An Adoption Story - The Hostetler's Journey of Adoption - Full length documentary

each other a a group and they love each other with brothers and sisters adoption means adoption means adoption means um if a baby is in orphanage and it doesn't have a family it gets a family adoption is like the doctor means like Godzilla transfer the child is in an orphanage then they go into the pit board then they get their child and the child has it forever family give me a family because if they don't have a family you'll be a little and if they do have a family they won't build it means that whatever you did family in kick you up you'll always stay with them this is really cool adoption is special adoption has majorly creates a family I can't imagine my feeling without any of my siblings you I love my family is what I love about my family is not a cheerful and joyful every day and we work together and we do a lot of fun things together this always so much like joy and happiness this is I love my family because the thing I love about my family is like for me sometimes I know five sisters and seven brothers that's just why kids there's never a quiet moment oh it's hectic it's very crazy um sometimes we fight cuz that's like just normal it can't be crazy it's amazingly crazy we sing a little but my family is they love me there's no like home yeah I love you huh it's crazy I'm thankful for God for business getting a family so it was an early morning and I was doing my quiet time at the kitchen table in the house that we just built our dream house and had my tea and and we were really praying at that time about whether or not to have another baby that was the idea you know because adoption was never even on our radar ever and so it was shocking and stark how it happened I was really studying in Matthew and I just heard not the audible voice that I just heard the voice of the Lord say to me my pattern for you is to adopt I remember thinking what I mean it's too early in the morning I haven't had enough caffeine I can remember calling Doug on the phone using the car and I was like I was on my way to the radio station and he says to me what is it like what do you mean there's nothing he's like I know you what is it and I can hear in the back of the suburban he's driving a suburban I can hear our three daughters who are all under the age of six screaming and fighting somebody's crying somebody's stolen something and the sound is deafening over my cellphone and he's like I want to know now what is going on with you I can tell something's going on with you I said well honey I think maybe I think maybe God told me we're supposed to adopt and I can remember he's dead silent the only thing you can hear is the children were fighting all this kind of stuff and I'm thinking has he wrecked has he passed away now has the heart gone you know because he I can't even hear breathing and it was sort of deliberate I'm still driving down the road my heart is thundering in my chest and he had a classic Doug Hostetler well I'll have to pray about that I'm like wow that's a big deal so I had to spend some time in prayer and some fasting and and digging into Scripture I just wanted to see you know if God had the same message for me because if not that's kind of a tough thing when you're married you need to have the same direction you're pulling and after several days of of study and prayer and thought I thought if we can you know how can we not if someone really needs parents how can we not you know we've got room in her home we we have room in our hearts we can do that so naomi was our first adoption and it was very interesting because I had done a radio interview with an adoption agency and as I'm saying goodbye to the representative from the adoption agency she said you know our new list of waiting children is getting ready to come out and if you want I'll give you the password for it online and I was like waiting children she said yeah our special-needs kids how's it going no no no no no special needs no we could not ever do special needs but you know as one of those moments where I just felt like the Holy Spirit kind of pinged me and say pay attention and sure enough a couple weeks later Doug and I are sitting around the computer looking at these pictures and you know they all touch your heart and then up comes this picture on my screen and I remember just looking at her and thinking she looks familiar and it was like in that moment I was like oh there you are I had no idea where you were you know when God told us to do adoption we didn't know if it was through foster care in the States or from Africa I mean it wasn't our idea to begin with but when I saw her oh how fast can I get to my daughter was unbelievable and so hers was a record time sort of situation we were in China seven months after we saw her picture we got there and I remember when she walked in the room we could hear her coming down the hall squeak-squeak-squeak and because the little Chinese kids often wear squeaky shoes but only one for shoes was squeaking the other one was dead and we'll always remember that sound you know in the beginning I thought I knew what adoption was you know I think I had so so many sort of naive and narrow parameters around the idea it's like there's a child in need and we can give that child a family and that's a good thing to do and I think I can love that child like I love my biological children and I know that God's told me to do it so yeah