Our story: The Lauman family
Adoption is tough. Yes, it’s beautiful and fun and exciting, but it’s also hard. Isn’t it true that great things are never simple? Our journey has been rife with twists and turns that we never expected, but it is only through these unexpected turns, that we have arrived where we have. What’s more- this journey is one that God saw from the moment we said “yes”.
One of the most difficult parts of both of our adoptions was filling out papers indicating needs that we would be “okay” with. This isn’t something you tend to think about when you enter the adoption process, but it is an incredibly big thing. With our first adoption, we thought and prayed and believed we had left a pretty open list of needs that our family could manage. Mobility and cognitive delays were over our head, as far as we were concerned, and we had no experience with this and figured God would want us to use our gifts as we saw them. We were confident with the list we submitted and were thrilled to be matched with a beautiful little boy from Yulin City. Things were going better than we could have ever planned.
Isn’t that how it is though when we are walking in God’s will? Things seem to “click”. It doesn’t mean there isn’t difficulty or frustration, but life moves in a way that seems to make sense with your calling. It was a crazy road to China the first time, but everything up until that point had solidified our belief that we were bringing home our son. This wasn’t a random child or a humanitarian mission – our flesh and blood was waiting for us.
This was our heart, our belief, our foundation. So the moment things went, by anyone else’s standards, completely crazy and we discovered new and significant needs of our son, we were able to firmly stand in the truth that he was our son whom we loved. See, love is powerful. Powerful enough to rewrite “acceptable needs”. Powerful enough to make hard choices no-brainers. Powerful enough to bring peace in a storm. Powerful enough to unite and bind a family. Powerful enough to rewrite tragedies into happy endings.
It was in the midst of this power that we entered into the adoption process again, even after completing a less than “normal” adoption. With some questions still unanswered, we still knew in our heart that there was still one missing from our family. This time when that list of “acceptable needs” came due, we took a different approach and circled virtually all of them knowing that God doesn’t really care about what we think we can handle because He will equip you to fulfill the call He has placed on your life.
This wasn’t an excuse to not exercise discernment – which we still had to do as we reviewed files, but it liberated us to move forward with confidence when we said “yes”. When we brought home our nine-year-old this past April, we knew with confidence that God would equip us as parents and as a family to deal with the needs that we had once thought were unrealistic for our family. By the grace of God, our transition has been almost seamless. Again, love has won out and strengthened the places, we believed, were our deficiencies.
Almost three years since we began our adoption journey, our family is complete with two more perfectly-formed children placed with us only through God’s miraculous hand. Both with needs outside of those we were “okay” with that short time ago; yet a perfect fit for our family and unstoppable testaments to the power of love.
Wherever you are in your adoption journey- I encourage you to know that God will provide. He will provide strength, comfort, encouragement, and most of all, He will provide love. So walk boldly with your head high as you seek to fulfill one of the fundamental callings of the Christian life – to care for the orphan (James 1:27) Continue to be quicker to listen than to tell God what He should do.
Learn more about China adoption requirements, China adoption costs, financing adoption, and an overview of adopting from China on our website. Questions? Feel free to contact our China team at China@awaa.org or call 800-429-3369