Adoption-From the Begining

   Many have asked, "how did your adoption come about?" Several answers come to mind when asked this question. For me, Rachel, my desire for adoption came when my older sister came home from a summer Focus Missions trip from East Asia. She shared her experience with my family and me. I remember it like it was yesterday. We were sitting in our basement and she was going over a picture story board that she was about to share with our church on the following Sunday. As she told us the story of the China One Child Policy and the abundance of children being literally tossed out with the trash, my heart was broken. I was only a teenager, but I could not quit thinking about these babies. How could someone have such a disreguard for something so precious? To this day, I still get overwhelmed with feelings of anger, disbelief and stomache pain over this issue. I decided that day that when I was older, even if I couldn't change all of those babies situations, I would strive to change at least one through adoption.
   My mom might tell you my heart for China specifically began at a much earlier age. My grandmother traveled to New York City and brought my sister and I home a Chinese hand-made doll (the one pictured on my face book). I was obcessed with my China doll. My grandma also got me a pair of Chinese pajamas. My mom said I wore those everywhere! When I was 8 years old I even dressed up as my China doll for Halloween that year. ( I was in 2nd grade, Wow they would never let kids do that today!) Picture below.

(Little did I know that the Lord was preparing my heart for a love for these people and a heart for adopting from China.)
  
   Scott's heart for adoption also begins at an early age. One of his elementary school best friends was adopted from South Korea. Scott's dad was also adopted. He grew up thinking, this makes sense...there are plenty of children that needs families...one day I will choose a child to be apart of my family.
   Scott and I were on our second date in college when we had our first discussion about adoption. I remember sitting in his old blue ford ranger truck and talking at a park. We were both "dumping" all of our ideals and past garbage on each other trying to see if the other person was going to get scared off. Scott said very bluntly, I don't really care about having any biological children, I want to adopt. I can remember being dumb founded by this. Of all the things he said that night, his statement about adoption had the most impact on me. I had been praying that God would send me a mate that had the same passion for God and heart for adoption as I did. Not only did he answer my prayers, He gave me a tender hearted warrior who was solid in his faith, very handsome, and didn't care about carrying on his legacy through any biological children?! Only God could match two people like us;)
   So, that was that. We were married in 2004 and later that year we begin to pray that God would reveal to us when we were supposed to start the adoption process and who he had picked out for our Bennington Bunch:)