"Nothing Day"

My girls asked to go to the grocery store this afternoon so they could purchase ingredients to make fruit smoothies. When they got home, they handed me this beautiful bouquet in honor of "Nothing Day". We are so blessed to have such sweet, thoughtful girls!

Future Dreams

Final thoughts....

Jaden and Luke were created perfectly by God's will and design, and He has a purpose and a plan for each of their lives. God's Word tells us that we are fearfully and wonderfully made and that the Lord loves and values each one of us as unique individuals, no matter what our challenges might be. Unfortunately, the national abortion rate for babies who have been diagnosed with Down syndrome is currently estimated to be between 90-95%. Proverbs 24:11-12 shows us how God would have us respond to these precious babies...

“Rescue those being led away to death; hold back those staggering toward slaughter. If you say, "But we knew nothing about this," does not he who weighs the heart perceive it? Does not he who guards your life know it? Will he not repay each person according to what he has done?”

Our hope is that families who are facing a negative prenatal diagnosis will be supported and encouraged to joyfully embrace their precious gifts from God instead of being encouraged to abort by the majority of society and the medical profession.

Over the last few months, we have been feeling the tug to help start an adoption ministry at our church to encourage & educate families who are (or might be) interested in adopting. Family Life, Focus on the Family, Steven Curtis Chapman, and many other Christian organizations have teamed up to form an orphan ministry called Voice of the Orphan, and their respective websites have all sorts of resources available to help churches start adoption ministries. We recently approached our pastor about getting one started, and we're very excited about this wonderful opportunity. In the meantime, we'll do all we can to encourage/educate individual families as the Lord brings them across our path. And maybe some will open up their hearts and homes to one (or more) of God’s very special treasures through the miracle of adoption.

Miraculous Dreams

Then wonder of wonders, on May 23, 2007, an email titled simply "Luke" came into our inbox. When we realized that Luke was the same baby we had been chosen to adopt in January, our hearts were filled with joy. After Luke’s birth, his birth parents' plans with the other adoptive family fell through. At that time, several of their extended family members came forward to adopt Luke, but the birth parents didn't feel the Lord's peace about them either.

Throughout this entire time, the Lord kept bringing our family back to their minds and hearts, and after prayerful consideration, they decided to contact us again to see if we were still interested. If so, they would see our willingness as the Lord’s confirmation that we were the family He had chosen for their baby.

Later that evening as we shared the events of the previous days and weeks with the birthparents, they were amazed at how the Lord had miraculously worked to bring us all back together, and each of us felt an overwhelming sense of peace that it was His will for us to adopt their baby. Ten days later Patrice flew to the birth family’s state, and after waiting two long weeks for all the adoption paperwork to be approved, she finally brought our precious Luke Samuel home on June 15th, just in time for Father's Day.

Four years ago, the Lord miraculously brought Jaden into our lives, and now, He has given us a second little miracle, our sweet little Luke. Of course we had no way of knowing it at the time, but looking back, we can now see how the Lord used many different people we encountered along our journey to mold and shape our hearts until we were finally ready to accept HIS perfect will.

The Lord gently reminded us that He is the One who orchestrates the details of our lives, and that being blessed with Jaden and Luke was never due to any efforts we made to find a child. But as we surrendered our hopes and dreams to His will, He was able to carry out His perfect plan for our family. Each step of our journey had been leading us to the destination He had intended from the very beginning, we just had to be willing and obedient to follow Him wherever He might lead.

Reawakened Dreams

Throughout the summer and fall of 2005, we slowly came to realize that the Lord was calling us to open our hearts and home to another child with Down syndrome. Over the next year and a half, there were many times we doubted the Lord's plan, and several times we detoured down a wrong path, but each time the Lord was faithful to confirm His call in our hearts and get us back on the right path.

Finally, in January '07, we received a call about an unborn baby boy who had been diagnosed with Down syndrome. His Christian parents were having serious marital struggles, and not knowing where else to turn, his mother made an appointment for an abortion....thank God she was unable to follow through with her plans! They eventually decided to explore the possibility of placing their baby for adoption, hoping to find a Christian, rural Midwestern family who would lovingly embrace their son’s disability. We prayerfully consented to be considered, and when the adoption worker called a week later to let us know the parents had chosen us to adopt their baby, our hearts were filled with joyful anticipation!

Over the next few weeks we communicated directly with the birth parents, but unfortunately, things took a bad turn around the middle of February, and on March 1st, our adoption worker broke the devastating news that the birth parents had chosen another family for their baby.

