To read the short version of where our family is today click here. It's the nitty gritty version :)
To read the long version, continue on:
I hope that in sharing this, you see how the mighty God has transformed our family and our hearts, opening our eyes to the world of adoption and demonstrating how He loves us through it all. I am the writer in the family, so here goes nothing. And by the way, everything you read here will be shared with our boys when the time is right; we talk openly about adoption in our family, with respect for the hurts & bio families. We love each of our children's bio families with a love that is difficult to explain.
So, contrary to
what many people assume, we didn’t come to adoption through a battle with
infertility. We simply walked into the
world of adoption out of an act of obedience to Christ’s calling on our
lives. Our adoption journey began almost
10 years ago when Jonathan and I went on our first date. The discussions we had that night were
heartfelt and honest, as we discussed topics such as family, faith, and
adoption. At that time, we shared the
opinion that either of us would be open to adopting “someday” regardless of the
child’s race or background.
Fast forward to
January of 2008 when Jonathan and I had been married about a year and a half. During a rotation for school, Jonathan
visited a facility for medically fragile children and returned home with a
volunteer application for me, telling me that he “just knew” my heart would be
happy to work with the children he’d just met.
As I filled out the volunteer application, I realized God was tugging on
my heart. After talking with Jonathan, I
went to the facility and asked if they were hiring nurses. Turns out they just happened to have a
vacancy on their team that I was more than qualified to fulfill. So in April of 2008, I began working and
Jonathan became a volunteer at the Howell Center. Our son Jayson was 7 months old the first
time we met him.
Having the
opportunity to work with and love on medically fragile children is a blessing and
an honor we truly cherish. As time
progressed, Jonathan and I became emotionally attached to several children,
realizing in many ways, the children living at the facility were abandoned—if
not legally, certainly emotionally—by their families. JJ was a special young man, and God used our
relationship with him to greatly influence our lives and our decision to pursue
adopting Jayson. JJ got to meet Jesus at
the tender age of 17, but in the years we were blessed to spend with him, he
often shared with us the hurt of feeling that his family didn’t want him and
couldn’t care for him in their home. You
see, JJ was perfectly normal from a cognitive perspective; he just had medical
needs that his family couldn’t provide for in their home environment. Because he was cognitively normal, he felt
the all-encompassing feelings of abandonment and often struggled with guilt and
hurt from being “left” by his family, despite the fact that they loved him the best they could. JJ wasn’t a candidate for adoption, but Jonathan and I
cherish the memories we have from sharing a relationship with such an amazing
young man. In many ways, our little Jayson is just like JJ & his memory lives on.
When Jayson was
born, he spent 6 months at UNC’s neonatal intensive care unit before arriving
at the Howell Center, a medical facility where he would live for almost 4
years. Jayson’s bio family lived several
hours from the center, and as such, couldn't visit often. During the summer of 2008, Jayson was just
under a year old, and it became clear that he was determined to learn to
walk. Not unusual for a one-year-old,
but Jayson was given the challenge of having bilateral club feet, a malformed
knee, and a dislocated hip. We were all
concerned what kind of damage could be caused if he learned how to walk under
those circumstances, so the staff took him to see an orthopedic specialist. This physician looked the nurse and said “Kids
in 3rd world countries learn to walk on club feet every day, and his
feet are the least of his problems. I’m
not going to operate on him if he’s just going to grow up in a group home.” As you can imagine, I was very upset upon
hearing this report, and like all good wives do, I went straight home to my
husband and started ranting and raving about the injustice being done to this
precious child. Standing in the kitchen
of our home, I vividly recall the anger I felt as I recounted the physician’s
report to Jonathan. I remember
expressing feelings of frustration in knowing that Jayson’s future could be so
bright if God had only given him a family who would be bold enough to fight for
him. In that moment, Jonathan made one
statement that forever changed our lives; he lovingly grabbed my shoulders,
looked into my eyes, and said “Honey, did you ever think that God wants us to
adopt Jayson and fight for him?” “Well
no, not until just now,” was my response.
So we stopped and prayed; we prayed for Jayson’s future, for his bio family,
for his medical team, and for us to be obedient if God ever called us to be
Jayson’s family. As we talked and
prayed, we felt burdened that Jayson’s future would likely resemble the pain and
abandonment JJ felt if God didn’t bless him with a family to love him
unconditionally.