I think I can do that but the very first time when Naomi grace walked into the room and here's this child you know we've been we've had her picture we've been pursuing her we've been doing all the paperwork we've been gathering all the finances been doing everything in and she walks into this room you know and it was like I have loved you already you've never seen me before but I love you and I remember she didn't look at me first because there's a whole gaggle of us my mom and my dad and my Mize our daughters all four of our daughters are with us and Doug and I say I mean she's got a whole bunch of people look at and she walked into the room and I just my heart was just full of love for her which is supernatural it's completely supernatural I never been in her presence before and she walks in and I remember that when she looked at me the first time I thought I wonder if that's just how it is the first time when we look at God and see that he's been loving and pursuing us I mean it's just like this he's been loving and he's been pursuing he's been reaching out he's been moving mountains sometimes to draw us to himself and that's what it feels like with adoption and then there she was and I thought you don't know me at but I adore you an adoption is like taking and wearing the heart of God and then like being a vessel where God's love just pours through you and you get to experience really heaven you get to Ariane's heavenly love while you're walking around here on earth you know dragging your knuckles on the ground having all kinds of problems and bruising your knees but every once in a while you have this experience where you're you're experiencing this divine love through adoption and you're like heaven is in my life it's unbelievable several months later we started to feel kind of a stirring about adoption again and we looked at all these pictures Doug was absolutely certain it was going to be a girl because we had a house full of girls naomi was our fourth girl at home our oldest two were out of the house already naomi was our fourth girl at home and he's like we've got the girl dear we're going to do a girl so we were looking at these files and there was this one file of this guy with one eye Amanda and I at night laid her heads on the pillow and she said hey who who are you thinking about from that list and I said I can't get the little guy with one eye I just can't get him out of my mind and she said me too but I had reasoned that if God was going to call us to adopt again that the child would come from the same city in province where Naomi had come from so this guy with one eye though it said that he was in another province it said he was in Hebei province and the in the Northeast but our kids were from who Bey and I decide I don't know Doug said well by jazz first five I don't know I don't know he said just ask for the file and let's see so the file came in the next morning and I'll never forget this I was sitting on my couch upstairs and I opened the file and it said 'if ooming fostered at the each on self Social Welfare Institute in Hubei Province the province that there was a good I mean I feel like a lightning bolt went through me I mean I just felt like oh my goodness this is my son he is not in this other province he's in the province where we've been before in the city where we've been before you know this has got to be him dad's gone working and he calls me about midday and I'm trying to act really cool I'm not very good at that and I'm on the phone of them a lot of adoption talk happens on the phone and I said honey I got the file for that guy and he said really but I said yeah I said and there was a typo that's all I said and he had this sort of knowing thing and he kind of left and I remember him saying he's in whoo Bay isn't he now I mean it could have been any typo you know it's his right eye not his left eye it's a girl not a boy I mean it could have been anything he's five not two but he knew that he was in our province and I said yes he is and I can remember Doug laughing and saying well let's go get our boy so during the time between Naomi and Isaiah's adoption we also started to feel very very stirred that for some unknown reason that maybe we were to relocate as well to China and so in the year between Naomi and Isaiah coming home we just knocked on every door every door every door to try to get back to this city this city one we just felt something so strongly about that and it's where our kids were from and so you know you're connected to that forever but no doors would open and Doug had made me Doug had asked me to make a covenant with him early on in the adoption journeys early on in the time when our faith moved from kind of intellectual to really living out our faith he he made me covenant with him that if God opened the door we would walk through it and I'm like of course whatever door got opens we'll walk through that's a great idea right just after we returned from bringing Isaiah back to the United States we got a phone call from a school in Shanghai that wanted us to apply to come and teach and I was like no no no no no no no I am called my heart is for Mahon this is Shanghai and no way and we've tried to go to behind for a whole year and no doors of open so I'm moving on and dad said is it an open door so I sent the resumes this was in November we hear nothing November December January feb 9 2016 7 this room Doug and I got a phone with this woman who basically