During the next 6-7 weeks, feelings of desperation filled our days. We believed we had "messed up" the Lord's plan for our family by being insensitive to the birth parents' anguish, and now we needed to "fix" it. We spent hours upon hours searching for another child to adopt, but one day in mid-April, the Lord showed us that our endlessly obsessive searching was taking a huge toll on our family. When we finally made a commitment to leave our family's future in the Lord's hands, His peace flooded our hearts.

Fulfilled Dreams

We didn't even want to dream that this could be "the one", in case our hopes got dashed yet again. So as we sent off our family profile and homestudy, we pretended that it wouldn't matter if we weren't chosen, but deep down, we knew this was probably our last and final hope. Our entire future was riding on this agency's decision.

And then three days later we got "THE CALL"! The one that every hopeful adoptive family anxiously awaits, the one that changes their lives forever. Seven words....one insignificant little sentence...."If you still want him, he's yours".....and we FINALLY understood the Lord's plan. All the past heartaches & disappointments instantly made perfect and complete sense, for they were the tools He used to prepare our hearts to be ready to welcome our new son. We hadn't labored in vain after all.

The day we accepted baby Jaden into our hearts and home was one of the happiest days of our lives. Jaden has been such a joy to us all, and now we cannot even imagine how empty our lives would be without him. He has woven his lively and loving little personality into the very fabric of our hearts, and we love him as much as if we had given birth to him.

Only God could see the end of our journey before we had even begun. Only He knew exactly where we needed to go and how we needed to get there. Only He could make such a beautiful miracle happen. Only He could fill our hearts with laughter and joy.

Researching Dreams

If the Lord was calling us to special needs adoption, then we needed to educate ourselves as much as possible, so we totally immersed ourselves in articles and books about parenting a child with Down syndrome. Our thirst for information was almost unquenchable. The more we took in, the more we desired, and it didn't take long before we were well and truly hooked.

To fill the days as we anxiously awaited the birthmother's decision, we joined a Down syndrome adoption email group, hoping to connect with other families who could share their experiences, good and bad. Even though we weren't new to adoption, we were novices in the area of Down syndrome adoption. The books and articles we read were very informative, but they were missing something vitally important--the human connection. The group welcomed us with open arms, and we felt an almost instant kinship with them. Family after family confirmed that we were finally on the right track, and that we would never regret our decision. As they encouraged us, our excitement grew by leaps and bounds.

Three weeks after we agreed to be considered for the unborn baby girl, a member of our new group posted information about a 12-month old baby boy in Colorado who desperately needed a home. Even though we had our hearts set on a baby girl, this little boy sounded very promising, but we were reluctant to submit interest for him until we knew for sure about the first one. A quick call to the agency revealed that the birthmother was leaning heavily towards another family, so they gave their blessing for us to pursue this new situation. As we made initial contact with the Colorado agency, little did we know the Lord was poised to change our lives forever right around the next bend of our journey.

Confirming Dreams

As we wrestled with our decision, we asked the Lord to either confirm this new direction by giving us peace, or turn us away from it if this wasn't His will. Two days later, the following poem was published in the "Dear Abby" column.....

WELCOME TO HOLLAND
byEmily Perl Kingsley

I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability - to try to help people who have not shared that unique experience to understand it, to imagine how it would feel. It's like this......

When you're going to have a baby, it's like planning a fabulous vacation trip - to Italy. You buy a bunch of guide books and make your wonderful plans. The Coliseum. The Michelangelo David. The gondolas in Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It's all very exciting.

After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands. The stewardess comes in and says, "Welcome to Holland."

"Holland?!?" you say. "What do you mean Holland?? I signed up for Italy! I'm supposed to be in Italy. All my life I've dreamed of going to Italy."

But there's been a change in the flight plan. They've landed in Holland and there you must stay.

The important thing is that they haven't taken you to a horrible, disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence, famine and disease. It's just a different place.

So you must go out and buy new guide books. And you must learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you would never have
met.

It's just a different place. It's slower-paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy. But after you've been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around.... and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills....and Holland has tulips. Holland even has Rembrandts.

But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy... and they're all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the rest of your life, you will say "Yes, that's where I was supposed to go. That's what I had planned."

And the pain of that will never, ever, ever, ever go away... because the loss of that dream is a very very significant loss.

But... if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn't get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things ... about Holland.

