As we write to you, even today, our life is filled with hours of playing outdoors on equipment far too small for us, rushing to put food on the table before anyone has a meltdown, and rubbing tired eyes from another sleepless night. Our biological children are three and one years old and were brought into our home without any complications, still our hearts knew that our family was ready to step out of comfort and step into our calling. You may be asking yourself why are we now entering the epic adventure of adoption. The simple answer is, God. We are choosing to recklessly follow the plan that the Lord has slowly laid out for us and for you. He is not a God of timelines, but a God of timing.
If we’re honest, we’re a little nervous, too. But still we are so confident and excited about the unique story being written. Adoption in itself may be unfamiliar to our families, but to us it is the purest picture of the Gospel. We have been adopted by a loving Father and given the most beautiful opportunity to be part of His story. It’s so much bigger than biology, and we can’t wait to watch this bigger picture come to life. As we watched our two children learn how to hold hands while walking through the zoo on one of our recent weekly trips, our hearts ached in anticipation of what was next. Our lives are busy, but they are not too full. There is more room on our laps, more places at our dinner table, more seats in our van, and more space in our hearts.
Adoption has been something that was placed on both of our hearts many years ago. For Glen, adoption was something he was exposed to at an early age, since his childhood best friend was adopted. Early in their relationship, Casey shared that adoption was something she felt called to do, and Glen knew it would eventually be a way we added to our family. Glen has always wanted a large family after growing up with 5 brothers and sisters and working together on their family owned dairy farm. Casey felt called to adoption as she entered the world of elementary school teaching in college, and fell in love with far too many students who needed far more than what their teachers could provide. What finally made us give our YES to adoption was when our pastor at church told his story of adoption. He emphasized that we all should have a role in ending the orphan crisis in our world (and this role looks different for each family). If one family out of every three churches chose to adopt, every waiting child in the US would be adopted. After that day, we knew our home was ready, and we started to pray about our hearts being ready to recklessly follow the path set forth for us.
As we pray throughout this journey, we are often asking the Lord to calm our fears about the financial burden that is currently being placed on our family to adopt. We both work in jobs serving children, and that is where our hearts lie. Glen manages a university dining hall, making sure that grown-up kids who are away from their homes get fed in a way that their mothers would approve. Casey is an elementary teacher at a school which hosts refugee and immigrant children who have just arrived in the United States and are in need of basic English skills. We don’t bring in huge paychecks, and that makes this adoption a financial challenge for us, but we have worked hard to build our savings account. We have even used cloth diapers for our biological children because of the several thousands of dollars we knew it would save us! Our adoption will basically cost what one of us makes in a year. This would have been feasible for us to do on our own before we had children, but with the expense of childcare we know we will need a village to bring home our next child. We have and will continue to host holiday themed fundraisers for local friends and family. We believe the plans set out for each one of us are far bigger than our own, which is why we are not letting finances stand in the way of how we write our family story.