said through the course of a whole variety of things you know I know you've applied for the school in Shanghai she said and the school is very interested having you come here but I wonder if he would consider a new school were opening in a city called what I started to cry she mistook my silence for thinking I had no idea where Wuhan was so she starts to tell me Wuhan is in Hubei Province Buono Duck is writing furiously this is it this is it on this thing from you and literally in one hour we went from living the life that we thought okay we're going to adopt some kids two kids now we're going to live an American continue on - we hang up the phone and I remember she said to me well it seems like it's all settled and it was March the 5th and on July 23rd we lift to China our oldest son and his wife came to visit us and we went to Shanghai for a weekend I remember that we were walking through a very crowded touristy street and I heard this Gong Gong Gong sound and and I heard the sound before I saw them but as we walked a little bit further down the road to the right there were two people who were begging the one had a hand and had a gong hand was like this no fingers here and had a thumb and this gong hanging and it was beating beating beating and the other one was blind and was kind of singing or playing a flute anyway it was like my mind took his picture at this moment and again I kind of felt that pinging the Holy Spirit pay attention pay attention but I can still see them today in my mind's eye we went home and a few weeks later a Chinese friend of ours our Chinese family was over and Isiah was playing around in the living room and he is just a sunshiny soul and he was just laughing and coming and giving hugs to his dad and I and our Chinese friend said you know do you understand what would have probably happened in his life if you had not adopted him and I was like oh yeah it could have been very - go easy no no no he said he probably would have been a beggar it just just seeing my happy and healthy and beautiful boy playing in this room and imagining and immediately that image of those two who were begging flashed into my mind and it just threw me I mean it just grieved me thinking about this beautiful boy who brings so much joy to our life what if what if he had been on a street corner that night Doug and I went to bed very very late and I was just so stirred up and I started to talk to Doug about what our Chinese family had said to me about him begging and I'll never forget Doug's saying to me he said you know I really feel like we're supposed to open her heart again to adoption I said I do too I said but I don't even know if we can we're expats living in China how do we do that what you know he said well if anyone can find that out it's you so you go research it and so that night I got up out of bed Doug went off and snored knowing confidently that I would give in to some more info in the morning and I started searching online does anyone do expat I started looking at waiting child listings and there are several different that are out there but in the course of a night that went on for four or five hours longer I saw a picture of this one boy and again just like with Naomi you see all these pictures they all are sweet they'll touch you but when I saw him there was something about him I knew there was something about him and then in the second picture of him I saw his hand was missing fingers right here and head of thumb and I immediately thought again of those two in Shanghai where I had felt the holy spirit say pay attention and you know our son Isaiah has a visual thing so it was almost the same sort of thing but I felt something about that boy and I wrote to that agency do you would you work with expats blah blah blah I didn't hear anything for a few days so I pick up the phone and I call them in Colorado that agency was in Colorado I'm asking about this boy on your list she said oh his file is already under review which usually means in the adoption world he's got a family and then I've had good you know we just must have you know had indigestion stayed up too late that night and we were not adopting again and just as I was about to hang up the phone I felt the Holy Spirit say to me ask her where he is and I said excuse me could you tell me where that boy is and she said oh sure I can tell you that and I could hear her wrestling through papers and she said oh it says that he's fostered at the Wuhan Social Welfare Institute that's the very city where we were sitting where we were I mean of all the cities in the vast country this one boy's picture I really feel something about in his hand he's right there in my city and I told her I said I know you have your procedures and everything I said but that's my son so when the other people are done with his file you call me I'm sure she thought it was nuts that's how we started with Graham and we were in the process for Grameen the same lady called me back about four months later and said there's another boy in the same Institute who no one has chosen and we're about to lose his file and we don't know what will happen would you consider him and I remember thinking immediately no nope no way two two-year-old boys I'm turning 40 this year Doug is turning 53 no no how many ways could I say no twin two-year-old boys in the year that I turn 40 no I'm supposed to buy a sports car or something not get twins and Doug as usual was the first one he had actually