Praying for Discernment

One significant item Amy and I are praying through and desperately need God’s guidance on right now is WHEN to adopt the second little girl. We still are convinced to adopt two, but we are struggling as to when to adopt the second. There are pros and cons to both scenarios of adopting them at the same time or adopting one then going back to get the second 6 months, a year, or even two years later. The real struggle in this decision has to do with the ability (really the lack there of) of the child to bond to us. Some of the issues that parents and families face when adopting a child internationally is hard for many to even imagine. One of the biggest and most crucial elements to face early on after the child comes home is teaching the child to bond with the family. For example, one family who adopted a little girl from an orphanage in China when she was 12 months old shared their story with us, and told us that one of the adjustments they had to teach her was how and when to cry! That is hard to even imagine that a child does not know how and why to cry! I cannot imagine my sons being hungry, scared, or just wanting someone to love and cuddle them and crying so much and so long until they just give up.  In short, they learned at a very young age in the orphanage that when they are crying in the bed, no one is going to respond, so they give up. The simple interactions we have with our children, the laughing, playing, disciplining, etc. that goes on every day throughout the day are essential to our children’s development and in doing all this, we develop that inseparable bond with them. In stark contrast, these children in these orphanages have completely missed out on those critical bonding experiences and therefore this alters their ability to ever develop those bonds in what we would consider to be a normal sense. Many of these children, as a result, are never able to develop these deep, intimate bonds with anyone for the rest of their lives.

Those challenges in mind, we want to be absolutely sure we do all we can to promote that bond development and it is possible that if we adopt them together it could hinder the development of that bond between them and us. We do NOT want to make this decision based on what makes the most sense or what we think will work best. We want to KNOW HIS WILL and follow Him. I pray that "the peace of God which surpasses all understanding guards our hearts and minds," (Phil 4:7) so we can clearly discern His will in this.


In Christ

Andrew