Foster Adoption Has Been A Blessing To Us 

Letter From The Crawford Family

I very much enjoyed seeing the recent publication focused on adoption, having recently become an adoptive parent myself. But I was disappointed that you seemed to discourage parents from pursuing state foster children.

Two years ago, being blissfully ignorant, we contacted our state agency for a home study. Our worker was a wonderful Christian girl who did our home study promptly but has since gone to the mission field in Bangladesh.

Our adoption experience has been equally as pleasant. We have an older daughter who is married and is the mother of the cutest grand baby ever! They live in the great state of Texas and they told us about a TV news segment featuring children available for adoption. On this show was a 5 year old little boy named Joseph who was born with Spina bifida, as was our 14 year old daughter. This was our first inkling of God’s providence - a boy named Joseph would fit right in a family with 7 other children whose 1st names all start with "J". Our daughter got the phone number of the adoption worker and made our first inquiry.

Granted the time from my first phone call until we had him in our home was seemingly long, but what gift from God is not worth the wait? And we know He has many lessons to teach us through these times that we might not be so ready to listen and learn, if we got instant gratification. In retrospect we see His timing was perfect in so many ways.

The adoption worker we began to interact with in Texas also turned out to be a wonderful Christian woman, who told me recently that she knew from the very first phone call that we were the right family for Joseph. But she certainly had a struggle convincing the rest of the team involved. But we know when God gave the children of Israel the promised land, the Canaanites didn’t just up and leave. The Israelites still had to fight the battles.

Not only was the adoption worker a Christian, but also the foster family who had cared for Joseph since he was 15 months old. They are a wonderful family who did a great job of preparing him for his forever family. They had begun to do special needs foster care years ago, believing God had called them even though they knew that when their children were grown they would be doing over seas missions. Their last birth child graduates this year and they are anxious to see their last foster child find a loving permanent home. (I believe she’s autistic.) We talk on the phone frequently about how the Lord is working in our families and I’m so glad the Lord brought us together as closer sisters in Christ.

Now our very dear friends are in the process of adopting 3 brothers and we are just in awe of the amazing things God is doing. They had their homestudy done a year ago by the same girl and had circumstances in their lives in such chaos that they weren’t really searching for children. But just out of the blue, an adoption worker from the adjacent county called and asked to come talk to them about a young man. They were told his brothers were not available. But after this worker spent the afternoon with this family, she went back and fought against 10 other "professionals" for these brothers to all go to the same family. She was so impressed with their other children and the benefits that homeschooling would have for these boys that she was promoting homeschooling like a veteran.

Our church family is just in awe watching the process of God bring little ones into our families and His.

Now on the other hand we have friends on the other side of the state who adopted a little girl with Down’s syndrome through a "Christian" agency. They were charged an astronomical fee and then they tried to gouge them for her newborn ICU hospital bill too.

I believe we paid about $75.00 for our adoption certification. In the process of adopting Joseph the worker allowed us to be reimbursed for a trip to Texas to see our daughter and family because we had dinner with the foster family. She said that they called this transition. I call it fleecing the Egyptians!

I guess what I want to stress is that we all need to listen to the Holy Spirit’s leading in our lives not the negative voices of naysayers and people anxious to tell you the latest horror stories.

There will always be plenty of people out there ready to discourage us from doing what God has called us to do. No matter if it’s adoption, or homeschooling or standing for God’s truth in any area of our lives.

We have a mighty God who created the universe, who parted the Red Sea, who helped David slay Goliath, who helped Elijah overthrow the prophets of Baal, who raised our Lord and Savior from the dead... need I go on? He can also overcome any amount of red tape and bureaucracies. He can overthrow the most obstinate of case workers in His ways. In His perfect timing He can bring the perfect children to His covenant families, just as He has guided His covenant people for generations upon generations.