A few weeks later,
Jonathan and I decided to talk to the social worker at the facility where Jayson lived and
share with her our thoughts and feelings about adopting Jayson. We decided we wouldn’t
approach his bio family, but if it was in God’s plan, He would have them put
Jayson up for adoption. In talking with
the social worker—who also happened to be a fellow Christ-follower and dear
friend—we asked her to let us know if/when his bio family decided to relinquish
their parental rights. Jayson taught
himself to walk that summer, and several months later, the doctor ate his words
and performed corrective surgery on Jayson’s feet.
For 2 years we
prayed occasionally about adopting Jayson, but spent most of our time loving on
him and the other children. We began
discussing children and how and when would be the right time to bring a child
into our marriage. Oddly enough, we were
never exactly on the same page about attempting pregnancy, and kept agreeing to
“revisit” the discussion in 6 months.
The last time we had that conversation was in January of 2010. In June of that year, we relocated to
Richmond, Virginia for Jonathan’s job.
It was hard to leave the life we had built in Greenville. On the last day I worked, I hugged all the
children and rocked Jayson to sleep as he cried. I remember sitting on the floor by Jayson’s
bed, begging God to ease the pain I was feeling in leaving the kids and a job I
loved so much. Late that night, I got in
my car and headed north to meet up with Jonathan in Richmond. The entire drive I sobbed and prayed “Lord
please take this hurt from me. I love my
husband more than any of the children or any job I’ll ever have. He is my family and he is my priority. Please help me let go of these relationships and
show me what You have for me in our future together.” Though I didn’t know it at the time, God plan
to turn the pain I was feeling to joy.
That was Friday, August 13th, 2010.
The following
Wednesday I received a phone call from Crystal, the social worker. She said she had just gotten off
the phone with Jayson’s bio mother who informed her that they wanted Jayson to have a good home, and
she knew they couldn’t provide for his needs.
So Crystal called me to ask if Jonathan and I were serious about
adopting Jayson. I immediately paged
Jonathan, who was actually scrubbed into a surgical procedure; a nurse called
me back on speakerphone. After assuring
him I was okay, I told Jonathan I had just spoken with Crystal and the day had
come. Jonathan’s response was simple,
strong, and full of faith: he replied “ok, what do we do next?” I asked him if he thought we needed to pray
about it, and he lovingly reminded me that we’d been praying about it for years
and clearly God was answering our prayer.
Through tears of joy, I called Crystal back minutes later and the
journey began.
Though Jonathan and
I are reasonably educated, active members of society, we had no idea how
tedious, challenging, heart-wrenching, and indescribably rewarding the process
of adoption was going to be for us. We
had no idea the world we were getting ready to walk in to. We also had no idea how our family and
friends would respond or how we would even begin to be parents to a child with such unique abilities & challenges. All we knew the night of August 18th, 2010, was that
God had given us the privilege of fighting for an amazing little boy. We began working with the local Social
Services department who gained custody of Jayson after his parents relinquished
their rights. As we shared our plans to
adopt Jayson with our families, we were amazed, humbled, and so proud at how
wonderfully they responded to the news. Though we do not believe God ever intends for children to be orphaned, we were so excited to become his parents! Our family was built for Jayson; Jonathan and I have medical skills that
allowed us to care for Jayson’s physical needs with confidence others might not
have, and our families welcomed him without hesitation. On August 5th,
2011 we picked Jayson up from the Howell Center for the last time. We brought him home to our “Ellow House” and
began living life as the family God had created. I wish I could say things were easy for us
from then on, but the truth is, every adoption journey begins in trauma and
loss, and the healing journey is difficult for everyone. We had no idea what we were getting in to,
but we were willing and committed to following God wherever He would lead
us. It was, & still is, one of the best decisions of
our lives.
God has used every
detail of this part of our story to show us more of who He is, how He loves,
and who He is calling us to be in this world.