By the time we got the return call from the agency 5 days later, the only answer that gave us the Lord's peace was "yes". At that point we weren't able to give them a resounding YES!, but it was a yes, nonetheless. As excited as we'd been to adopt at the beginning of our adoption journey, now we were almost hoping the birthmother wouldn't choose our family to adopt her baby.

Surrendered Dreams

As the year drew to a close, we sadly came to the conclusion that it was very unlikely we were going to find a child before our homestudy expired. We were finally ready to accept that the Lord's answer was a resounding "no", so we surrendered our dreams to the Lord's will and stopped trying to beat a dead horse. As difficult as it was to give up our plans to adopt, we knew it was time to destroy all of our adoption research and wipe the word "adoption" off of our computer's hard drive so we could heal and move on. Our dreams had been crushed from every possible angle, and it became painfully evident that we had heard Him wrong......Or so we thought.....

We were nearly finished purging our computer, but just as we were set to delete the link to a special needs adoption website, the Lord's still, small voice whispered, "Stop. Try this one again." OooKaaaay....We had applied to that particular organization 8 months earlier, soon after we started looking into foster-care adoption, but we hadn't heard a single word from them. No welcoming email, no "thank you for submitting interest", nothing. But if the Lord wanted us to try again, we were willing to give it a go.

After submitting our interest form, we had absolutely no expectations of being contacted by the agency. Maybe that's how the Lord wanted it, so He could "surprise" us. As parents we know that some of the most meaningful and appreciated gifts are given when they're the least expected.

The very next day the agency contacted us...on a Saturday, no less! Would we be interested in being considered to adopt an unborn baby girl who had been diagnosed with Down syndrome? Wh-wh-WHAT?!?! We were floored at this new development. "Lord, that surely couldn't be your plan for our family?!?! ........ could it? We're stunned....we're scared....we're inadequate.....we can't DO this!!" But all the Lord wanted to know was, were we willing? The previous 17 months of our adoption journey had been leading us to this one, defining moment. Were we really willing to go anywhere....do anything....accept any terms.....to follow the Lord?

The agency agreed to give us several days to think it over, but they needed an answer one way or the other by the middle of the next week. The next several days were tumultuous, to say the least, and we gave new meaning to the verse, "pray without ceasing." Ü

Sidetracked Dreams

After being stung twice by private infant adoption, we decided to go a totally different direction in our search and concentrate on finding a child to adopt through the foster-care system. For those who know the end of our story it may seem like we got a bit sidetracked, but we know the Lord used the experiences we had over the next several months to mold and shape our vision of the "perfect" child into HIS vision of the perfect child.

Remember our original vision at the beginning of our adoption journey? We would adopt a typically developing infant born to a Christian teenager. Then we had to redefine our dream to include a child born to a "different" sort of birthmother. But now that we were exploring adopting through the system, we were opening up a whole 'nother can of worms. The vast majority of kids in the system have suffered abuse or neglect at the hands of their birthfamily, which leaves emotional scars that sometimes never heal. Once again, we were forced to widen our acceptable parameters until our vision bore absolutely no resemblance to the original.

Over the next 8 months we searched each state's photolistings on an almost daily basis, and indentified over 100 different children who we thought might fit well with our family. Several times we were contacted by a child's caseworker, but we were never chosen for any of them. It was soooo frustrating, because here we were, ready and willing to provide a loving home for a child who desperately needed one, but we were rebuffed over and over again.

Unfortunately, we learned through the school of hard knocks that the system wasn't designed to get kids out, it was designed to keep them in so states can keep receiving federal dollars for their care. The sad fact is, children will continue to languish in foster-care until states receive a financial incentive to place children in permanent families.

Shattered Dreams

Even though all the signs were pointing to the breakdown of our adoption plans with Misty, we were still hoping and praying that the Lord would work a miracle, against all odds. A friend of ours shared a verse that really encouraged us.....

"They shall not labour in vain, nor bring forth for trouble; for they are the seed of the blessed of the LORD, and their offspring with them." Isaiah 65:23

We were sure this was a promise given specifically to us, and that the Lord would intervene so the adoption could go through as planned. Unfortunately, two weeks before the baby's due date, we received more devastating news from the facilitator. She agreed to help Misty find another family if we refused to give her the money she wanted. In our minds, Misty was selling her baby to the highest bidder, which was morally & ethically reprehensible to us. We knew the Lord couldn't bless the adoption if we went against His Word, so with heavy hearts, we refused to meet Misty's demands. The facilitator emailed us the very next day to let us know another family had stepped up to adopt Misty's baby and give her the requested money "under the table".

