioned that most women got more emotional over this kind of diagnosis, but I just told her that it confirmed some things I had been thinking about. The fact that God placed it on our hearts to adopt long before I discovered I had a disease that often leads families to adopt by

default is one of the amazing blessings the Lord gave us from the very beginning. Ive learned throughout my life that prayer isnt just making your requests known to God; its also listening to and obeying His response. We had many lessons in this for three years during our marriage. Nathan and I have it on our hearts to be missionaries not only where we are right now, but someday in Latin America. From the years of 2006-2009 we pursued a direct path to missions work in Costa Rica. The details of this all is a whole other story, but the short story is that we tried three different times to purchase land in Costa Rica for missions purposes. We prayed about it every time and had no doubt through our time in prayer that God wants for us to be in Costa Rica. However, we were never at peace with the idea that the purchase of any land would delay becoming parents for several years for financial reasons. We made three attempts over three years to purchase three plots of land, and every time, the door was slammed in our face when the seller would back out days before, and in the last case, the day before our closing. All three times! One of the practical reasons we had difficulty was that we werent able to sell our house for the entire three years we pursued this land. Being able to free up those assets would have allowed us to have much more control in purchasing a property, but for the two years we had it on the market, we didnt get more than a few showings. We realized even though we felt God tell us through our prayer with Him that He wants us to be in Costa Rica, we werent listening to his entire message, which included the phrase, not yet. This tied into the prayer of adoption we had been speaking for so long. God knew thats what we were supposed to do first, so we decided to obey! Several months after we stopped pursuing land in Costa Rica, we decided it was time to adopt. We put our house on the market again, because we determined that it was not the right fit for our future family. This time our house sold in just 6 weeks! We were in our current house roughly 6 more weeks after that, in May of last year. We decided to officially pursue adoption through an agency in the fall of 2010. We knew that we wanted to adopt from the foster system, because our desire to adopt was never due to necessity, but because God put the desire on our heart to give a home to orphans. We went into the process a bit nave. We had the desire to adopt some toddlers, with the ages of 2 and 3 in mind. This desire was quickly crushed when we went to our first meeting at the

agency. We were told that we would never see a child below the age of 8 in the system. We prayed about this, and God told us this was the program we were supposed to be in, so we adjusted our expectations a little bit and continued forward. If God wanted us in this program, then we would be ready to have an older child or children. We completed our entire training, interviews, foster licensing requirements and home study throughout the months of November and December of last year. Then, our social worker had a month to write everything up into a long report, our official, written home study. The month of January was very challenging, because it included a lot of waiting, with not much to do anymore to pass the time.except to pray! Part of the foster care program, unlike an infant program, is that for the most part, the adoptive parents get to choose which kids to pursue (unlike an infant adoption where the birth mother chooses you). We had some anxiety about this, because how can you even begin to think about choosing the right kids. We kept receiving encouragement through prayer and Christians around us, and kept receiving this scripture: Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Phil 4:6-7 Let your requests be known to God. So thats what we did. We prayed that he would give us the children He intended for us. We knew we wouldnt necessarily get the most healthy children, as all of the children in the system had some degree of special needs. But we prayed that our children would be open to knowing Jesus so that they could receive the healing and restoration that comes through knowing Jesus. This was a concern of ours, since many of the older children in the system have their beliefs firmly set, and introducing a faith or belief system could be nearly impossible. But we prayed from that beginning on that our future children would know the Lord, Jesus, because the restoration they would need from their broken past and current ailments could only come from a transformation of the heart that only comes through Christ Jesus! We prayed and waited, prayed and waited and prayed some more. We started receiving profiles of children in the system, since that was something we could do as we waited for our home study to be released. We