an experience of his own where he walked out of the bedroom and in a house that was built of solid concrete he walked into a kitchen and off the top shelf a pan started to fall down and he said it was just perfectly in stride the things started fall down and he just reached out and caught it like this he said it was just like it was unbelievable this experience like he didn't have to break his stride he didn't run and nothing had shaken it just started to fall and he grabbed it and he said when he grabbed it you heard the Holy Spirit say to have you are in the right place at the right time and so he told me I think it's a yes we should do these boys and I was wrestling again twin two-year-old boys Doug's like if we can how can we not that I thought you know this boy is in my city if they drove him from the orphanage to my door and knocked on my door and said this is a boy who doesn't have a family can he come to live with you of course I would have said yes but I was letting the idea of paperwork and distance and process kind of give me this feeling of being in control of the situation I think and so we said yes and when Graham and Silas came home Graham had been in a foster home with an incredible foster family who just poured into him and nurtured him and Silas had not and Silas scared me to death and I thought oh now we've done it you know now we've cut somebody that I thought maybe either he had autism or maybe he had some degree of mental retardation but he was just like he had no effect in his face at all he hadn't had nothing and I thought oh I can't do this I can't I can't do this this was a mistake we shouldn't have done this we shouldn't have done this I just felt this panic and Doug was just like oh come on God didn't bring us this far to drop us on our heads we had a driver a Chinese driver who drove us on the day that we went to adopt them and he waded out in the in the parking lot until we come out with these two twin year-old boys they're only a week apart in age and we came out with them and I can still see I was sitting on the front row of the bench and I could see this driver who we knew well he kept looking in the rearview mirror watching us you know and I remembered the look in his eye was just like what have you done I mean the boys were crying and there was just grieving and I'm sure I looked like I'd been hit by a truck with fear and Doug as being his great straw I mean he is the guy who shows up big time in these situations he's this holding them and patting me and but this driver I could see he thought we were insane when he came to us he was absolutely flawless there wasn't a bruise on him he had no core strength he could barely walk he couldn't feed himself at two-and-a-half he just had he was so delayed he was so delayed he couldn't even sit upright in the car when the car was moving it was unbelievable and after four days with us he'd been just exploring the apartment and I remember that Doug told the boys okay it's time to go to bed he told them in Chinese and and he picked up Silas he was trying to run around on his little feet and Silas was kicking both his arms and legs against his dad shouting way up ha ha I went to run I want to run you know I was thinking he's two-and-a-half and he's never never been able to run and I think Doug describes him as being like a little plant that had no Sun and it was just like when the Sun came in the love of family and the love of our Father came in he just went wild and he has the most expressive face now I mean it could be a comedian his you know and God just healed him in the power of love the power of healing the healing power of love that comes in family cannot be disputed I mean he is it totally he's a walking miracle every time I look at him I think about he was like a potted plant and I was terrified and now he's just he's hysterical the kid is hysterical and we went to America than a few weeks later and we were gone for about two months then we came back and the same driver picked us up at the airport and we came out of the airport the baggage claim and this driver met us and these two boys Silas and Graham waved out and said you know Niehaus a fool you know hello driver and I saw his eyes again and that driver he had seen it he had seen a miracle he could not believe that were those were the same two boys that he had driven home from the vintage on that first day and you know that's the story that's what happens total transformation total transformation happens when when children are taking out of an institution and put in a loving family and he saw the miracle and then of course he wanted to know why everyone always wants to know why and there's just one answer because we follow Jesus and Jesus told us to and sure enough about nine or ten months later I can't remember how it started I think it started with hearing about a boy who was in Wuhan who didn't have a family yet and so it got Doug and I talking again are we full could we fit anybody else in here you know basically are we at our limit and I said I really feel like it should be a boy from a boy friend Wuhan boys are historically boys are the last chosen the greatest special need you can be born with in the into the adoption world is being born a boy and here was this little guy his file was so old he was five years old the year that we reviewed the file his file was from when he was one and he had he like so many boys his file had just gone on the Shelf nobody looked