The Lunde Family (China)
Dan and I have always known that we wanted another child, and we’ve been interested in adoption for a long time. There are many reasons that we’ve decided to adopt, but the biggest one is that we feel that God is leading us to do this and that this is God’s plan for our family.
Pregnancies are really difficult for me, and when I was pregnant with our youngest, I really felt that it was going to be my last pregnancy. I can’t explain it, but I just prepared myself that this would be the last time I felt a baby’s movement inside of me, or the last time I would be in labor or holding my newborn baby. However, Dan and I still had the desire to have three kids. Dan loved his family dynamic of three when he was growing up, and I liked the idea of having a little more activity in the house from my two-child family. When we lived in Lynchburg, our church, Brentwood, had an amazing program called Mosaic. Basically, it’s all about taking care of children without families, whether it be through adoption, foster care, or mentoring. Learning about this really struck a chord with me, and after learning more about it, I always had it in the back of my mind as something that I wanted to do. In the quietest of moments, God would whisper the thought of adoption to me, just like He whispered to Elijah on the mountain. I was pregnant with Ezra (our now two-year-old) at the time, so it wasn’t the right time for our family to start an adoption process though.
I always knew growing up that my grandfather grew up in an orphanage, but I didn’t really understand the significance of that until I had my own kids. Thinking about my boys living in an orphanage without anyone to truly love them and take care of them was heartbreaking. I was even more heartbroken when I read my grandfather’s journal a few years ago. He was in an orphanage from the time he was three until about twelve. He talked about how sad he would be when the children were lined up when families came to pick out a child to adopt. He said he was never chosen because he wasn’t the cutest, and he felt so bad about himself then. My grandpa was a very special person to me, and I cried reading about what he went through. I can’t imagine any child going through that, and I want to make a very small difference by loving our daughter the way he never got to be loved as a child. I know that God works all things together for good, and I believe He wants me to bring good out of my grandfather’s childhood through a passion for adoption. My grandfather is no longer with us on earth, but God is still using him for His plan.
God began really speaking to me this January. I began researching adoption intensely. I read blogs and websites, researched different agencies and lots of types of adoption. I read books and I prayed. I shared this passion with my husband, and he quickly developed the same passion as me. I know God spoke to him, too. The crazy thing is this January, my husband turned 30 (I turned 30 just a month before in December). As we prayed for what country our daughter was in, we kept coming back to China. Guess what China’s minimum age for adopting is? Yep, it’s 30! God has such a perfect plan. Both Dan and I have both felt that our daughter has a cleft lip and cleft palate. God knows who our daughter is, and He has been leading us to a little girl with a cleft lip/palate. We have met with doctors in our area about this, and we know that we are more than ready for her to join our family.
I’m so glad that God has called us on this journey, and I am confident that He will keep showing us how to continue on this path He has planned for us. We haven’t seen her face yet, but we love our daughter in China and pray for her every day. She is ours, and God made her extraordinary.
- Rebecca Lunde