read some of the most heartbreaking stories that will never leave our hearts. We prayed for those children, but didnt feel called to pursue any of them. On February 7th, 2011, I went in for a physical therapy appointment. My physical therapist greeted me by saying, I have some children for you to adopt! I, of course, responded with a What? Apparently she was friends with a woman in town who was fostering two little kids. They were two and three, the girl was named Phoenix and the little boy had a more normal name, like George. She told me that these children were becoming available to adopt and that I should look into them. I thought Toddlers? Available? We were told this never happened. I called my husband immediately after my appointment to tell him about it. We had completely reset our thinking to prepare ourselves for children 8 and older, so the thought of toddlers, at the exact ages we had initially dreamed about, was amazing. I then called our social worker to describe the children, and she told me, with disappointment, that those children did not exist in the system, but that she could call the Rice County worker to do some research. On February 8th, 2011, our home study was officially completed and released into the system. Since our home study was actually out there, that meant that not only could we still pursue looking at children profiles on our end, but county workers could email profiles to us and pursue us on their end. On the morning of February 8th, I received an email from our social worker. It stated that the county worker wanted to forward the profile of the children listed below to all current waiting families. Our social worker also stated in the email that she would continue researching the kids I had told her about the day before. I scrolled down the page to the forwarded message and the first thing that popped up was a picture of the two most beautiful children I had ever seen. I had seen picture after picture and read profile after profile with the widest array of emotions, but this was the first time I actually got physically emotional. I began crying and as I continued through the email, I read the excerpt below the picture, containing the following pertinent information. Phoenix is 2 years old and Billy (not George) is 3. These were them! The reason our social worker could not find them in the system the day before was because the court hearing, releasing into the system had occurred that morning, on February 8th, the exact day our home study was released! I began crying even more, and God told me very clearly, These are your

children (this is something I didnt share with anyone, even Nathan). I called, texted, emailed and pretty much stalked our social worked in the hour to follow. When I finally got a hold of her, I exclaimed, These are them! You can stop looking! She spent our conversation talking me down, realigning the expectations I had, and basically telling me that we could pursue them, but there was a small chance we would actually get them. There were two things working against us. First of all, these children would receive so many home studies because of their young age, so there would actually be fierce competition. Second, although they were released into the system, they were what the system calls, legal risk, which meant that their case was in the appeals process, and if the birth parents filed an appeal, there was a chance that would be back out of the system and back with their birth parents. We decided to wholeheartedly pursue them and to pray! Over the next six weeks we prayed, and hoped, and prayed. During that time we received and meditated on the following verses: Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight. Proverbs 3:5-6 Cast your anxiety on Him, because He cares for you. 1 Peter 5:7 Commit to the Lord whatever you do, and your plans will succeed. Proverbs 16:3 Then you will call upon Me and come and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. Jeremiah 29:12 We decided during this time of waiting and meditation not to really pursue other children, with the exception of a social worker pursuing us to interview for an older pair of siblings. Our social worker strongly encouraged us to keep our options open, with the strong chance that we wouldnt get Billy and Phoenix, but we felt at peace waiting. The county received over 75 home studies for Billy and Phoenix. Over the course of six weeks it was narrowed down to 30, 10, then to 3. When we received that final update, we were told that the county workers would like to interview us as a potential match for Billy and Phoenix.

On March 25th, we had our interview. An hour into the interview, we still didnt know where we stood amongst the other two couples, so I decided to boldly inquire our status with the social workers. They responded Oh, youre our pick. We want you to be Billy and Phoenixs parents. March 25th was a huge day, and the fulfillment of a promise God had made to us. In addition to getting matched on March 25th, several other things happened. The appeals process ended that day, we received the final piece of paperwork for our foster care license and got licensed that day (without which we wouldnt be able to have contact with Billy and Phoenix), and we hopped a plane to Costa Rica for a 10-day missions trip. We had agreed to go on this missions trip in January with complete peace. We also had thought that there was no way wed have any children at that point, so the timing would work out well. At first I was confused why God called us to this trip, to send us to a far away country, with no communication; the day we found out we were parents, knowing we would be coming back parents. Then God told me, this is a time to be with Him, without distractions, to pray for our family. God blessed and spiritually prepared us in so many ways while we were in Costa Rica. There I continued the prayer I had started in February. That Billy and Phoenixs hearts would be prepared to know Jesus and be restored through Jesus. Despite their adorably cute pictures, Billy and Phoenixs background was deeply ugly. No child should have to go through what they did. They were identified as special needs, with likely Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, and some significant behaviors. The most notable behavior was Billys extreme defiance, accompanied with explosive tantrums, physical aggression and intentional vomiting. But this was no match for what God had in store for him. Phoenix didnt have too many outward behaviors, but did possess a lot of anxiety. She was hyper-vigilant and saw herself and was dubbed by everyone as little mother. She wanted to do everything for everyone else, but knew nothing about taking care of herself. She didnt even know how to play independently. We met our children on Saturday, April 9th, 2011. They were just as I had always pictured them, and Im not referring to the physical pictures we received just two months before. They were our children. God predestined them for us!