at him nobody knew him and so we began to pursue him he was missing a kidney and we began to pursue him and in that year of paperwork six months to eight months of paperwork I had the opportunity to go speak to a group of short-term errs that came to a very famous kind of privately-owned orphanage in the northeast of China I had gone and spoken before to their short-term groups that came in and I said this time I'd like to bring my daughters my four oldest girls and because they are fluent in Chinese and just let them play with the babies and you know have a good time okay sure they said so I came and I was busy talking with the with the short term Rizal of the time and my girls were just going through floors one through five just visiting nursery after nursery playing with kids and moving and having a favorite in every room all of the girls met so many kids except for Eleanor who was 7 years old she only met one she met him on the first day that she went in there and she never left his side for the four days we were there and she came out the first night and she said mama mama you've got to meet this boy she said mama we have got to adopt him and I'm like oh no no no no they is a speaking weekend I'm here speaking and you're visiting and then we're going to go home to our family of seven and that will be enough a family of nine but seven kids and every time she come out for a meal mama come see him come see him please come meet him and so of course I went to meet him and I'll be truthful all I really saw besides his darling eyes and his smile was the fact that he couldn't walk and that was impossible that does a complete impossibility there's no way being expats living in China we could have a child in a wheelchair there's no medical care we don't have a van we use public buses there's no sidewalk accessibility that she's impossible that child was beautiful and he could be adopted into a family in America or someplace else but it couldn't be our family but she just insisted over and over and over again mom you know you know what will happen to him if he doesn't get a family mom you got to look at him he's special we left there on the fourth day and I didn't know I learned later that Eleanor said to him I will be back for you I will not leave you here and we got on a train and we went back to Wuhan and it was about several hour train trip and she cried at seven years old for almost three solid hours I've never ever seen a child at that age grieve that long she just grieved and grieved and grieved and she just continued every day mama we've got to go back for him we have to go back for him and I'd say honey it's impossible it's just impossible he couldn't be a part of our family we live in China and we don't have medical care we don't have a car and there's no wheelchair accessibility now I give her the whole long list and then she mama can we at least pray for him well of course we can pray for him we'll pray for him to have a family and then everybody the family gets into praying for him and then we show the picture to the whole family and they're all praying for him and everybody's joining to pray for him and my heart is as hard as a rock there is no way that I can adopt this boy we went to America we showed his picture in America we and then there all these little signs like there was a slideshow that was showing how did like a hundred and fifty pictures on it and for some reason it got stuck on his picture and it wouldn't move ahead and I'm like oh come on Lord you got to be kidding him this guy and then we went into a friend's house and they don't have any connection to China but they've been given something that had the characters thawed or I which means more and more love but his name was Lord was so is the same character on the walls of our friend's house in American I'm like oh come on and then we came back to China and I'm still fighting all its impossibility it can't work I made phone calls I mean the boy didn't even have a file they didn't consider him to be adoptable he had spina bifida and hydrocephalus and congenital scoliosis and bla bla bla bla bla these horribly scary things and a bad brain scan and everything you know it it's not there's no way it's not possible and one night very late our oldest daughter came in to the bed room and she said mom dad she was crying and she said I cannot go to sleep she said every time I close my eyes I see his face and she said I really think that the Holy Spirit wants me to tell you that if you don't adopt him you're being disobedient and I mean I wish I could to say I responded immediately to the word of the Lord but I didn't and Doug was over there laying like a corpse obviously content to let me handle it because he'd given in a long time before he would tell me later but I went into the big long list well we don't have a car and there's no medical care and we live on the eighth floor and we don't blah blah blah and wheelchairs and but I mean there's a million perfectly absolutely hard and fast reasons why we can't adopt this boy and she listened all and I just it's impossible for this and it's impossible because of that is impossible impossible possible and I made my very best plea for her to listen to me and at the end she said mama she said I know that we are not supposed there's a lot of words we're not allowed to use in our she said we're not even allowed to say boring or you give us some work to do but she said I think that the number one