Hey, friends. It’s been a while since I’ve been here. Life has been busy with so many changes and new opportunities. I will share a life update soon. God has been so very kind to us.
Some of you will remember our embryo adoption journey eight years ago. What a stretching, amazing part of our journey that was! I will forever be thankful that God trusted us on a road that I never imagined myself walking. As hard and painful as it was when we lost those sweet babies, so much good came out of that season too. One of them being a relationship with Nightlight Christian Adoptions. They were unbelievably kind and professional in helping us to navigate something that we knew absolutely nothing about. Nightlight also helped us to fight for a tiny baby with Down syndrome in Ghana who so desperately needed a family but sadly eventually got lost in a failed adoption system.
A few years ago, Anthony and I had the honor of being the keynote speakers at their annual fundraising banquet. More amazing people are truly hard to find.
In some ways, it feels like yesterday when families were stepping up to adopt children in record numbers from all over the globe. I remember the days when there would be several families in foreign countries at the same time, and they would meet up for coffee. Many built sweet friendships that remain today. And I remember the days when the adoption community would hold fundraisers to help newly-committed families in a race against time to bring home children who had serious medical issues. Money poured in as the body of Christ stepped up to help in any way they could. What amazing times those were!
Times sure have changed. International adoption laws, politics, changes in policy, and a world-wide pandemic certainly have all had a profound impact on declining adoption rates. According to this article in adoption.com, “In 2018, the last year for which data is available, the U.S. Department of State lists a total of 4,058 completed intercountry adoptions. At the height of international adoption, in 2004, a total of 22,989 adoptions were completed. That means that in less than fifteen years, the international adoption rate in the United States fell 82%. Throughout the news, we’ve learned that there are more children in need of forever families than ever before. According to UNICEF (the United Nations Children’s Emergency Fund), worldwide there are approximately 153 million orphans.”
Eighty-two percent is so hard to wrap my head around. Thousands and thousands of children without families. It’s all so unfathomable for the ones left behind.
For the last few months, the Lord has been stirring something in me, and I’ve been standing with an open heart. I’ve questioned what to do with this space that I’ve shared my heart in for so many years. Social media is so very different to what it was ten years ago. We’re living in unprecedented times, and I fear that things are only going to get worse. I’ve wrestled with what to do with this little space on the World Wide Web.
After so much praying and new opportunities that He has given me, the Lord is not done with me here (more on that later). I am teaming up with Nightlight as an advocate–a voice for the millions of children who long for a family. As often as possible, I will once again be sharing the faces and the stories of precious children who need someone to come for them. I believe that we are living in a time where, now more than ever, adoption advocacy is so desperately needed.
I am so excited to partner with such an incredible organization again–an agency that shares my heart and is passionate about seeing children placed in loving homes.