I cannot put into words how much I love our son and how much being is Mama
has changed my life and shown me a glimpse of how much God loves me. God has used this journey to open my eyes to
how many children are living around the world, fatherless and trapped in
abandonment. As our pastor says, we have
become aware of the battle between good and evil where children are always
caught in the crosshairs. After our
introduction to the adoptive world, I always saw us advocating for children in
the domestic system. For 2 years we’ve
researched and helped co-lead our adoption ministry at church that is rooted in
advocacy efforts for children in NC’s foster care system. One of my prayers
has been that when God speaks, I will be positioned to hear Him, and that He
would speak to my heart and mind with clarity in His will for my life. This has been the prayer of us as a couple
for our family as well. In going to
China for 2 boys we’ve never met, God is stretching our hearts, stretching our
faith, and calling us to a journey beyond our comfort zone. But isn’t that how He works best?!The older child we are
pursuing is the eighth child someone has
asked us to consider adopting since we adopted Jayson. It’s an incredibly humbling and flattering experience
to have people ask us to consider adding to our family children with such great
need to be loved. Each time, God speaks
to my heart reminding me that they are seeing Him through me and through our
family, and when we feel like we aren’t enough, I am reminded that He always
is. By the way, saying “no,” to a child,
even when the child is unaware and we knew it was the right decision, really
stinks. Really, really stinks.
In February 2013 a
friend of a friend brought this sweet boy's picture and story to our attention, and to
say the least, we were in a very stressful point in our lives. Jonathan & I agreed the answer was “no,” and life as we
knew it continued on. I
spent the next 5 months telling myself there's no way we could adopt a
bilateral amputee child from halfway around the world in a country neither my
husband nor myself have any personal desire to even go to for a visit. I
thought of every excuse: finances, language, taking time off life to do this
whole journey again, knowing the international process is a completely
different animal than the domestic one...I mean seriously, you name it, I feel
like I thought it. How will Jayson react? Is it even fair to ask
him to share his parents and his life with another child with mobility
challenges? How, when, and in what time can I be a mom to not 1, but 2
uniquely gifted children? What would the insurance coverage look
like? How can we afford surgery/therapy he will need? How in the
world are we going to afford to even get him here? There is no part of my rational mind that
thinks this is a good idea! BUT... In true God-like fashion, I wasn’t able to get this
precious child out of my mind; his face came to mind over and over again.
And every time, I conjured an excuse as to why we were not his parents; why God
was not and could not be calling us to be his family. Of course I justified
this with a half-hearted prayers for God to make it known if we're supposed to
commit to go after him. But God didn’t stop working in my heart--through
every avenue in my life: work, church, play--and apparently during the same
time, He was working in my husband's as well!
One Sunday the following July, our pastor started a series
on prayer. He talked about praying with ambition, praying boldly, and
being prepared to have the courage to go through with whatever we're asking God
to give us. He read and spoke from Jabez' prayer, showing us how Jabez
was an honorable man who wanted to see his influence grow. That resonated
deeply inside my soul, not for my own glory, but for God’s. Our pastor suggested that we don't have
because we don't ask. He asked us to ask ourselves what it is that we
want most out of life and to start praying for God to make it happen.
That was an easy one for me. More than anything I want 4 things from this
life: I want to LOVE well with boldness, courageous, and tenacity that can
only come from God. I want a marriage that others look at and see the
love of Christ, romantic and nurtured. I want a family that could only be
woven together by the hand of God; one that represents His unconditional love,
His uniqueness, His strength and His courage. Lastly, I do NOT want to
leave this world unchanged in His name. Check!
Ok Pastor, what else? Then he said, “if you're going to pray big, you
have to be willing to let God change your heart to what He wants for your life,
not just what you think He wants.”
That sweet little face popped into my head and I began to weep.
