Update: 11/17/2012
In January 2012, after we had already felt the call to adopt again, and this time from China, Ty and I both began to believe that this was not going to be a one time thing. Yes, we are going to take one adoption journey at a time (we think), but we are leaving our lives open to the Lord and what he wants. We may adopt 1, we may adopt 10. It is up to the Lord. We feel very called to adoption for our lives. It has been made completely clear that this is the path He has called us to. God has blessed us to continue with His plan. We never ask how we will do this. We just KNOW that if He is calling us, He WILL provide all that we need, and He has so far. We have seen miracles right before our very eyes. When you open up your life and tell God to do all that He wants with it, He will do BIG things, things you would not believe. Our faith has grown, our hope has grown, and our love continues to grow. This means so much to us as our daughters' middle names are faith, hope, and love.
...For I am going to do something in your days that you would not believe, even if you were told. Habakkuk 1:5
There have been MANY things happen that sometimes I still can't believe. This verse has been evident in our lives over and over and over again for many years. As long as we will say YES, He continues to provide the plans and the way. God is so good, especially when I don't deserve it.
Below is our story on how we began feeling called to adopt: ( Written summer 2011)
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Feel free to email us anytime: marci.whitford@yahoo.com
Ty and I married in July, 1997. From that day forward we have been pretty open to what God has wanted to do in our lives. Our road has not always been easy, and we've made plenty of mistakes, but we continue to absolutely love the path we are on.
We were blessed with two boys, Cameron (born on Christmas 1998) and Coleton (March 2000). In addition, we adore spending time with Amanda and Zack, Ty's two adult children.
In 2003 we began to feel the call to adopt. We attended a conference where Ty listened to information about US foster care and I attended a China break out session. Through that experience our hearts were broken for anything God wanted us to do. We prayed where to go from there. I was too young still to adopt from China, and we felt God's calling to adopt from our own "backyard". We entered into 9 weeks of foster care classes in March of 2005 and earned our license in May. We got a few calls for some respite care, but did not feel like that was for us. We continued to enjoy our summer, I went back to teaching that fall, and received our first placement call in Sept. 2005.
Kerianna and Keliyah came that night and they have not left since! We road the foster care roller coaster for 4 years and were able to adopt Keri, Keliyah, and Kaden (the girls' brother whom we brought home from the hospital Oct. 2006) in October 2009.
We absolutely love and adore our family that God has created! We honestly believed that our family was complete until this winter. I had been struggling and praying that God would show me that either we were to have another biologial child or we were not. I felt that I was getting older and wanted to make sure I would never regret not having another biological child. We had not originally expected to adopt a sibling group, so we had always thought we'd have at least one more pregnancy.
In early March 2011 God answered my prayer. I truly believed that I had unexpectantly gotten pregnant, but had to wait out the days to know for sure. I had everything planned out in my mind with the new baby, although I didn't know for sure how I would feel if I was or wasn't pregnant. We are in a new place in our lives with our family and careers, and I didn't know if babyhood was something I had truly wanted to go back to. We would accept and embrace it if I was pregnant, and if not, then I'd know if we wanted to pursue it again or not. Well, around 10 days later we found out that I was NOT pregnant and found ourselves surprisingly feeling relieved. That was an answer to prayer...I had been wondering for at least a year if this was something we wanted to do again or not.
But, not the end of the story! God did close my heart to another pregnancy that day, but he opened it BIG TIME to the vision of bringing home a toddler to our family. I left it at that. It was not the right time to do this. With getting my second masters degree and Ty only being back to work for 4 months, along with our home addition being incomplete, we were NOT in the place to begin this. So I put it out of my mind and told myself to revisit the idea in about a year and a half.
Not God's plan! So a few days later as I was struggling with Pink Eye, I sat down to open the huge month-old pile of mail. (trying to get better at not waiting so long) Among it was a cardboard mailer from Show Hope (ww.showhope.org). My eyes immediately caught and paused on one of the cutest faces I had ever seen... and I was in love.
Through the mail I had fallen in love with a little China toddler named LuLu. I showed her to Ty and he didn't necessarily think it meant anything. He had not yet caught the vision I had, knowing our lives were too crazy at the moment with a ridiculously small home in which to add more children. (He has always said, "I'd adopt 10 more kids if I had the house to do it".) So a few days later, I emailed Show Hope to just find out more information about LuLu, but thought for sure she had probably already been adopted or was in the process.
About 3 weeks later I received an email saying that she had just begun the process to become available for adoption. I could not believe what I was reading and that is all it took to get me on board! Once I shared this email with Ty, he immediately hopped on board and said that God had been bringing LuLu to mind throughout the day. Now, we know it may not work out to get LuLu, although we are praying for that, but we also know that God may have used LuLu to put us on this path. We will be completely content with His plans.
This is a very scary path for us, but we know from past experience that when we are in God's plan and on His path for us, He will ultimately provide all that we need. We are taking one step at a time and believing in Him for all that needs to get done and for all that we need to complete this adoption. We will continue to update you on our timeline of the process.
So that is our story and I look forward to sharing the journey with you!