word we should not be allowed to say in this family is impossible she said as many mountains as God has moved as many things as he has done for us he must be so sad to hear you say impossible Doug's always been the faith guy I think for a lot of people we say okay I'll do it but God please please please please please show up you know Doug his face goes to the further he says okay let's do it and I can't wait to see how God is going to do this and so there we were with the house filling with kids and here's the idea of a child who is going to be in a wheelchair a child who possibly would need surgeries in order to use his legs someday hopefully and while we were busy parents so that that was a daunting experience but what what had happened with the previous adoptions our faith was just multiplied it was scary on one hand but we knew that God had it in in his hand and so we we found the courage to get past a few of our fears so that he could do he could do his thing finally I surrendered all my reasons were about me really it was going to be too hard for me it was going to be sad to see him processing that he can't walk it's going to be sad that's going to be hard this will be difficult and finally I mean I feel like God was very patient with me finally said to me do you realize that every answer that you give me every excuse is only about you some seven months later we show up we ride up on the train we've picked up Nehemiah on day one and he's like a wild man and I'm freaked out like we brought him a five year old wild man there's no way this is going to work out in fact he said to us on the fast train he said you know you people have a lot of kids he said but I'm last one that's Nehemiah for you and we get up to the city where Ezra was and they bring him to us at the hotel and he's sitting on couch and we came down in elevators the only one ever we've received not in a government building they brought him to us and it was probably only the second time he'd ever been out of the orphanage and we came out into this room and he's sitting on this blue couch and I'm thinking oh my gosh he just looked like he was this big and so breakable and so fragile and I had an immediate like panic what are we doing there is no way we should never have done this I'm ruining my family we can't handle this there's no way we can overcome this I just I'm just flooded with panic I'm starting to weep and the kids are playing and doug is being strong Doug and I'm supposed to sign this paper the 24 hour harmony agreement and I'm crying so hard I cannot see where to put the pen down and Doug's got me around the back and he's like sign the form sign the form you're going to be okay and Matalin say to me Mom get it together you know get it and everything there we go walking out from there and as we're walking through the town I neglected to tell you that during the way to fighting for the file someone who had been on that first weekend when Eleanor had met Ezra had taken a picture of the two of them together I didn't take it and they had heard that we were pursuing him and so they sent me this picture and it's this beautiful picture of him kind of looking up at her and she's kind of smiling at the camera with her head tilted it's just a beautiful picture and so I blew it up and I sent it to the orphanage and they put it in his crib right on the wall and it was there for about six months while I was waiting so fast-forward to the night we pick him up we're walking out in the streets of this city I am still blubbering like a fool my children are leading me by the hand we're trying to find a place to get a passport photo taken and Ezra is just he's only been on the orphanage once he's just totally overwhelmed he's and the one of his only Chinese words a car he's you know all these cars and kids are laughing and trying to entertain him and I am just out of it Doug's carrying him and we get to this little tiny shop we enter the shop and finally all this time Eleanor has just been waiting for him to see her she's hoping that he'll know who she is and finally standing in this little tiny shop she's holding this 8 by 10 picture of the two of them together and he finally looks at her and then looks at the picture and this look of recognition just wide-eyed on his face and he says Chea Chea Chea nee Lila digit big sister big sister you came we're riding home on the train and I'm pouring through the word I'm just God give me a promise because I'm I feel like an elephant is sitting on my chest and as I'm looking and looking like I heard the Holy Spirit say to me thank me for his future and I started thanking God thank you God for the healing you're bringing thank you God for the development you're bringing thank you God that he's going to have a good life thank you God that he has a hope and a purpose and a future thank you God fit and as I started thanking God that power of that fear was broken and I have never been afraid one more day with him I think what adoption the reality of adoption has shown me is that we are desperately in need of divine intervention all the time that's the best place to be for me with my limitations I am so grateful that I know the creator of the universe that it is my father who owns the cattle on a Thousand Hills that it is my god who has abundant love and has demonstrated love that he can give to me to give to my children because I need it I need it to do this this journey and we were on the far side of Wuhan we'd