by Linda Cutshall

Adopting a child is a joyful, yet intimidating experience. And the process usually involves working through grief. If you’ve experienced infertility you’re well acquainted with the ongoing frustrations of your body’s inability to conceive. As the months and years go by it gets harder to celebrate the birth of yet another friend’s baby. Single men and women wonder whether or not to continue postponing their dream of parenting while they wait and wonder about God’s provision of a spouse.

If you’ve ever considered beginning or growing your family through fostering or adopting children, it’s great to be able to talk with people who are willing to share personal stories and experiences with you.

When Mark and I began looking at adoption over 10 years ago now, we explored all kinds of options: international adoption, special needs, foster to adopt and infant adoption…. how would God lead us? We benefited from hearing adoptive parents tell their stories.

Along the way we realized that having a relationship with our child’s birth parents was important to us. Soon we found ourselves “chosen” by incredible birth moms to parent first Ryan and then Sarah. From their earliest years we’ve been open with our kids about their birth families. When asked “How many kids are in your family?” They like to surprise folks by saying, “I have 3 brothers and 1 sister!” True, because each of them now has half-brothers.

Ours is but one of many journeys towards adoption. Some folks have endured more bumps along the way. Our hope is to develop an atmosphere at Bethany of openness and support among those of us who wonder about, or have experiences and resources around, adoption related issues.

Watch for our “Exploring Adoption” table after worship on Sunday, November 18th, and our brochure that gives your snippets of stories and people to contact within Bethany who are willing to share their adoption experiences with you.