Twenty years ago, my wife, Deb, and I adopted two siblings. Sometimes we’ve been asked why we adopted. A few people have asked us about the process we went through to adopt. Others have questions they’re hesitant to ask. Questions about the difficulties of raising older children (5 and above) who have spent time in foster care.
So, with Deb’s approval, I’ve decided to begin sharing our story because I’m certain it will be beneficial for those who might be considering adoption. This is only the beginning of our story. This tells the trip from adoption being a “consideration” to initially meeting our children and it will answer your first question. Why did we adopt?
I think adoption is a beautiful thing. I think adoption is a Godly thing. I think adoption is a righteous thing. I think adoption is a very important thing. However, I also think that adoption might not be for everyone.
Adoption is an exciting, discouraging, heart-warming, heart wrenching, rewarding journey that revolves around the pinnacle of God’s creation - human beings.
Deb and I love human beings. When we got married, we knew we wanted to have a big family. We were blessed with two great bookend boys and two beautiful girls in between them. The perfect family, right?
Psalm 127:3-5 Children are a heritage from the Lord, offspring are a reward from him. Like arrows in the hands of a warrior are children born in one’s youth. Blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them.
I remember hearing a message on this passage of Scripture one time. The preacher delivering the message said that historically, during the time this Psalm was written, warriors carried 6 arrows in their quivers. So, in other words, while every child is a blessing, 6 children are an even bigger blessing!
As our children grew and began moving out on their own, I noticed we often had leftovers at the end of a meal. I’m not sure if Deb continued to cook for the same number of people or what. But leftovers seemed to become more common. I’m not a big fan of eating leftovers. Certain leftovers are ok. However, there are always those you cannot readily identify through a cloudy Tupperware container. You know which leftovers I’m talking about. Those that you’re afraid to open because they’ve taken on a life of their own.
So, one evening after dinner when everyone had eaten their fill, I noticed there was still uneaten food on the table. I said to Deb, “There must be a kid out there somewhere who needs a meal.” From there our discussions began. Over a period of months this thought kept coming back to us. It came back to me more often when I looked in the refrigerator and didn’t know what I was looking at!
Together Deb and I concluded that we had enough of everything for another child. We had enough food. We had enough room. There was at least one empty bed. We were certain we had enough love. We then began to pursue the idea of finding a child to bring into our home.
We had heard there were multitudes of children who needed foster homes and that the foster care system was overrun and out of options. Not knowing much more about it, Deb got in touch with a State of Florida foster care contact and told them we were interested in becoming foster parents and bringing a foster child into our home. She was met with enthusiasm by the person on the phone. We thought that due to the great need for foster homes there’d be someone from the agency knocking on our door the next day. The reality was that the system was broken. Months went by and we had not heard anything from them. We never ever did. That was hard for us to process. Maybe the need wasn’t as great as we had been led to believe. Maybe this wasn’t something God wanted us to pursue. After months of not hearing anything at all, the idea slipped to very back of our minds.
Then one day Deb came home from her job and said I wouldn’t believe the speaker she had heard that day at a lunch meeting. Deb was an officer at a local bank and one of her job requirements was to be a member of a civic organization. Deb had joined the Kiwanis which held a monthly lunch meeting with a different guest speaker each time. She would usually tell me about the speaker each month and about their message. However, she hadn’t come home this excited about a speaker since they’d had a representative from the Tampa Bay Buccaneers speak. That speaker came shortly after Deb, our youngest son, Caleb, and I had been to the game when our Green Bay Packers came to town. We witnessed Reggie White sacking Trent Dilfer. Dilfer sustained an ankle sprain and adding insult to injury, they carted him out on a John Deere Gator, which is basically Packers’ colors. But that’s another story.
The speaker this day at their meeting was Sister Claire. She was a Catholic nun who oversaw a ministry not far from our community called Everyday Blessings. Deb explained to me that they have a group home for foster kids near Thonotosassa. Sister Claire informed the lunch audience that they offer MAPPs classes. This stands for Model Approach to Partnership in Parenting. These were the required classes needed to become foster parents! Not only did they offer the classes, but they also then facilitated matching parents with available children! This is what we were looking for but didn’t have a clue how to find it.
We signed up and found Sister Claire to be the best. She did an excellent job leading the classes, answering questions, and making us feel ready to go forward with confidence. After several weeks we completed the classes. We then filled out a form that assisted them in matching us with a child.
One of the things that surprised us was the list of special needs on the form. Sister Claire had told her class to not be ashamed to say we couldn’t take a child with certain special needs. She said it would be better to say so up front, than for it to become a big problem later. Many of the special needs on the forms we expected, and knew we were not capable of handling these children’s needs. However, some of the things listed as special needs were shocking to us. I remember three surprise special needs. Bed wetting. A sibling group of two or more. And mixed-race children. We did not check those three boxes. We felt we could work through a bed wetting issue. We could see how a sibling group could be intimidating but thought we might consider taking two siblings. And our upbringing and our beliefs didn’t allow mixed-race to compute in our minds as a special need whatsoever.
We turned in the form. After it was reviewed, we were immediately asked if we’d definitely take two siblings. We said Yes. We were then asked if we’d take four. We said No. Two was our limit. Then we went away and waited for a call.
