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Monthly Scripture Writing Challenge: Orphan Care
With November being Adoption Awareness Month and Ephraim’s adoption anniversary it seems like the perfect month for an orphan care Scripture writing challenge. I don’t think that every Christian needs to adopt or foster (but I’m not opposed to the idea either!) but we are all called to help the fatherless and needy. You’ll notice that the verses for this challenge are not all orphan specific, there are a lot of verses about doing good that don’t specifically point out orphan care. It plainly says in the Bible that people will know we are Christians by the way we treat those around us and one of the ways we can do…
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Why We Are Choosing to Foster (Instead of Adopting Again)
We’ve had a number of people ask us in the last couple of months why we made the decision to start the process to become foster parents and specifically why foster care over another adoption, so, let’s chat about that! Next month marks five years since we adopted Ephraim! And while the journey to him was long and at times painful, we cannot imagine our lives without him, he has brought so much good into our lives, God really knew what he was doing by putting him in our family. So, obviously we are pretty pro-international adoption. And to be honest, we did look into international adoption again. I mean,…
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The Truth About Adoption – Life Post Adoption
Tomorrow marks four years since Ephraim legally became part of our family. I am always blown away when I think about how long he’s been with us. On one hand it seems like just yesterday and on the other hand it feels like he’s always been here. I’ve been wanting to write a post-adoption post for a long time and the weekend of his adoption anniversary seems like the perfect time. When we were going through the adoption process I followed a lot of other couples in the process, both on social media and their blogs and I noticed an annoying trend: whenever they would complete the adoption process they…
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Our Adoption Story – The Journey to Ephraim
In just three months we will be celebrating Ephraim’s fourth anniversary of being a part of our family. I have no idea how time has gone so quickly. How is he not still that chubby one and a half year old who refused to say anything other than “Mama”? Honestly, there are some days where I forget that he is adopted but then I see his cheeky smile and how positive and happy he is and it hits me; he has someone else’s genes, while that smile is meant for me, he probably inherited it from one of his birth parents. At that point I’m usually overwhelmed by a sense of gratitude that I…
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Adoption Picture Books for Kids (and Parents!)
I can’t believe I’ve never shared an adoption picture book list here on the blog yet! Truth be told they aren’t the easiest of books to find, at least not good ones, but we’ve read a number of them and today we are sharing some of our favorites. Adoption is a topic that has always been on my heart, even as a teenager, I always knew that I wanted to adopt and was very fortunate to find a guy who was with me on that. The adoption process was not easy in the least, but three country programs and four agencies later, we were blessed with the funniest, cutest little…
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It Was Never Random
On the weekend someone asked me if we had adopted Ephraim. I always laugh a little inside when people ask, especially when they have seen both me and Jared; two people as white as us don’t usually produce children as brown as Ephraim. But I understand the question, it’s a polite and safe way to approach the subject and I enjoy talking adoption with people. After I confirm that yes, we had adopted him people usually have a reply that has made me feel a little uncomfortable. They make it seem like we are a higher class of people or are more righteous because we have adopted (neither are true),…
