Adoption is not for Cowards. Adoption is difficult and draining. Adoption is costly. Yet God is the Father to the Fatherless. He calls us to place the lonely in families.

It is unusual to see such a large family in today’s American culture.  You may be asking, “Did you plan on having such a large family when you got married?”

The answer would be “NO!” 

In fact after having our oldest biological daughter, Rachel, I wasn’t sure I wanted to have any more children. I felt overwhelmed by raising a toddler.  When our daughter Rachel was one-year-old she was kicked out of “Mother’s Day Out” for biting another baby and drawing blood.  I was distressed at having so little help.

At a retreat, I prayed with another pastor. He kindly said, “Open your heart, God wants to give you more children.”

At first I was mad. Then we prayed together and sensed God’s call to open our heart to having a larger family. A month later we were pregnant with Angela and then had 4 beautiful daughters in a row.

We felt that our family was complete. Then God surprised us.

On three different occasions, Wayne heard about God’s heart for adoption in group settings. Each speaker communicated with passion how the early church was known for adoption.  During these evil days, the Roman society was known to throw unwanted babies into the trash heap or throw them into the river.  Members of the early church would watch and wait for babies to be thrown away, then they would watch the river and the dump for unwanted infants and nurse them back to health and adopt them into families.

Wayne was quietly moved by these stories, but did not share what he began to feel as a prompting until the third time he heard this call of adoption.  On the third time, I was in the same room.  My face went white as I began to weep.  I pictured myself being before the throne of God and hearing Him say “Well done, but I had more children for you.”  When there was a break in the meeting, I whispered to Wayne, “We need to talk.”  He knew what the conversation was going to be about.

Wayne was having his own conversations with God about the potential of adopting.  One day he was mowing the lawn, arguing with God in his mind.  “God, is it fair to bring children into our home, when I am getting older in life?”  Wayne had an impression of God saying “Isn’t it better for sons to have an older dad, than no dad?”

We sought counsel of our senior pastor who encouraged us to ask God the big question of whether they were called to adopt and then also to ask the specific questions of who they were to adopt.

We went away alone to pray.  When our family joined us we shared our sense that God was calling us to adopt to boys from Brazil. The girls began to weep and affirm their willingness to embrace God’s call to adopt.

When we mentioned the nation of Brazil, my mom Donna began to cry as well.  “Sue, do you realize that this is a fulfillment of my prayers?”  Over forty years earlier, my mom and dad were planning to go to Brazil as missionaries, until my mom became pregnant with me.  Fearing, that it would be too difficult to take children on the mission field, my dad chose not to go.  My, feeling a sense of unfulfilled calling began to pray over the child in her womb from Jeremiah 1, believing that her call to the nation of Brazil would be fulfilled one day. Now the day had come.

9 months later Alexandre Joel (Dre) and Ezequiel Paul (Zeke) were added to our family!