Sometimes what we envision for our future isn’t what God envisions! Read the following post about how a devastating journey resulted in learning that God’s plan is always the best:
God bless Endometriosis. That’s it in a nutshell.
Looking back, I can see how God had a plan for my husband Paul and I and our family, even though we didn’t realize it for a very long time.
When we were first dating, we spoke about adoption. Paul had worked with children in an orphanage in Saigon, South Vietnam when he was in the Air Force. When I was five, our neighbors adopted a four year old girl from South Korea and my two best friends were adopted also! So, adoption was not something unfamiliar in our lives. I think God was getting us ready for the path that He had prepared…
Paul and I went through the whole “infertility experience” before it was cool (or prevalent!) At the time, no one that I knew was having any difficulty getting pregnant, just me. This was a really trying time for I had always been a goody two shoes and took care of myself – I didn’t smoke, drink or use drugs (my mother always warned me about the effects of such things on the developing baby) and then I’m the only one in my circle of friends not getting pregnant. During those long seven years, I remember asking God, “Why me? It doesn’t seem fair.”
I was eventually diagnosed with endometriosis and two surgeries later, it looked like I was always going to be somebody’s aunt, but not a mom. We looked into adopting locally, but at the time, all the agencies were so restrictive and things did not look too promising.
Then, in 1984, my father was working with a Korean businessman who gave him the opportunity to travel extensively throughout South Korea for over a month. Dad mentioned to him that Paul and I were interested in adoption and he referred my father to Holt International Children’s Service in Seoul. Since the end of the Korean War, this agency (started by two American Christians) has assisted in over 200,000 international adoptions.
Dad visited Holt’s office in Seoul and came home with a business card that would change our lives! We contacted Bethany Christian Services, who works with Holt in South Korea, here in Chicago and began the adoption process for our first daughter, Gina.
I was a corporate travel agent at the time and had a great opportunity to visit Seoul right after we sent in our adoption application. I was able to meet with the social workers at the Holt orphanage who would be matching a child to us. It was really something to walk into a room filled with toddlers that all want to hug you at the same time! It turned out that Gina and I were only about 20 miles apart from each other, she ‘in utero’ and me at the Seoul Hilton!
It took so long for her to arrive. She was born a preemie and every month we would get a medical report stating that she had pneumonia or bronchitis, patches on her lungs and was ‘probably adoptable.’ It was a very scary time for us – we didn’t know from month to month if the Korean government would let her leave. Fortunately, she grew healthy and strong and was able to come home to our family at eight months old. Overall, the time from our application to her arrival was 18 months long.
Now our second child was another story! Due to the upcoming Seoul Olympics in January of 1988, South Korea wanted as many orphans sent out to their new families as possible before the games commenced. They did not want to be seen as a third world nation and desired to keep a low profile in regards to international adoption. Alicia arrived about seven months after our application was submitted, on Christmas Eve no less, at the age of three months.
Now our daughters are ages 36 and 38. Boy, did the time go fast! I remember the months spent looking at our empty pink nursery wondering if Gina was ever going to get there and now both our daughters are married and we have five amazing grandchildren I can truly say that I was blessed to have endometriosis, because without it, Paul and I would not have our wonderful family. We have been able to assist others throughout the years with their adoption journeys, including the arrival of a nephew from Inchon, South Korea! I truly feel that it does not matter if we share the same DNA, God wanted Gina and Alicia to be with us, and so He worked it all out perfectly. Adoption is truly a creation of God, uniting parents and children and filling all of their hearts.
Ephesians 1:5 AMPC For He foreordained us (destined us, planned in love for us) to be adopted (revealed) as His own children through Jesus Christ, in accordance with the purpose of His will [because it pleased Him and was His kind intent].
James 1:27 AMPC External religious worship [religion as it is expressed in outward acts] that is pure and unblemished in the sight of God the Father is this: to visit and help and care for the orphans and widows in their affliction and need, and to keep oneself unspotted and uncontaminated from the world.
Deuteronomy 10:18 ESV He executes justice for the fatherless and the widow, and loves the sojourner, giving him food and clothing.
Matthew 19:26 ESV But Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”
Watch the video link below about Harry and Bertha Holt and how their faith and trust in God led to almost 50,000 orphans finding forever families in the United States alone through international adoption (after being told that it would take an act of Congress!)
“They pioneered international adoption and founded Holt International. But long before that, they were child sponsors – driven by their faith, compassion, generosity and desire to do what they could to make the world a better place.”
Holt International
Holt International Children’s Services – History
Bonus pic: Here’s Paul and I with baby Gina meeting Grandma Holt in person!
*From Think Above the Box’s Bible Study for the novel Castle of Fire, written by Peter Greene Castle of Fire