Adoption Conference

Wow. What an amazing day! Today we went to an adoption conference located not too far from here. I'm so thankful for some members of our church letting us know about it. Else wise we would've missed a great opportunity.

The conference was called "Connecting Hearts with the Forgotten." The morning started off with a speaker by the name of Ted Kluck. He has written a few books (the main one I know of is called "Hello I love you." He was a great start to the day and such a great speaker. He spoke about his and his wife's journey towards adoption and all the ups and downs and gave some brief information about adoption.

I loved hearing their story and how they felt called to adopt a child before even trying to have one biologically. Once they adopted they tried to have biological children and struggled with infertility. He spoke of how painful it was for his wife and that even though they've adopted two boys (they don't have any biological children) the pain of infertility doesn't just vanish..He was talking about how the church can be such a blessing of a support system and such a good resource when going through IF (infertility) but that it can also be a painful place to be. I love that he brought this up. He said it was a struggle to try and get through the lobby each Sunday without hearing a pregnancy announcement or birth story or baby dedication or moms talking about diapers, feedings etc. Also, he mentioned how many churches have a big jazzed up service on Mother's Day and Father's Day and how hard this can be for couples struggling with infertility. I'm thankful that our church is not one of those and on those Sundays it isn't much different than any other Sunday. I can say though from our experience that I think Sundays are very hard. Yes I know the verse "Rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep." But, its not as easy as it sounds and unless you've been down this road please be sensitive to those of us that have.

After the beginning session we had 3 electives to attend the rest of the day. The first one we chose was called Basic Steps to Adopting. This first elective was run by a couple who have 14 children, 11 of which are adopted and 3 are biological. They ran through a lot of information fast but still gave us lots of great tips.

The second elective was called "God's Choice for your Family" This elective went over all the beginning questions you have when deciding on adoption. Domestic? International? Gender? Age? Foster Care? Race? Which agency? This one was probably our favorite. The lady that ran this one was great. The way she opened her heart to all of us and spoke so honestly about their adoptions. She was the "reluctant spouse" and spoke about how God worked in her heart to change what her visions were for an adopted child. She told us to close our eyes and envision what we have in mind for our adopted child...what does he or she look like? Where did they come from...etc? Then she said erase it and be willing to open your heart to what God is leading you to.

The third elective was called "Financing your Adoption" and although this one was geared mainly towards international adoptions we still got some good information out of it.

It was such a great day and I'm so glad we went and we were so very encouraged by this conference. The Lord also really opened our eyes to all the orphans that are out there and that maybe in the future the Lord will show us how we can help these orphans.

I'll do another post later about the possibility of using a different agency.