met with the social worker and she had asked the question will you adopt again and Doug and I were like oh no no no we have nine children at home now we have two that are out of the house we're all done we're all done and as a special treat we were going to take the kids to McDonald's now for those people who are watching in the West they're like whoo special treatment that's a big deal over here so we were going to go to McDonald's and while we were at McDonald's right after this final social worker meeting I see this family come into McDonald's Chinese family that has two children which is unusual ow and the second child has albinism and I thought oh I wonder if that's their child or if that's a foster child and just as I was looking I really caught my eye felt that ping again pay attention and then I was like oh no no no no no more kids there's no way no more kids and I went home and I didn't tell Doug because that was a good choice I didn't tell Doug and I sat on it and brood on it and Satta it kept coming back to my mind that boy with albinism and finally on the fourth day I said okay Doug I have to tell you something I'm sure it doesn't mean anything but I feel like I had one of those moments where the Holy Spirit told me to pay attention it was a little boy with albinism I wondered maybe he's our son and he said well you know you better find out if there's any boys in Wuhan with albinism so I wrote an email to our friends at Children's House International quickly and said are there any children listed with albinism right now in Wuhan and she wrote me back and said no and I was like fantastic there's none okay that's all done and then the next morning I opened up my school computer and I saw an email from Heidi at Children's House and and the title was what about Edmond and I tentatively opened it and there was this picture of this little boy with albinism the most beautiful picture of this boy and she said last night we received this file would you consider him and when we looked at him I just knew I just knew he was ours and Doug said yep let's get started and it was you know it would defied any sort of reason but we thought we can so we will and we went and traveled to get him and I remember that his file didn't say that he had any visual issues which is very unusual because most the time with albinism there's a visual issue but it didn't say in his while and we went to get him and I remember we arrived at the Civil Affairs and they allowed his foster family who had had him for four and a half years he was for almost five when we got him four and a half years they had had him in their home since he was a baby and when we pulled up his bright white hair was shining in the Sun and I was like that's him he was so tall and I was like he's a big boy and you know we got out and in the bright light and he was putting his head back kind of in closing his eyes and he has strong nystagmus his eyes move especially in new circumstances and when it's bright and I thought he's blind he's blind and I didn't know he's blind he's blind and then I'm like I can do this this is my seventh adoption seven times I have prepared I have fought I have waited I have gathered everything needed I have done the whole thing and I got there in the seventh time I'm scared again and I think people need to hear that it is scary the first two weeks are like about survival if everyone is living that is all your that's all if everyone is still breathing the next day we're doing good we're hitting it out of the park I was terrified again but you know Abram Abram has strong a visual impairment but he's like he's like the desert at the end of the meal and I'm so grateful I'm so grateful that in the journey when I got afraid that I had Doug pushing me on that I had Heidi to say he's waiting for you I mean it takes my breath away when I think about Abram when I think about Silas when I think about Ezra three that I really really didn't think I could go forward with because my fear was greater than my faith and I see them today and I thank God that I had Doug to really push me forward and say we're going to do what's right we're going to honor what we said we're going to do with these boys and we're going to bring them home yeah adoption is risky it takes it takes love it takes it takes tremendous risk but when you see my kids you see that adoption is not a word or a cause or a calling adoption is just about each individual kid and who they can be and our world needs them and I'm so so fortunate that I got to walk alongside them in this journey I am far more blessed than they have ever been by being my children you you and may have last year I spoke for a Women's Conference and there was a woman there who prayed over me and she said you know there's something in your past like a vision God has given you that you've been preparing for for a long time but now's the time now is the time and there were two things that came back to me one is a vision about speaking for women's conferences which is really kind of coming to fruition now I've been doing been doing more and more that and the second thing was being a voice for those who no one can hear my mom had a dream almost nine years ago and she thought I had to do with Naomi she said she called me the next morning and I never thought about it again until May of this last year but nine years ago she had the dream that she walked into a room and there was a cage with a bird and a songbird