The bonding was almost instant. Just two weeks after meeting us, they began calling us Mama Rachel and Papa Nathan. For the week prior to that we began calling their foster mom Grandma Rosie, since we knew we were adopting her as their third grandma. One morning she and the kids were talking and Rosie pointed out that her other two grandkids dont live with her, but they live with their mama and papa. She asked them, Did you know that someone out there wants to be your mama? and they replied, Rachel? And she continued, And theres someone who wants to be your papa. Nathan? They just instinctually knew. Apparently God had prepared their hearts for us, just as He had prepared our hearts for them. Billy and Phoenix moved in on May 6th, 2011, less than 8 months after we had begun our physical adoption journey. In the 30 years our adoption agency program has been in place, we have nearly broken the record for fastest adoption and have been told over and over again how unique our case is and how rare it is to find children that young. They moved in just two days before Mothers day, another blessing piled on top of the number of blessings already. Our summer was a challenging one. Being first time parents, of two children, very active children, with significant behaviors, and Nathan worked and lived out of state 4 days of the week. People always say that theyd do anything for their child, even die for them. I agree with all of those physical sacrifices and risks, but what I learned in the next few months is that not only would I physically do anything for my kids, I would also take extreme spiritual risks in the areas of prayer and spiritual warfare. My prayer life had always been decent, but nothing could prepare me for the acceleration of my prayer life once I was willing to do anything for the sake of my children and the healing and restoration they needed. We immediately began praying for physical healing for Billy. He vomited roughly 4-5 times a week in foster care. Sometimes it was an act of defiance, but sometimes it was involuntary, often in his sleep. Right before moving in with us, he had a surgical procedure to determine if there was more going on, since the vomit had begun containing blood. Praise God, they found nothing of concern in those tests. Knowing there is nothing God cant heal, we prayed intensely for healing. We would pray over him and lay hands and I would stay up for hours at night praying from outside his bedroom door. One night he was coughing very badly, a type of coughing that almost always preceded his vomiting. I prayed that night, for two hours, for this to end now. For the Lord to bring full restoration and healing to

Billys body, the healing we have a right to through Jesus Christ our Lord and the blood He shed for us. That was the last night we ever heard coughing like that, and the day before, May 26th, 2011 was the last day Billy ever vomited. The social workers dont understand what happened. They attribute it to his reduced anxiety from being in a stable and loving home. I agreed with them verbally, but in my heart I stated that yes, he need those things, but what he really needed was Jesus. The vomiting stopped, but the defiance didnt. When Billy didnt want to do something, he let us know. It was very common for him to earn time outs for behavior. Most of the time he didnt like that idea of a time out, so we would need to physically carry him to the time out spot. Then commenced the kicking, hitting, biting and screaming. He would get this look in his eye where it seemed that Billy wasnt really there anymore, and he would get this grin on his face as if he was enjoying it. We handled these episodes with consistency and each time these physical outbursts lasted for less time (the first one was for 3 hours). We would also pray for peace for Billy and for the fear and anxiety behind his behavior to be broken. Although the length and occurrences of these episodes lessoned, they still occurred and I began to clearly see that there was something much deeper going on. I had some experience with deliverance in the past. I believed that demons exist and could enter into any body. I had seen people delivered all the time on the mission field and had heard story after story from my mother in law, one of the most experienced in spiritual warfare Ive ever known. But through my son, I had my first hands on experience in deliverance. We did everything to address the physical and emotional side of Billys behavior, but knew that nothing more would change until we addressed the spiritual. One day Billy was at my mother-in-laws house and had another episode. She was with him for over 45 minutes, praying over him and the situation. Finally, she decided to stop speaking to Billy and to instead speak to the spirit of defiance within him. The second she did that, he snapped out of it, and was back to being the sweet, compliant Billy we were used to seeing most of the time. She had decided to only bind the spirit, but more importantly to call it out. That evening I decided that we were done with this spirit, that we have the right to victory over it, and that Billy had the right to be free.

