Our Adoption Story

"When love takes you in and everything changes // A miracle starts with the beat of a heart // When love takes you home and says you belong here // The loneliness ends and a new life begins // When love takes you in." - When Love Takes You In, Steven Curtis Chapman


Adoption was on my heart from the time I was very young. I loved everything about it - taking in a child without a home, giving them hope. I went to a Steven Curtis Chapman concert with my family, and he sang the song "When Love Takes You In" and talked about the Chapman's adoption of their daughters from China. It was around that time that I approached my parents and told them, "I want to adopt."

My parents looked into China adoptions, but we didn't qualify, so Mom and Dad sold all our baby stuff and announced that our family was officially "done" (as in, we weren't adopting). We wanted to help others adopt and stress the importance of helping orphans in our church, but we didn't think adoption was for us.

We were wrong.

I don't remember how adopting from Ethiopia came up, but we all prayed about it and decided as a family to send in an application for Holt International. We prayed, "God, if this adoption is your will, please provide the money." We started out with only $200, which was (obviously) not enough to fund the adoption in full. We said that we weren't going to get into debt for this adoption.

God proved His faithfulness in many ways during our adoption, one way being that He provided all of the money through friends, family, and organizations, and we did not get into debt.

We had originally applied for a child one year old or younger, and we were matched with a beautiful little girl named Fasika.

My mom was looking over paperwork and noticed that Fasika's immunizations took place before she was born. She contacted the agency, and we discovered that Fasika was actually five months older than the original birthdate we had been given. There had been a mess-up on the paperwork.

We had a family meeting, and Mom and Dad asked if we would still like to adopt Fasika, even though she was five months older than the age we thought we wanted. We all still wanted to adopt her. We didn't know her, but we already loved her.

In May of 2009, Mom and Dad brought our beautiful baby sister Fasika home.

We cannot imagine living without Fasika. She is such a joy and a blessing, and we know that it was definitely God's plan for her to be a part of our family. If there had not been a mess-up on her papers, she would not have been matched with us.

It's awesome to know that God has a good plan for each of our lives! Now we are in the process of adopting a boy from Uganda.

-Talia

"For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." {Jeremiah 29:11}