Oh, our hearts were devastated beyond belief! What had we done wrong? How could God allow this to happen? How could this new family just swoop in at the last minute and "steal" our precious baby? Why had He promised that we would not labor in vain, when it was painfully evident that we HAD labored in vain, not just once, but now a second time?

For weeks afterward we walked around in a fog of grief and sorrow. Little Jaeci, whom we'd never met but already loved like she was our own, wasn't coming home after all, and her crib became a silent and empty reminder of all we had lost. We listened to Fernando Ortega's "If You Were Mine" again and again and again as we tried to make sense of this unthinkable turn of events.

Truthfully, we had decided to totally abandon our adoption dreams, because the failures were just too heartbreaking. But thankfully the Lord wouldn't let us give up. We didn't feel feel His peace until we once again committed ourselves to follow Him wherever He might lead. At that point it didn't take a rocket scientist to realize that since we had already paid for our homestudy, we should continue searching for a child to adopt until it expired at the end of the year. If the Lord didn't bring another child into our family by then, we would see this as His answer and move on.

Hopeful Dreams

We were definitely outside our comfort zone while we were matched to adopt Misty's baby, so we had to fully lean on the Lord and seek His wisdom each time a new challenge in our relationship with Misty presented itself.

Because she was in jail we weren't allowed to contact her directly, so all correspondence had to go through the facilitator. We had a few rough spots right at first when Misty asked us to pay for expenses that weren't allowed by Kansas adoption law, but after we gently refused, she seemed to accept our decision and move on.

In mid-November, shortly after she was paroled to a lock-down drug & alcohol rehabilitation center, we met with Misty, the facilitator, and our attorney. Misty assured us over and over that we were the family she wanted for her baby, and that she wouldn't change her mind. A week later she asked us to go with her to her ultrasound appointment, where we found out she was expecting a baby girl. We had been secretly hoping for a boy, but we were over-the-moon ecstatic anyway. Seeing the baby on the screen and being handed the ultrasound pictures finally made it seem like the adoption was really going to happen....it wasn't just a dream. We decided to name the baby Jaeci, and over the next few weeks we started fixing up the nursery & buying lots of pink ruffly outfits. Friends helped fill the baby's closet with their gently used baby clothes, and we were almost giddy with anticipation.

Misty's birthday was on Thanksgiving Day, so we asked and received permission to take her out to dinner and a movie, as long as we brought her back to the facility by suppertime. We had a nice time with her at a local buffet, but afterwards she decided she'd rather just go to a park and watch the kids play instead of going to a movie. When we dropped her off at the facility, she gave us both a big hug and thanked us for the day. We had no way of knowing it would be the last time we'd see her.

A few days later our facilitator called to say that Misty had signed herself out of the half-way house to go to the first day of her work-release job, but instead of going to work, she disappeared without a trace. We prayed almost continuously until we got word the next evening that she had turned herself back in to the half-way house. Unfortunately, she didn't pass her drug & alcohol screening, so she was immediately transferred back to the county jail to serve out the remainder of her original sentence.

Once again, all of our contact with her had to go through the facilitator, which was frustratingly slow. The baby was due in less than two months, but we weren't able to see or talk to Misty, or be reassured that all was well with our relationship and that the adoption would proceed as planned. We felt cut off with no way of reestablishing any type of positive, emotional raport with Misty. Then a few days after Christmas we got a phone call from the facilitator that rocked our world.

Misty had decided to lay all her cards on the table, repeating her earlier demands for money to pay her past bills. But this time she went a step further....if we didn't pay up, she would find a family who would. To say we were devastated at this turn of events would be the understatement of the year! We felt like she was dangling a carrot in front of our noses, keeping it just out of reach until we agreed to her terms. If we didn't agree, we would lose all hope of adopting her baby. But on the other hand, if we gave her the money (illegally), we'd be forced to abandon all of our moral & ethical convictions. We were caught between a rock and a hard place.

We finally decided to call Misty's bluff and hope that she'd realize she didn't have any other options. Several weeks went by with no word, so we continued to send her weekly snack allowance to show her we were still willing to abide by the original agreement we had with her.

Redefining Dreams

As I mentioned in the last post, we weren't sure we even wanted to be considered for the new situation, because Misty didn't fit our vision of the "perfect" birthmother. In our minds we would swoop in to "rescue" a Christian teenager who had "slipped up" with one of the boys in her youth group. Pretty naive, huh?

