Stuart's Thoughts...

It is official, my family and I are going down crazy street full blast. We seem to think that God wants us to adopt internationally. He also has put it on our hearts to adopt without debt. Sometime when someone says, “God laid this on our hearts” I wonder what exactly that meant or if maybe they were influenced by last night's dinner or some other outside circumstance. Yet we find ourselves in this position following an invisible leader to an invisible child.

My wife and I have talked about adopting as long as we have known each other. It was one of those ideas that floated around, like many others that never amounted to anything, but it has finally taken form. We have had a lot of support and plenty of “Oh WOW”s (which really means, “They let mentally ill people adopt?”).  For our 6^th anniversary we went to a couple of adoption seminars to get the ball rolling and got a pretty good idea of how the process works. We left ready to start the process but realizing our next step, or gigantic leap, would be to get a majority of the money to start paying for all of the fees that would come up. While numbers vary $20,000-$40,000 is very normal. So we began to work towards our goal.

Enter, financial planning extreme style. We had always wanted to live debt-free but hadn't quite been able to do it between our growing needs, a new business, and some errors of our own. Last December we worked extra hard (read “over-time”) to make some money and used it to pay off all of our debt except for our family car. We were pretty excited to say the least. Then we were introduced to Dave Ramsey. My wife and I read through his “Total Money Makeover” book which is comprised of common sense, hard work, working towards goals, and stories of people who actually did it. We were off and running. We started doing a monthly budget that accounted for every penny. My wife was the real hero in this as she does almost all of the shopping for household needs. Our next goal was to pay off the car as soon as possible. Not 2 weeks later, after finishing our tax return, we were surprised to find that our return had enough in it pay-off the remainder of the loan. We took it as a completely undeserved blessing from God encouraging us that we were on the right path. So now we were on to start beefing up our savings account for the goals ahead of us.

We are getting real creative in trying to limit our spending and grow together as a family. Instead of getting a family dog (which we would love) we have started dog-sitting. All the dog-kisses and lawn presents at 0 cost. We also have opened our home to international students which has been a blast and is moving our adoption fund in the right direction. Our last project was a huge yard sale.

Our convictions have really been confirmed as we have moved through this process. Two things in particular: debt isn't a necessity and adoption isn't an option.

Debt & Adoption -

Like I mentioned earlier, we felt the need to adopt and do it without debt. Here are my wife's thoughts on the matter.

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Well, the final night of the retreat ended with an extended time of worship and prayer and I knew more prayer on this situation could only be good.  So as I silently attempted to word my prayer request just right (tacky, but I was really fearful about how I was even going to ask for prayer!), the same visual kept coming to mind:  this situation was like a giant mountain that I didn't know how to climb, and I didn't have the ability to move.  There was a lull in the worship then and I opened my eyes to see if the prayer and worship time was coming to an end, but no, the worship leader started into the next song, singing, "Saviour, He can move the mountain..."  Of course that turned me into a crying mess.  It wasn't even an answer to my prayer request - it was an answer to my stupid attempt to grammatically format my prayer request!

But then I shared my request with  a couple ladies who had made themselves available to pray.  And before we even started praying, one of them let me know that adopting a child is worth going into debt for, and that we have to be willing to make sacrifices sometimes.  I was taken aback and wrestled with the "wisdom" that she shared with me.  Of course I would be willing to take out a loan, if that was really the only option and God made it clear it was necessary.  But is He not able to provide in a manner that doesn't require 14% interest?  

I spent that night talking with my friend about the incident.  Why would it seem like I was given a promise (God could move mountains) only to be told that debt shouldn't be considered bad in this situation?  Why have my husband and I both been convicted about our debt, and been blessed so richly when we purposed ourselves to get rid of it?  

It didn't take long for my mind to find peace.  The next morning I was browsing through some books when I picked up one entitled "Fragments That Remain." 

 It is a compilation of notes and letters written by Amy Carmichael, a missionary to the children of India.  I flipped open the book, not to be spoken to, but to see how the book was formatted (I'm starting to see an odd pattern), and the page I opened to had the heading "Finance" written in bold italics.  That caught my eye so I read what it had to say:

Are we asking for too much?  But is God poor?  He whose city streets are paved with gold, cannot He give us not spoonfuls only, of the dust of these streets, but handfuls too?  I love the symbol of those streets - gold underfoot, just where it should be.

So long as the word is in the Bible, "It is NOT the will of your Father that one of these little ones should perish," so long surely must we continue to save children, 

and therefore we shall have gold enough to save them.

In summary, I don't believe God would give me competing desires.  But I do believe God's heart is for His children, and He wants to provide in a way that will bring glory to Him.  I just don't think a loan accomplishes that goal.  For one, He has provided my husband and I with creative abilities, and I think using those to do fundraising will be a great start.  So look out friends, we're headed on a wild ride!

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Regarding the option of adoption for us, it was a no-brainer. Children need a home and we have one. As we were pondering adoption and children, the one cultural mindset here in America that has surprised and saddened us is the number of people we have met that view children as such a burden (even in the Christian community). It is sad that the first question we get asked about our 3 children in 3 years is how expensive diapers were. Yes, children require time and money but so does a house and a car yet most people seem to make the time and finances available for that. That said, we don't believe that everyone has a Biblical command to adopt, however a different command is given.

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.

It truly seems that caring for orphans, however you tangibly do that, is a biblical imperative. God takes the lead in adoption. It is a theme that runs through the Bible.

Ephesians 1:5 He predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will.

Rom 8:14 For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.

Rom 8:15 For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, "Abba! Father!"

Rom 8:16 The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God,

Rom 8:17 and if children, then heirs--heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.