A Bit of History on our Decision to Adopt

The question has arisen, "why are you adopting, and when did you make this decision?"

When we were engaged and talking about our future together and our desires for having kids, we always dreamed of adopting.

In our little minds THIS was how it would all work... We would have 2 kids really close together (possibly twins) wait til those two went to school, and then have 2 more closer together. Then we would adopt a child.

In God's plan THIS is how it rolled out.... We had Meghan in August of 2001, and Mallory came 13 months later in September of 2002. Micah came a little earlier than expected. He joined us in December of 2005. We decided at that point we liked having three biological kids and would plan to adopt once all 3 were in school.

Paul and I read a book called Too Small to Ignore, http://www.toosmalltoignore.com/ that changed our life perspective. And then in October of 2010 Paul preached a sermon called "No More Gentiles" http://phpws.bighead.net/pursuit/iTunesRSS.php and on October 17th we knew we needed to adopt a child. October 17th is what we call our Adoption Day. We met with our friends, Scott and Darcy Pentzer to ask questions and find out more. You have to see these clips of their story: Part 1 https://vimeo.com/15927436 Part 2 https://vimeo.com/31261072.

When Scott and Darcy were in Africa to pick-up their kiddos, they met a girl named Precious and sent us an email. They said they knew we were wanting to adopt a little boy, but wondered if we would consider this 18 month girl, Precious. We prayed about it and talked to our kids and decided we were open to this. The next day, they sent us an email saying the plot had thickened. Precious has a twin brother. We had always wanted twins. At this point God stretched/softened our heart to the idea of adopting 2. Making this long story a bit shorter, Precious and her brother are considered unadoptable (they have family to care for them and are not true orphans). BUT God used them to open our hearts to adopting 2.

Life got crazy and in December of 2010 and at that time I went into a depression. If you do not know this story, you can watch it here - http://thepursuit.org/message.html. We praise God for my depression and the healing process and know that God allowed that in our lives to prepare us for our adoption journey.

We spent the next year healing and then in March of 2012 Paul had the opportunity to go to Uganda. God clearly told him that it was time to adopt and that we could not just stop with adopting just one child. Paul visited 3 orphanages. He felt like he could bring any of those kids home, but The Pursuit is working towards empowering the Kampala community to have an impact in Uganda. At this point, we want to support Ugandan families to have the ability to adopt and feel like there is hope there for the orphans.

So why the city we chose in Africa? Simply stated, we are called to adopt from this city. When God calls we follow. He called us to Boise - Why Boise? His plan is perfect and we have seen the evidence of that over the past 8 years. He is calling us to adopt from Africa and know that we will continue to see evidence of His perfect plan for us in this as well.

We are reading, podcasting, meeting with adoptive families, and learning everything we can about adoption as we wait to hold our kids.

Loving the journey....