As we laid down that night and said our nightly prayers together,
Jonathan said "amen" and followed it with, "so on that
note...." then silence. My heart was racing and my thoughts
were spinning out of control. What was he going to say? "So
about this little guy, I know it may be crazy, but I believe he is our son and I
need you to trust me in this." And the tears came again. You
see, Jonathan is a strong, quiet man and when he speaks, I listen. He's
always been right when he's made these kinds of prayer-filled decisions and he
doesn't speak until he's prayed through every avenue. He proceeded to
share with me that he can't seem to shake him and thoughts of how alone,
unwanted, and abandoned he must feel. He shared that he believes God is
telling him that we should pursue him because we can show him how God loves
him: unconditionally and wholeheartedly, we can provide for him, encourage him,
and get him the assistance he needs medically. He'd thought/prayed
through the finances and how our sons would have a bond that no one else could
understand because of their mobility challenges and adoptive histories. I mean
seriously? And in my heart I felt peace. We hadn't spoken to each
other about this child in months. We hadn't prayed over him together, but
clearly God was working in both our hearts to bring us to the day we woke up
with our world forever changed, again. BUT….in true God-like fashion, He didn’t stop there. We
were planning on telling our immediate families over the Thanksgiving
holiday. We would be with both ‘sides’
of our family for several days and wanted to tell them in person. The week prior to Thanksgiving, we noted a
change in Jonathan’s schedule that prevented him from being able to travel
until the day after Thanksgiving. And so
the decision was made: I would go with Jayson and our fur babies to my side of
the family’s celebration and meet Jonathan at his Mama’s house for their family
celebration. As such, we decided to wait
until Christmas to tell them all at the same time. So I packed the car and headed out the day
before Thanksgiving. What should have
been a 4 hour journey from our home to Knoxville where our family was meeting
turned into a 9-hour journey complete with a very irritable Mommy, blizzard
weather conditions through NC’s steepest mountains, and an hour and a half wait
in standstill traffic, 30 minutes from our destination. To say I was stressed out is an
understatement. As we sat on standstill
traffic on the interstate, I looked at Jayson in the backseat and became
overwhelmed with the ever-familiar sense of gratefulness and sadness for our
little guy. I am so grateful I get to
love him. I am so grateful to be his
Mama. But, there are days when it is
hard, really hard, and mainly such because I cannot heal the wounds placed in
his heart by events that have nothing to do with either of us. Though the holidays are a fun season, they
bring stress that is hardest on little adopted ones. He was sound asleep, so I took that time to
listen to God, asking Him to calm my spirit, heal my son’s heart, and bring our
waiting son home from China. Clear as
day, as if He was literally sitting beside me, I heard Him say, “you know you
could adopt 2 kids from China.”
WHAT? Seriously God, did I just
hear you correctly? No way, must have
been the exhaustion, right?! Maybe not,
and so I began to pray, keeping this thought to myself for quite some time.
In
December 2013 we shared with our family our calling to pursue the 4-year old, and though
they were a bit surprised, they were, and continue to be, extremely supportive. I still felt very unsettled about adopting 2
children; I didn’t have a clear yes or no and felt God nudging me to talk to
Jonathan about it. Novel concept
right? As if somehow I thought it was a
decision I had to make on my own? Ha. In January I mentioned it in passing to
Jonathan who said he hadn’t really considered it, but would be open to
prayerfully considering it. As we
talked, we asked our 4-year old had any foster siblings needing to be
adopted. We found out he had 2, but that
they were both being pursued by other families.
So that wasn’t it. Jonathan
thought maybe that was our clarity, but I still felt very unsettled about
it. Our pastor and his wife have had an
unconventional adoption journey as well and so we sought their counsel in
prayer. During a prayer time with Mendy,
our pastor’s wife, she said to me she hoped God would hit us with a “2x4 of
clarity” on whether or not we are supposed to pursue 2 children.
Literally
sixteen hours later, we received a phone call from our agency. A woman we had never communicated with prior
had called, left no information, but asked that we call back. It didn’t sound good and I thought it was
going to be the phone call telling us that we lost our 4-year old. I waited 2 hours to hear back from her and
when she called, she said “Hi Mrs. Patterson, I am pleased to let you know we
have a referral for you!” OH. MY.
STARS! This is THE call we've been waiting for! I asked if it was our 4-year old, to
which she replied, “um...no.” As
the conversation progressed, we discovered that she did indeed intend to call
our family, but that the file we were matched to was not our 4-year old's. We discussed how everything we had previously
submitted the agency indicated the specific and only child we
were requesting to be matched with. She,
nor her supervisor, had any idea how our file was matched to this child, but
she said to me, “if you have considered adopting 2 children, maybe this is also your child.” And I almost passed
out. Seriously. Hello “2x4 of clarity,” it’s nice to meet
you.
God
had clearly heard our prayers and had undoubtedly answered them. To say
we were shocked at how He chose to
answer them would be an understatement!
There was nothing that frightened us about the child they were
presenting to us, it was just that we were not anticipating God answering in a
way that was so very, very clear. We
fasted and prayed, talking about logistics of 2 adoptions, finances, day-to-day
functioning in our home, and how this would impact Jayson. Two weeks later we accepted his file, sent
off our letter of intent, and we received pre-approval to adopt an absolutely adorable, now 26-month old boy!
