“Choosing to adopt took a lot of consideration and prayerful nights-but meeting our daughter for the first time was instant love”

  As a young couple, my wife Sherry had always had the heart to adopt, however, I was skeptical of the idea. As time went on, we had three wonderful children. As happy as we both were, Sherry still felt as if it was our calling to adopt to provide a better life to children who were in less fortunate circumstances, but I still wasn’t convinced. It took several years, but eventually I started to warm up to the idea of expanding our family.

She spent many prayerful nights asking God to soften my heart towards adoption.

  We started by researching international adoptions, looked to our local church for support, and got connected with others seeking to adopt. Eventually, after learning about the one-child policy in China (a national policy that set a limit on the number of births parents could have), we applied and were added to a waitlist to adopt a baby girl from China. We were overjoyed.

After eight months of waiting, we finally got a photo and the first glimpse of our baby girl, Mia.

  Mia was found alone in a bathroom stall. Her mother left her there to protect her and avoid being punished by the government. Because of this, Mia was able to come into our lives. We were later permitted to travel to China with a travel group to meet our new family member, and it was instant love. Soon after, we were able to bring our daughter home, and she quickly became part of the family as our fourth child.

She was only the beginning …

Little did we know, Mia was only the beginning of our adoption journey. We adopted twin boys, named Logan and Levi, with special needs from Korea. A few years later we learned adoptions were closing in Vietnam, and it was there that we adopted Zane, our 7th child, a 5-month old. Finally, we adopted a four-year-old girl from China named Isabella.

  Our story is not a typical one, now with eight children, but we are just like any other large family with ups and downs, traditions, celebrations, and lots of love to go around. Certainly, not everyone is equipped or prepared to choose adoption, but for our family, the motto is “go big or go home.” We felt our decisions to adopt was a calling for our family and that each child was handpicked for us by God.

The feeling you get when you are able to give love to a child, that may not have it in their current circumstances is truly a special gift.

Life’s About Choice