Some time had gone by without hearing any news. Then, what seemed like a miracle, or at least an extraordinary circumstance, took place. Deb and I were in Guatemala on a missions trip and suddenly my phone rang. This was back in the day of flip phones. I’m not even sure why I had my phone charged and turned on. I suppose just out of habit. The connections in Guatemala were extremely limited and we hadn’t made or received a call since we had been in the country. But my phone began ringing and it was an area code from Tampa. I answered the call and was pleased to be talking with a representative from Everyday Blessings. She was informing us that we had been matched with 2-year-old African American twin boys! They asked me if we would be willing to pursue their adoption. I was talking to Deb at the same time I was talking to the representative. We said YES! We were very willing and very excited! After the call we began making plans and thinking of names. We could hardly wait to get home, meet the boys, and welcome them into our family.
Shortly after returning home, we received another call. We expected this one to be setting up a time to connect with the twins. Instead, it was a call informing us that grandparents of the foster family had decided to adopt the twins. They were given first choice because they already had a relationship with the twins. This was a huge, discouraging setback for us. Suddenly our dreams were swept away in an instant. The news hurt and we were left with nothing we could say or do. I still think sometimes that maybe a day will come when, by chance, we run into twin African American men who were adopted, and they’ll tell us what a wonderful family they’ve grown up with. That would be a great blessing.
Now it was back to waiting and wondering if we’d ever get another call. As time went by and we dealt with the loss of the twins, we eventually did get a call. Our case worker called me and informed me they had two sets of siblings that they would like us to meet. They said there were two brothers. They believed the parental rights to these two boys would soon be terminated. They also had two sisters, 10 and 11 years old, whose parental rights had already been terminated. The question was which two would we like to meet first. I told the case worker that I would discuss this with Deb and call her back.
For Deb and I, one of the weirdest parts of all of this was the offer to meet the children and then decide on whether to choose them or not. It was presented to us as though we were picking out puppies. It sounded like if we didn’t like the way they looked, we could reject them. We both knew this could not and would not happen. We knew that the moment we said which pair we would meet, they would be our children and we would be their parents.
As Deb and I discussed the options presented to us we had to make the decision. Would we bring two boys into our family or two girls? We discussed what it might be like. How we felt about two boys vs. two girls. It had now gotten very real. This was happening. We had launched into the concept of fostering and adopting, which was a process that had taken a few years. Now we were actually going to be doing this. As Deb and I talked over the phone, I was reminded of the day our oldest daughter, Polly, was married. I then said to Deb, “One of the very best events of my life was when I walked Polly down the aisle on her wedding day. Let’s tell them the girls. Every girl deserves a dad to walk them down the aisle.”
I called our case worker and told her we wanted to meet the girls. She thought that was great and said she thought we would really love them. She said their names were Odallas and Kiera and we set up the first meeting. The case worker would be bringing them to our house for dinner in a few days. I called Deb back and told her their names. We both thought Odallas was a very unusual name. I said to Deb, “Why couldn’t her name be Ogreenbay?” We found out later that her name is O’Dalys (O Da Lease), which is a beautiful Spanish name, and we learned it’s not an unusual name among Puerto Ricans.
The girls came to our home for dinner. We kept it simple and just cooked burgers on the grill. We learned later that when the girls first saw our house and its location, they thought ‘here were go again’. I cannot imagine what it must be like for children to be pushed from one home to another not knowing what to expect. Our property is located next to a cemetery, which they found odd. Then, since we had just recently moved into the house, we did not yet have the new blinds installed on the windows. Deb had hung sheets and blankets up as temporary window shades. In retrospect it all must have looked kind of creepy. O’Dalys and Kiera later told us that when Deb came running out the front door with her amazing smile, and barefoot, their fears disappeared. We made an immediate connection. I’ll never forget the smiles on the faces of those two beautiful little girls.
During our MAPPs classes Sister Claire had instructed us to be culturally aware of the food we served to the foster children. She said the children might be used to foods we don’t eat and that they may not like eating the things we like to eat. O’Dalys and Kiera seemed more than happy with the burgers and chips we served them. However, since they are Puerto Rican, we thought we should ask them about their favorite foods. We were expecting them to say they loved roast pork and black beans. To our surprise they said “Sushi”. This still comes up now and again and we laugh with them about their response.
So why did we begin the journey of adoption? Our reasons are not the same as everyone who adopts. They don’t have to be the same. Everyone has their own story. Our decision was based on the facts in front of us and our belief system.
We adopted because we could. We had plenty of everything to go around. I remember being told that if a person has the ability to help someone, then they have the obligation to help.
We adopted because we love people. We believe that every single human being matters. Why not share our love with two more of God’s creations? They need to know they’re important and that someone really does care.
We adopted because God adopted us into His family even though we did nothing to deserve it. We believe adoption is a way of modeling God.
We adopted because we hoped to shape two more lives into being productive adults.
We adopted because we felt our quiver was not quite full enough.
So that’s OUR WHY. Of course, the story continues. This has only gotten us to the first day and the first meeting. There’s much more I hope to share in future posts.
The undertaking of becoming a foster parent, or adopting a child, needs to be precluded with lots of prayer. A husband and wife need to be certain they are in full agreement as well as being committed to each other and the children for the long haul.
If fostering or adopting is something you’re considering and you have questions, Deb and I would love to help and even coach you along the way.
NOTE:
There are approximately 400,000 kids in foster care on any given day in the United States. Many of them are available and waiting to find their forever homes. One of the saddest statistics is that when a child reaches 5 years old, their chances of being adopted dramatically declines. Yet there are 17-year-olds in foster care still hoping to be adopted just so they can be connected to a family and have a place to come home to on holidays.