This
journey is a rollercoaster ride! On the
one hand, we are elated that we are inching closer to bringing our 2-year old home; on
the other, we are trying to be patient as we wait to hear when our 4-year old will be ready for adoption & if we get to be the family to adopt him. And like many families, the waiting is hard,
really hard. We live in a reality that
on any given day, we could get a phone call saying we’ve lost our 4-year old forever. But we know and trust that he is God’s kid
before he will ever be ours. You see, there is no
file on his behalf that can be released to us, allowing us to be matched
to him. Eleven months ago our agency
explained this to us, and they gave us a choice: we could wait until we got his
file to start home study, USCIS, and dossier preparation, or we could take a
leap of faith and begin putting our time, emotional energy, and financial
resources into pursing him by beginning all these things. As we sat down to discuss these options,
Jonathan looked at me and said, “God didn’t call us to this to be in a
half-hearted commitment to this child, I vote we get started now.” I agreed wholeheartedly and thus began the
process. Now we know that part of the
clarity God offered us in that decision was in part for our 2-year old's behalf; they
have told us to be prepared to travel as early as October for him. There is a possibility that we could bring home
our 4-year old at the same time, but as you probably realize, we have zero control over
that decision.
The verse that has continually brought us comfort as we
wait, as we dip into our savings to be obedient to God’s will in pursuing these boys, and when the emotional investment becomes dark and weary, is Matthew
17:20. In this passage, the disciples
are questioning why they cannot do the things Christ is doing as they have
watched him heal the sick and cast out demons. He replies by telling them they only need faith the size of a mustard
seed and they will be capable of moving mountains. Some days, it feels like that’s all either
of us have left: a simple mustard-seed sized faith and we’re asking Him to move
mountains with it. When our logical,
rational minds consume us and we realize how crazy this sounds, doubts do their
best to creep in and take over; the mustard-seed is very powerful in these
moments!
We have also discussed at great length and taken great
encouragement from Joseph and Mary: Mary really didn’t get to choose if she was
on-board with bearing the Messiah Child, but scriptures tell us God looked on
her with favor, and that she never wavered in her faith. Joseph, on the other hand, got to
choose. God allowed him to choose if he
wanted to be a part of this story or not.
Scripture tell us Joseph was a just and upright man, and that he was going
to choose to leave Mary in a quiet, respectful way. Then the angel appeared to Joseph, explaining
to him God’s plan for their family, and as far as we’re told, Joseph recanted
his plan to leave and never looked back (Matthew 1: 18-25). To us, God has put us in a position where we
could have chosen to leave quietly, but Joseph’s courage to stick around has
been a great example for us as we move forward in this adventure.
Hillsong United recently released a song entitled,
“Oceans.” The singer is asking God,
almost begging Him in my opinion, to take her out of the boat, like Peter
(Matthew 14: 25-32), and walk on water hand-in-hand to places she could have
never gone with her own feet. She speaks
of walking out into the ocean where the waves are crashing. She sings of calling out on the name of her
Savior as she keeps her eyes on Him, allowing her to walk upon the waters
without failing. She knows that she is
His, and He is hers. This is my heart’s
prayer in this adventure: that I will keep my eyes on Him when the waters get
rough—when the papers don’t move as fast as I want them to and we seem to be at
the end of our financial rope—that I will keep my eyes on Him when He calls me
out of the boat to places we couldn’t have gone without Him. I cannot do this and our family cannot do
this; we know that for sure. But we also
confidently know that God is calling us to be a family orchestrated by His
hand, not ours, and it is an honor to be a part of His story.
So to sum all this up, adoption isn’t just something God
has spoken in to my heart, it is something He has created me to be. He is calling me to advocate for orphans,
here and around the world. He has ingrained in my being a passion to fight for the orphaned; to be strong when
they cannot. To walk along families
willing to step into the beautiful messiness that is the world of
adoption. To love on Mamas who have
chosen to love children from hurt places.
To walk with the children God blesses us with as they ask the hard
questions and search for the answers to their stories. To love the families who chose to give their children a different life. To be a woman that loves with Christ-driven,
reckless abandon; one whose loyalty never waivers, even in the face of
difficult behaviors; a Mama who says to her child, “You are one of God’s
beloveds, and I am so grateful we get to love you.”
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