As I was putting him to bed, the spirit began manifesting itself as Billy refused to pray with me, something we did every night, which he often went along with. So I prayed over him. I prayed the typical prayers of thankfulness with child-like language as I always do, but then I decided to move into the warfare we needed. I told that spirit of defiance with all the authority I had to leave Billy and our house in Jesus name. I nearly jumped back as Billy arched his back and let out a hiss and a growl. He sat up and proclaimed, Mama, I really want to pray to Jesus now. We have not seen defiance from Billy since that day, July 13th, 2011. Of course, weve seen typical 4-year-old boy misbehavior, but never again have we seen Billy being taken over by any defiance. And since that day, Billys night terrors have stopped and his first instinct in any situation is to pray. If hes hurt, he cant sleep, hes worried, anything, he immediately asks to pray and finds instant relief through that prayer. Hes also been addicted to the Word of God. Not much holds a 4-year-old boys attention, but he will sit in his bed for 30 minutes at a time going through the stories of his Bible. Later that week, I came into Billys room to wake him up for the morning. He woke up and said to me Mama, I got a little bit scared last night, but I looked right next to me (he pointed next to his bed) and Jesus was right there. He was shining really bright and touched me on my face and was protecting me, so that made me not scared. We have many other examples of our children experiencing victory in Christ. Throughout our months of healing and prayer, Phoenix now knows how to let go of responsibility that should belong to an adult and is now successful at figuring out how to imagine and play without being told what to do by others. Now our two children are healthy, happy and most importantly, know through experience the power of Jesus Christ. People tell us all the time how much we have blessed our children by adopting them, but we feel that we have been the ones so blessed through all God has done for us through Billy and Phoenix. If I could give one piece of parenting advice, it would be to pray with expectancy, and to know that you can have victory in the spiritual realm, even in the times when you feel you have no control in the physical. My spiritual life has changed so much through all of this. I do my best to go first to prayer in any situation, just as my children have shown me through example, and I am never disappointed in the result. I have learned of the blessings and promises in store through obedience to God and his faithfulness in return. I have learned to give up

control and to hand all things fully to Christ, and to be expectant of His spirit, promises, power and victory. This is the lesson that led me receiving the gift of tongues for the first time last week. I had been praying for the gift of tongues for quite a while, as I desperately wanted to know what it was like to commune with the Holy Spirit on that level. I dont know if it was fear or control, or both, but I often worried about doing it wrong. I didnt know how I would tell the difference between it being authentic, or me just making up sounds that I thought God had given me. I learned last week that its not about the sounds, but about the intense intimacy with our Father and His Spirit. I had been spending about two hours in prayer last Wednesday night in addition to reading a great book about intercession. I was praying mainly for our children, how to share our story today, and how God wanted to use me in the ministry of intercession. Two hours into prayer I began pressing deeper in and cried out to God that I just wanted to commune and be in full conversation with Him. I heard the words let go, so I did. I let go of wanting to control how it happened and needing to know everything about it and expected that it would happen. I was ready and waiting. I then received two words (four syllables) that made no sense to me. I heard them several times and decided to speak them out. What followed was a spiritual adventure I was not prepared for. For the next two hours, until 1am (I usually go to bed at 9 on a school night) I spoke only in tongues, and for the life of me I couldnt speak in English! I would pick up my book or my Bible and try to read it out loud, but couldnt! It was during this time that I realized that my focus wasnt really on the sounds coming out of my lips, but on the deep level of intimacy I was having with our Father. Names of people I knew came flying at me, as if in 3D, and I was praying for them in ways that was totally new for me. I received several very relevant script verses as if they were written out on the wall in front of me. I wouldve continued doing this all night, but did eventually fall asleep. But God didnt stop there. In my sleep I had a very vivid dream of this talk. I was in this space, speaking to you as I am now, and God continued to tell me, I gave you this story as a testimony of the power of Christ to transform lives. Live and tell this story so that unbelievers can witness who I am and what I can do.

We were told a year ago in training that our children would have severe attachment, identity, physical and emotional issues. We saw many things such as these when we first read about Billy and Phoenix. We were told to prepare ourselves for years of working through these issues through therapy and parenting. Our social workers have commented several times that Billy and Phoenix have become different kids and I couldnt agree more. They have learned about the power of attachment through the love of their heavenly Father, they have gained their identity in Christ and have been restored and healed of the physical and emotional issues. Were even to the point, just 5 months after they have moved in, where we are working on the normal things, like letter sounds and math! You can see in the progression of their pictures that their eyes have turned from utter sadness to complete joy. Thats the joy that comes with knowing our Father and His love for us. Thank you so much for hearing our story today. Two days before Tanya asked me to share, I had had three instances where people had asked me how our adoption journey was going. To the first two, unbelievers, I said that it was going so well that I wish I could share our story so that people knew that you can adopt from the foster system, have success, and change those childrens lives. To the third person who asked, a believer, I responded similarly, but also added that most importantly people need to know is how Christ changed all of our lives through this adoption. That not only do the children in the foster system need to be adopted into loving, stable homes, they most importantly need to be adopted into homes that know Christ. Just several hours after telling a third person within 24 hours that I had it on my heart to share our story, I received the invitation from Tanya to speak to you today. God clearly wanted me to share our story today and I pray that He blessed you through it.