Misty was about as far from our original vision as she could get.....she was a drug addict/alcoholic who worked as a "lady of the evening", she didn't know the identity of the baby's father, and she was currently serving time in a county jail. With all of those red flags, we were very reluctant to "go there".

But as we sought the Lord and prayed for His guidance, a wise friend challenged us to rethink our definition of the perfect birthmother. Who was more in need of rescuing? A Christian teenager who most likely would have the support of a loving family? Or a lost soul who had no options, no support, no family, nothing. If no one came forward to adopt her baby, would Misty decide she had no other options except to abort?

Our friend also shared a passage of scripture that finally helped us understand the Lord's heart for Misty and her baby, and how He was leading us to respond to their need.....

"If you falter in times of trouble, how small is your strength! Rescue those being led away to death; hold back those staggering toward slaughter. If you say, "But we knew nothing about this," does not he who weighs the heart perceive it? Does not he who guards your life know it? Will he not repay each person according to what he has done?" Prov. 24:10-12

Ultimately, it all came down to one question.....Were we strong enough to follow the Lord into frightening and uncharted territory to rescue this precious baby from a very uncertain future, or possibly even death? Or would we turn tail and run at the first hint of trouble? As we prayed and struggled to answer that question, the path the Lord was laying out before us became very clear, and we gave our permission to be considered for Misty's baby. Three weeks later when we got word that she had chosen our family to adopt her baby, we had no way of knowing we would have to ask ourselves that same question many, many times over the next four months while we awaited the baby's birth.

Broken Dreams

During our two month wait for the first baby to be born, we talked to Paul's cousin (who had worked for an adoption agency for several years) about other available options. He strongly discouraged us from pursuing adopting through the foster-care system, due to all the miles of bureaucratic red tape we'd need to wade through.

Instead, he encouraged us to contact an acquaintance who had a facilitation ministry helping connect birthparents with adoptive parents. The best part was, she didn't charge anything for her services, which would fit very well into our extremely limited adoption budget. We attempted to contact her, but when she didn't return our calls, we were almost ready to give up hope.

Finally, in late August we decided to try one more time, and if we weren't able to connect with her, we would know the Lord was leading us in a different direction. Much to our surprise, after two months of leaving messages but never receiving a return call, she answered the phone! She had been planning on calling us that week about a new situation she thought might fit our family. As she shared the details of this young woman's circumstances, we became more and more discouraged, because the situation didn't sound at all like what we'd be interested in. But we finally agreed to pray and seek the Lord before making our decision, even though neither one of us felt this would be "the one".

The very next day we received word that the first young woman we had contacted had delivered her baby son and was determined to keep him, even though her circumstances were very dire. We were heartbroken, and didn't know what purpose would God have in leading us to this baby just to leave our arms empty? If we went with this new situation, there weren't any guarantees it would work out either. How many disappointments would we have to face before the Lord would bless us with another child?

Thankfully, the Lord used Fernando Ortega's "If You Were Mine" to soothe our wounded spirits, and once again, we committed to follow the Lord wherever He would lead.

Pursuing Dreams

Because Patrice has a sister who was adopted from Korea in the mid-70's, she started researching international adoption on the internet. But it became painfully evident within a few short hours that this option would not be open to us, due to our age, family size, and limited income. Private domestic or foster-care adoption seemed to be out of reach as well, but before we gave up completely, we asked the Lord to open the doors according to His will.

Several days later we spoke with a local friend who had adopted an infant through private adoption, and she encouraged us to pursue that option. A mutual friend had recently had contact with a young unwed mother who had attended our church as a young teen. She had two young toddlers and was expecting her third in a few months....she felt so overwhelmed with the thought of parenting three small children with no husband or extended family support that she was exploring placing her new baby for adoption.

After a few days of prayer, we finally decided to pursue this first lead, and with much fear and trepidation, we sent out our very first "dear birthmom" letter. Our friend informed us a few weeks later that the young woman had decided to parent her baby, but we decided to wait until after the baby's birth before pursuing another lead, in case she changed her mind.

Awakened Dreams

In the spring of 2002 the Lord started to rekindle our long-dormant dreams. Interestingly enough, the first step on our adoption journey had nothing to do with adoption.

We were thrilled when we had the opportunity to attend a Fernando Ortega concert in March '02. Right before the intermission, Fernando asked the audience to prayerfully consider supporting a child through Compassion International, then he sang a hauntingly beautiful lullaby called "If You Were Mine".....

