Park Cities Presbyterian Church (PCA)

Adoption: The reality of the blessing

Conference in February at PCPC

Published February 1, 2011 in Witness

Thirteen-year-old Abby was pregnant. Her boyfriend talked her into going to an Oklahoma City clinic for an abortion the next day. But before that happened, Abby’s mother intervened, put her in the car, and whisked her across the state to a Christian school  dedicated to children in crisis. Her mother left her there in the care of a pastor and his wife.

When Abby was seven months pregnant, she was browsing a stack of profiles of married couples looking to adopt. When she came across Melissa’s and my profile, she chose us to adopt her child. Jackson, our son, turned three this January. He is our gift from God, through Abby, and a living testimony of how God providentially builds forever families through adoption.

But why did Abby choose us? During her stay with her house parents, she had seen the love of Christ displayed toward her, responded to that love and placed her trust in Christ. Along with this personal change, her criteria changed for what she desired in parents who would adopt her child. Now, the most important attribute to her was that they be Christians.

Our adoption story is a story of rescue—Jackson, Abby, Melissa, and I were all rescued.

Our church family is filled with such stories. In 2004, God worked to save a little girl with Down syndrome from a life of abuse and starvation. The five-year-old was soon to be in a Russian mental institution where she would be tied to a bed and deprived of human contact.

“We are truly humbled to have Vera, now 11, as our beloved daughter,” said Jill Spicer.“ What a blessing to have been used in such a powerful way and to have had a front row seat for God’s miraculous intervention.”

When John and Jill Spicer arrive at PCPC on Sunday mornings, they open the van door and out spills the Spicer family — a beautiful representation of the invisible church worldwide. They have eight children, ranging from ages six to 15, five of them adopted: two from Russia, two from China and one from Colombia. In addition to pursuing kids across the globe, they have sought out children with special needs.
If you’ve seen the Spicer throng, you’ve witnessed a microcosm of the citizens who will one day populate the new heaven and earth, those “from every tribe and tongue and people and nation” whom Christ purchased for God with His blood (Rev. 5:9).

Reid and Ellen Porter returned three years ago from a trip to Guatemala with Caleb.

“Through Caleb’s adoption,” said Ellen, “we are able to live out the way God rescues us through adoption each and every day. And, in God’s divine wisdom, He orchestrated it to where Caleb and his brother Bennett, our biological son, are only seven months apart. They are so close in age that they are practically twins — and best friends too!”

At PCPC’s Christmas Eve service, Patrick Lafferty proudly held up his and Christy’s nine-month-old, black son and garnered laughter from the standing-room-only assembly when he said, “See the resemblance?” Their new blessing was on display that night. There is a reality behind blessings of adoption, like little Jedidiah, that goes unseen on the surface.

“Fear gripped us when we first laid our eyes on Jedidiah,” Patrick wrote in an “Every Thought Captive” devotional.“ Lately, as we consider how he has blessed our family even in the short time we’ve had him, we are often stunned into silence at the thought that we ever hesitated. We cannot see the future, but we do know this: love takes risks because Christ risked all for love.

“To say yes to adoption was to invite all manner of change,” said Patrick. “We would have all the responsibilities of caring for an infant foisted upon us afresh. We would be introducing, so to speak, an unknown quantity into our family, the consequences of which were unforeseeable. What we had been given the opportunity to do in adopting this little boy was precisely what God took the opportunity to do for all those who now call Him Father.”

All of us who know God as Father are family. We call each other brother and sister because He has rescued each of us through adoption into the eternal family of God.

George Hanson was adopted as an infant by a Christian family who then moved to Florida. Four years ago, at age 38, he was reunited with his birth mother when he located her in New Jersey. Interestingly, he discovered that, after placing him for adoption in 1967, she and his birth father married following his return from Vietnam in 1970. They had three more children together, and it turns out that George’s biological family—his parents and siblings unknown to him for nearly four decades—are also believers in Christ. Though separated by thousands of miles, all were graciously and providentially drawn to the Lord and quickened to new life in Him.
 
“For me,” said George, “being adopted has illustrated and continually reminded me of the unconditional love and care that my Father had for me. It has also provided me with a deeper understanding of being adopted into His eternal family. Just as I had no ability to fathom the implications, consider the options, or help in the resolution to my situation as an infant, the same held true in my salvation.”

My wife, Melissa, has experienced adoption both as an adoptive parent and as an adoptee. In the last three years, we have adopted our sons, Jackson and Cooper, and Melissa was adopted herself as an infant.

“Adoption has given me perspective,” Melissa said, “of what a gift God has given me in the family that He chose for me. From what I know about my birth family, God rescued me from a difficult situation. He placed me in a loving family and, beyond that, brought me into His family by His eternal plan.”

In the handful of stories shared here, varied as they are, perhaps you’ve sensed what’s common—the providential hand of God building and molding families as His people adopt orphans into their homes and into the covenantal community of the church. In the most practical sense, this is fulfilling the Great Commission—making disciples of all nations and teaching them to observe all that Christ has commanded us (Matthew 28:19–20).

Are you or someone you know considering the blessed reality of adoption? Come to PCPC’s adoption conference to hear from Patrick Lafferty and other adoptive parents, be informed with a biblical perspective of adoption, be encouraged by stories of rescue, and visit with experts from adoption agencies.
—Greg Shull