Journey to Addie

My husband Bob and I got married in 1995, and by 2001 had two beautiful daughters.  We were content with our family and had no plans to have any more children.  However, in December 2005, God showed us that He had other plans for us.

That December, we attended a play at our church that was put on by a group of orphans from the Ukraine. The purpose of the play was to draw attention to the plight of orphans and to try to find adoptive homes for some of the kids who were in the play.  I enjoyed the play and felt led to give money to help these children find homes, but I did not feel led to pursue adoption in any way. 
A few days after going to see the play, however, I attended a Christmas party with a gift exchange.  I received a DVD that included an adoption extra which told the story of Christian singer and songwriter, Stephen Curtis Chapman, adopting Shoahannah from China.  It was a story that Bob and I had both heard before at an adoption fund raiser that we had attended a few years before.  This time however, I couldn’t get adoption off of my mind.  I was specifically drawn towards the adoption of a little Chinese girl.  I prayed that if adoption was God’s plan for us, that Bob would be willing to pray with me about it.  A few nights later we discussed adoption together and Bob suggested we begin praying about whether it was something we should consider.  God had used the play at our church to prepare his heart to consider adopting.  This answer to my prayer was the first of many times that God specifically guided us toward adoption.

I started researching adoption and found out that although we met the adoption requirements for several countries, we didn’t meet the salary requirement to adopt from China.  We realized that it would take a miracle from God to adopt from there.  We knew God performed miracles, and He could make it work, but we also realized that Bob would probably need a different job.  He enjoyed his job as Program Director for a Christian retreat center and summer camp, and he didn't want to leave it.  We started praying for a miracle raise.