Steph's first post:Why did we choose to adopt?

Seeing as I am listed as a co-contributor to the blog, I thought I should get at least one blog written before we leave for China!  I’ll start off easy (ha ha) and tackle the question “Why did you choose to adopt?”

 Good question!  This is a very common question that both Sara and I get asked.  How do we answer this, and explain something that we feel so deeply is right and exactly what we want to do and exactly what we should be doing?

Did we want to make a difference in the life of a little girl from the other side of the world?  Sure we did!  But equally, we wanted a little girl from the other side of the world to make a difference in our lives!

People sometimes say that Li Lin is lucky to be joining our family.  We agree that she is blessed to be joining our loving, if somewhat crazy family (after all, we are part of this family and we feel it’s a pretty great family to be part of, warts and all!); however we definitely feel more blessed to be having a new little addition to our family.  We know very little about Li Lin right now, but she has firmly and solidly and completely wormed her way into our hearts!  We cannot wait to have another set of little feet pitter-pattering around the house.  We are so excited to have another set of arms open up for a hug from us and to see the twinkle in her eyes as she teases her siblings.  We are looking forward to having another voice trying to squeeze into those very infrequent moments of silence in our home.  We anticipate another round of the most common phrase in our household, “Dad/Mom, I have a question!”, and being able to explore the world once again through the eyes of a little child, where every moment is magical. 

Our adoption journey has allowed us to experience God as our loving and caring Father in a way different than we have before.  We are by no means experts in figuring out the will of God, but we have seen His guidance in many ways during this process.  As Sara mentioned in the first blog, we have received guidance from the Bible, our heart’s desire, and circumstances.

One verse that has spoken directly and deeply to our hearts is James 1:27 “Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.”

One thing that really spoke to me during our search for the will of God concerning adoption might seem like coincidence to others, but was a direct message from God to me.  The Friday afternoon we were seriously considering pursuing adoption, I turned on the radio to Life 100.3 [I rarely listen to this station… usually to a sports station instead.  Mea culpa!] and playing was Mikeschair “Keep Changing the World”.  Click on the link below to go to their official Youtube channel and listen to the song. http://youtu.be/wEmYhD90Lp0 .  The first sentence is “Something here is wrong, there are children without homes”!

All the meanwhile, God was working on our hearts.  Both Sara and I had a longing and desire to add to our family through adoption for a while.  We felt our family had love to share.  This yearning kept growing until we had to act on it.

Speaking about the title of this blog; when Sara was expecting Hudson, Logan was concerned about how the two of us parents would be able to love all of our children (Hudson is the third).  Sara told Logan – “love doesn’t divide, it multiplies!”  A short while into the adoption process, Logan was looking a little down.  Sara asked him if he was concerned that with us adding another child to the family, we wouldn’t have as much time and energy for him.  Logan looked up at Sara and said “Mom, remember, Love doesn’t divide, it multiplies!”  Logan was just discouraged by the long wait to get his little sister.  So far, we’ve enjoyed multiplication by 1, by 2 and by 3, and are looking forward to our multiplication by 4!