(Turn off the background music at top right before starting the video.  This is actually a powerpoint presentation of our family that we created in 2006, after we adopted Jaden and felt the Lord's call to adopt a second child...but I'm getting ahead of myself, aren't I?)

If You Were Mine

by Fernando Ortega

When my heart is troubled and I am weighed down,

Then I like to think of how this lonesome world would be

If I could see your face, or hold you in my arms

If you were mine, if you were mine.

If you had a bad dream I would jump inside it,

And I would fight for you with all the strength that I could find.

I would lead you home by your tiny hand

If you were mine, if you were mine.

I would sing of love on the blackest night.

I would sing of God, and how His goodness fills our lives.

I would sing to you, ‘til the morning light

If you were mine, if you were mine.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"If You Were Mine" was written after Fernando and his wife experienced a failed adoption. It's poignant message touched our hearts in a way we wouldn't fully understand for several more years.

Several months later we were privileged to hear Ken Ham from Answers in Genesis speak at our state homeschool convention. The central theme to his messages that weekend was that one of the best ways to fulfill the Lord's call to reach the world was by building Godly families.

For years we had struggled with finding our place in God's kingdom...like most Christians, we had a burning desire to be used by the Lord, but He never opened any doors to ministry opportunities. But over the next few days as we meditated on Ken Ham's messages, we had what some might call a "light-bulb moment". We realized that if we never accomplished anything great in the eyes of the world, if we never became famous or amassed huge amounts of wealth, if we never reached thousands for the Lord through a "Billy Graham" type of ministry, if we would simply raise our children to be Godly, we would have fulfilled God's purpose for our lives. WoW!

After all those years of searching for the right ministry opportunity, the path the Lord was laying out before us suddenly became very clear, and we finally understood that He was leading us in a totally new and exciting direction--to provide a loving and Godly home to a child through adoption. We believed with all our hearts that this was His will for our family, and even though we didn't know specifically what or whom the Lord had planned for us, we were all very excited to begin our adoption journey!

Dawning Dreams

It's very hard to believe, but this last September we celebrated 20 years of marriage. As we exchanged our vows before God and our assembled family and friends, if we'd had any inkling of the Lord's plan for our family, we probably would have both run screaming from the altar. (just kidding Ü )

All joking aside, our eight precious children are treasured gifts from heaven, and we are humbled and honored that we were chosen by God to be their parents...six through the miracle of birth, and two through the miracle of adoption. And to help you fully understand how adoption has touched our lives, we feel we must, as the lyrics of a popular song instruct, “start at the very beginning”.

During the first 15 months of our marriage as we experienced the heartache of infertility, the Lord laid a burden on our hearts to minister His love and hope to women facing a crisis pregnancy who might be considering abortion. We had also begun exploring the possibility of building our family through adoption, but our plans had to be put on hold when the Lord unexpectedly gave us the best Christmas present we could have asked for -- a positive pregnancy test. Ü Our first son, Jared Paul, was born the following summer.

Our second son, Jason Daniel, arrived a mere 16 months later, and when he was a few months old, we began attending counselor training classes at a crisis pregnancy center in Colorado Springs. But the Lord had other plans for our family, and in 1991, before we were able to complete our training, we felt His leading to relocate to Kansas.

Over the next seven years, the Lord blessed us with four additional children -- Janae Alyse, Jalyn Nicole, Jamye Chanielle, and Jacob Seth -- and we were very content with our "perfect family" of three boys and three girls. In the busy-ness of our lives, we thought our burden to counsel women facing crisis pregnancies and abortion was just a "pipe dream" destined never to be fulfilled, but we can see now that the Lord was just biding His time.

Welcome!

The Lord has blessed our 20 years of marriage with 8 beautiful children...six through the miracle of birth -- Jared, 18; Jason, 17; Janae, 15; Jalyn, 13; Jamye, 11, and Jacob, 9 -- and through the miracle of adoption, with two sweet baby boys who have Down syndrome. 13 month old Jaden, who is now 5, joined our family in December 2003, and we welcomed 6 week old Luke into our hearts and home in June '07. What a blessing each one of our precious children has been to us...and now after all these years, we can truthfully say, "Eight IS Enough!" Ü

Our family has a wide variety of interests, but two areas that will probably get more than their fair share of discussion on our blog are homeschooling and adoption. While we realize these subjects may never impact your lives in the same way they have ours, it is our hope that as we share our everyday joys and struggles, our stories will be a testimony of the abundant love, grace, & mercy our Father has freely given us.

May the Lord shower His blessings on you all!