Well just like many of you the orphan posters and billboards tug at our heart for various reasons. You want to help, save the poor, they are really cute, but the reality is..it is another child, a HUGE responsibility, yes a responsibility, but a blessing as well. I can honestly say that a year later. (yeah, this is my personal opinion and you caught me on a good day when all the kids are at school)
Bob and I talked about how "neat" it would be to adopt prior to having our own 2 biological kids. I remember sitting in bed with the laptop researching countries, fees, and the children. My heart was drawn to Mexico because of my heritage. Mexico seemed almost impossible to adopt from, much like Honduras we would later find out, so I pushed that thought aside and now fast forward 7 years.
At Valley Ranch Baptist Church, where we currently attend, they were hosting a Missions Sunday and various tables were set up in the lobby with ways that one could volunteer in our community as well as internationally. My husband was going from table to table as he was probably waiting for me to stop talking to someone, and a couple of guys starting talking to him about going to Guatemala on a missions trip. He eventually went with the guys and the rest is history.
After going to Guatemala with these men, who are now his life long buddies and some are accountability group partners, the men had a ingenious idea of inviting the wives along to Guatemala. So in March of 2008 the 12 of us went and had a trip of a lifetime.
Back in 2001 before starting a family, Bob and I had a discussion on whether our final "hurrah trip" or "last bit of fun before kids come along trip" would be to Hawaii or on a missions trip somewhere. Well, we are pretty predictable people so we went to Hawaii. Yeah we're horrible people right? So anyway, Hawaii was great, beautiful and we snorkeled for the first time and a year later in 2002 Madeline Grace Sturm was born followed by Brett Robert Sturm 2 years later. Life gets in the way and we were busy having fun raising our two kids and Bob was enjoying his time working at his dream job (talking & watching sports) and I was a SAHM (thats short for Stay At Home Mom I would later find out). But after that couples trip in 2008 I started thinking about adoption again and asked Bob what he thought.
He said he would think about it and we casually talked about it over the next few months. We continued researching and praying and we both felt at peace with our decision to adopt. We decided that Guatemala would be the country, but soon heard that Guatemala was closed to international adoptions indefinitely. Hmmm...well we still pushed forward and went to an informational meeting at Buckner in Dallas, Texas still not feeling led to any particular country at this point. There they told us that Honduras would be opening up soon, but they couldn't give us an exact time frame. Well, 2 months later the country was approved for Buckner and we proceeded with the piles paper work, lots of reading, questions and a lot of waiting.
Boy or Girl? We were requesting a boy
or a girl between the ages of 2-4. We already had a son and a daughter. As I like the say, we had the best of both worlds. So we were totally wanting a surprise. Don't get me wrong, if we had all boys I would have definitely wanted some more pink in this family.
Older Child Adoption - In the adoption world a child over the age of 2 is considered an older child. The chances of them being adopted are slim. The older they get the lesser the chance. Visiting older child orphanages in Guatemala was hard, much harder than the baby home. In the baby home I thought someone will come for him or her. Look, he is so cute. But as we entered the older child orphanages you have a sense that this is the end of the road for them, this is where they will live with a dirt "playground", no toys, cement walls, no pictures or bright paint - boring and dull. Until one day when they become of age, 15 or so, they will open those doors and out into the world they will roam and hopefully make a living and be an asset to their country. So for various reasons Bob and I both felt at peace that an older child would fit perfectly into our family. Three years later on August 29, 2011 our family was forever changed. We would gain a son, Maddie and Brett, a little brother.
. Believe me I have plenty of it. When I told God that I was feeling pretty brave. I knew I wasn't being called to live in Africa so I was feeling brave. Now I know. Yes, I am still living in my beautiful home in a safe place, with heat in the winter and A/C in the Summer. I can still leave my house without feeling danger, I can eat whatever I want whenever I want. Sometimes I wished that our family could go back to the way it was. It was so easy. Did I mess us up? Can I do this? What if we didn't adopt? Should we have asked for a little girl? I am not comfortable with our family, yet. For me, that means our family will be a forever work in progress. A work that is hard, but moments that I know were only from God. Healing that I know was only from God. Love that I know was only from Him. Our family is a piece of work that will always need mending and fixing and only to Him can we give the glory. From the outside we look "cute" some would say, but know that we struggle like other families and sometimes we don't do it well. But, we are trying because we know this is the life we were called to.
Secondly, I did not want our family to miss out on the blessings of listening to what we thought our family was to do. Yeah, I selfishly did not want to miss out. Yes, adoption is hard, hard, hard, but when you say yes to God you better get your running shoes on because its a crazy ride filled with mountains and valleys. But God does work in the hopeless and makes all things new. I am forever grateful for this past year and for how He has changed me and my family. We blindly walked into this adoption world with faith that I know only comes from Him the author of my life, my family, my destiny.
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