and she could see that the bird was just singing singing singing but she couldn't hear anything and when she went to open the door of the cage she could hear the bird and then all of a sudden the whole out part of the room was like a huge cage and behind it were children who were crying but could it be heard and she thought at the time that maybe the little bird was Naomi who we were bringing home that it was really like a prophetic dream about Naomi's life coming out of the cage but when this woman was praying over me in May of last year you know second that dream came back to me I hadn't thought of it in nine years and I really the Holy Spirit said to me you're the bird it's time to sing for those who can't be heard I am crazy passionate about adoption I want people to know that there are precious children who today are waiting for someone to see their picture and say yes I will bring you into my family and I think it's really really easy when you just talk about orphans and people who are that you know it's like it's like a group like you talk about bees a hive of bees that these are Souls these are people who have infinitely more to give in their life than they can if they grow up in an institution and so desperately we need to keep being the voice because people can't hear them and they're crying today and people cannot hear their voices unless there are people like us who are speaking for them I've seen them I've heard them I will not pretend that they do not exist and I want to invite more and more people to experience the blessing of being a vessel of the Lord through adoption this is the passion of my life to see children released from bondage of institutions so that they can be the blessing in the world that they can contribute to the world everything that they have to give and so now with the incredible support of my husband and the kids we started to really move into a season of multiplicity and because of my college degree that I'm sure my dad thought would never ever be of any use I am social worker I am doing home studies and now I am traveling I travel once a month and which for me to travel and be gone to see families and do home studies and to prepare them for adoption themselves is a tremendous sacrifice for Doug because he gives up any sort of calm weekend and he is solo parenting 10 and all the kids are giving up mom but they are really on board with this is what we're doing this is what our families call to adoption as the ministry and so if mom goes that means this is how we support mom going we pull it together and doug has been continually saying yeah this is right this is right and we just a few weeks ago had our first girl who I helped to do the homes today came home was United with her family and it was absolutely it was wonderful I mean it was wonderful and I've been doing it now a little bit over six months and I have eight families and process for nine kids now we have been pretty prolific adopters but in six months there's no way we could adopt nine kids so we're just seeing this vision really multiply and the people who here living as expats need support from someone who knows how to it and so we've been in this training ground of expat adoption for a lot of years and so we can really support these people and encourage them and bring the education that they need as well as be advocating in the West for other people and connecting them to resources so we really see this as a time ya multiplicity has been the word really spoken over us in this time of seeing more and more and more children and families I'm also traveling to orphanages meeting the children one-on-one so I can sing about them so I can tell about them I had the pleasure of meeting a child three weeks ago immediately coming home and calling a family I knew who was looking for a child and saying I think I just found your daughter and they've been matched to her and they're working on her adoption I mean it's beautiful it's beautiful so yeah we have this season to send me out to do home studies to send me out to see orphanages and to advocate and then quite remarkably even in the local environment we have Chinese families contacting us who are interested in adoption so we're helping them to get information about how they can through the process adopt I have been requested to make recommendations for domestic adoptions here for Chinese to adopt Chinese for screening procedures because in the West man we just we check everything out about prospective adoptive families so now I'm able to speak into what's happening locally for children who are also going to be adopted domestically so all of these things really coming together in an amazing way of seeing more and more children and families yep where's your smiler I find your smiler like really it's just like um yeah yeah yeah you

Channel: Sharing Dots

Views: 151,547

Rating: 4.8665991 out of 5

Keywords: adoption, international adoption, adoption day, full documentary, story, special needs adoption, following God, orphan, orphan care, charity, changed life, filmmaking, documentary, adoption story, older child adoption, china adoption, large family, adoption journey, i love adoption, christian, hearing God, how do I hear God, God's love, full movie, full length, 2016, best adoption story, seeing God work, adoption struggles, adoption movie, adoption documentary

Id: _0MLAnkTWx4

Length: 56min 36sec (3396 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 01 2016