We adopted Joshua in 2008. We have always desired
for Joshua to have a sibling near his age from China
to grow up with. Having sponsored two children
at Harmony Outreach, our hope was to eventually
adopt a child from Harmony.
In June 2010, we were notified that new children
had come to Harmony and they were looking to
match them to forever families. When we saw Zoe,
our hearts locked on her and we prayerfully made
the decision to "go for it."
Having received a significant pay cut at the church in 2010,
we knew we would need to seek God on how to fund the
adoption (approximately $30,000) from alternate
streams of income. We were attending Gary Keesee's
ProVision Conference in Ohio at the time and sowed
for wisdom and provision in funding the adoption. We
recorded this sowing in our sowing/prayer ledger and
believed in faith for God to answer & provide.
Following the conference, we formulated a chart
that listed everything "in our hand." As the widow
who was told to gather jars for God to fill with oil
to sell, we wanted to identify the jars/nets we
had to partner with God in.
Randy had a dream one night where he was at
a garage sale. He was searching through old boxes
and finding coins. Every time he picked up a coin,
more appeared. Not knowing what the dream
meant (but that it was significant) he recorded it in his
journal and asked God to reveal the meaning.
In July, we were required to make our first payment
of $2,000 towards the adoption. Randy remembered
that he had a coin collection in the attic and pulled it
out. The amount turned out to $2,300. Enough
for the initial application, with money left over.
We sensed that we needed to do more than
just cash in the coins. We were to look at each
coin to verify dates and research anything that
appeared rare. We did find a few rare coins,
though nothing of high value. However, the
discipline of looking for how God would channel
resources and opportunities was priceless.
The next step was to look at what was in our attic and
research it's value. We were amazed that what seemed
yo have little value to us, others were buying on
ebay and craigslist for significant amounts. In the process
we captured a few thousand dollars through selling
things stored in our attic.
As our attic began to empty we asked the question,
"Where can we find more things to sell?" Randy decided
to visit garage sales and thrift stores to see if he could
find items to resell for a profit. Indeed, he found
several items and resold them via the internet.
A 30 year Navy Veteran, Randy was also surprised to
find military uniforms in thrift stores. Knowing the
value of uniforms he began investigating how he could
source people outside the fleet concentration area with
quality used uniforms. Over the period of 6 months
he opened an online store called Uniforms & More
and had gross sales of over $20,000.
Laurie and Joshua helped process shipments of uniforms,
consistently praying for each customer, and delivering packages
to the post office 2-3 times per week.
By the end of 2010, we received another paycut from
the church, and our online store profits began filling
the gap of living expenses versus adoption funding.
However, we remained faithful in working with God
and Laurie completed several adoption grant requests
(another jar on our chart).
Lifesong For Orphans responded with setting up an
account for friends and family to make donations.
This provided a valued resource for tax deductible
contributions and several donations were made.
Abba Fund responded with providing a
substantial interest free loan. The loan is set up to be
paid in full with the IRS adoption tax credit (up to $13K)
that the government provides families to encourage adoption.
Abba Fund is only able to help a limited amount of families
each year and we give God the credit that they
chose to help us.
In addition, contributions have come from several other sources.
This includes a church in Missouri that we have no relationship with,
but chose to raise funds to help fund Zoe's adoption. Our church
also sponsored a surprise Baby Shower and people gave
generously towards the adoption (special thanks to Melissa and
De'Anna for coordinating this special event).
By the time we traveled to China, all funds were in place to
complete the adoption. We walked through this process
step by step with God and we know He is well pleased.
We stepped out in faith and worked with Him in ways
we had not partnered with Him before.
The lessons learned have been eternal and we will continue to
build on them. In hindsight, there were a couple additional
nets/jars we could have cast to captured more funds.
However, hindsight is always 20/20 and those
nets are now being cast. We not only want to possibly
adopt again, but we want to help others adopt,
to help fund surgeries for orphans in need, and to join
others in combating human trafficking and sex trade.
A trusted pastoral mentor/friend wrote us recently and said,
"I feel led to say that the processes that you are now using
and learning will continue to propel you into greater
and greater assignments. This time it was for Zoe.
Next time will be for hundreds of Zoe's that are out there
that you will be called to touch."
We accept this calling with all of our heart!
