Mom of 11 Shares Her Family’s Amazing Story of Foster and Adoption

You don’t want to miss this! Here is a rare opportunity to hear one of the most incredible stories of a family with eleven children.

I’ve known this family since I was born and can attest to them being one of the most humble, kind, generous, and committed families; to each other, their church, and their community.

One of the reason’s we are now an adoptive family and are so passionate about foster care is because of this incredible family’s positive influence on my life. 

No words can convey how grateful I am that God let us cross paths in more ways than one. And I feel so incredibly honored that this mom was willing to let you hear her story too.

I really prayed about whether to break this post up into two parts. But then realized, I didn’t want to stop the flow of this mom sharing her story.

So sit down, grab a cup of tea and coffee, curl up, and get ready to hear about the wonders God can do through a family committed to His service….

Adoption Story – Mom of 11

Do you know that there is more than one way to have more children than you plan for? Some people accidentally get pregnant, others answer the phone. It happens.

For the first 10 years of our married life we were very organized. We planned on 4 children each 2 years apart, then when our youngest was 2, starting foster care. The plan was to care for babies, short term (less than month) with the 2 year age gap we were used to.

Since we were blessed with fertility it worked just like we had planned.

The Bible says to care for the widows and the orphans, that verse spoke to us so there was no doubt in our minds that it is what we were to do.

When our youngest was about 1 ½ we started the process to get licensed for foster care. During the class we heard, “some of these children aren’t even used to sleeping in beds”. Oh no, we had to go home and explain to our children that they needed to sleep in their own rooms and not bring their sleeping bags to the babies room to sleep (next to mom and dad’s room).

Finally we were licensed and we got a phone call for our first placement. It felt just like being pregnant, you know it will come at some time but have no idea when.

Baby B was 4 months old and they wanted us to commit to long term because he had already been in four homes. After we prayed for wisdom and assurances from the caseworker that they would help us we said, “yes”. When they handed B to me my first thought was, they didn’t ask us enough questions to hand us this baby, even though when filling out the documents to be approved it felt like a never ending pile of paper.

About two weeks later we get a call from a guardian ad litem. I vaguely remembered learning about them in our class, not quite sure what role they played. She wants to come over to visit, maybe during dinner so she can get a feel of our family. We agree and as she is getting acquainted she mentions that our foster son has two older sisters also in foster care. The foster home that they are in wants them to move, soon.

After she leaves my husband says, “They should be together”. I am dragging my feet about the idea. “What about no kids older than our youngest, what about no kids long term, what about having 7 kids 8 and under, what about where would they sleep, what about being licensed for one child 2 and under”.

He calmly answers, we can turn the playroom into a bedroom. It has been okay with child number one. They should be together. We pray, we talk to our kids, we call the state, and everyone seems to be on board.

Soon we are that family that people look at in the store, counting children with their eyes. That family whose kids do not act like they should and other adults look at me with frustration in their eyes.

We had already purchased a 12 passenger van so transportation wasn’t an issue.

Fast forward to 12 months later they are asking us to adopt. This is crazy, we agree to pray. In this instance the answer was very defiantly no, the state had given ALL our info to the bio parents (instead of blacking it out like they were supposed to) and we felt that we couldn’t keep the kids safe. A huge answer to prayer was the adoptive family (who adopted all 3) were Christians and we were allowed to plan the transition to make it comfortable for both families.

The best way to describe adoption from the state is a roller coaster. “Yes, you will get to adopt”, then, “no, we found a relative” then again, “yes you can adopt” followed by, “no, we found a relative”.

We just hung in there, at last we were allowed to adopt the girls. We got home from the adoption proceedings and had messages on our phone about more placements. Once the girls were adopted they no longer counted as placements and at that time you could have one more than your own kids and one more could actually be a family.

We continued with foster care and had another set that they asked us to adopt and as we were praying got a call from someone (that had heard from a mutual acquaintance maybe we had kids that were available) that was interested in the kids.

During the conversation with this mom when she told me that she was a nurse I felt an instant peace that the kids should be adopted by them. The boy had really bad asthma and for many nights I had stayed awake counting his breathes, I was at peace knowing she would have the skills to deal with this. Another thought that we had during that decision was we would be way too old when these kids graduated.

Later it would be clear to us again that God sometimes seems to allow us to do things that we would never think were logical.

The count of our permanent kids was 5 girls and one boy.

After some thought we decided to look for brothers who needed to be adopted and then stop doing foster care. At that time there were notebooks in the state office of available kids. I went to the office paging through the books and writing down kids that would be a good fit for our family. I then went home and make phone calls (way before cell phones and email) to get more info.

We prayed again for direction.

There were a couple of sets of kids in Oregon that would be good matches. We applied for one set and we were not chosen. We were chosen for the next set. It was much scarier than adopting the girls, we had known the girls for a long time before we made the choice to adopt. In Oregon a committee chooses and that is it.

We had prayed that if God wanted them at our house the committee would choose us.

When we brought the boys home from Southern Oregon (age 8 and 9) the first night the oldest wouldn’t eat dinner. Later we found out that he thought we were going to poison him. We didn’t know that we were once again going on a different roller coaster ride.

Reading about attachment disorder is totally different then living with it. When everyone tells you what a wonderful child you have and at home you see someone who will argue about everything, it brings you to the Lord many times during the day.

The verses about the Lord always being with you are very important during those times.

In my younger years if someone told me that their parents “kicked them out at 18”, I would think what horrible parents. Now, with more experience I think, “What type of a child were you?” I never thought I would ask a child to move, we have twice.

But, after time has passed to have one of those same children (with their wife and son) come over to ask advice about what house they should buy and other things, as the commercial says, is priceless. Recently when we shared a huge medical challenge, to have him say that they will be praying and asking others to pray is amazing.

When one of those same boys, who right after the first week at church told us with shock that, “they told me that a fish swallowed a guy” now has preached sermons at his church. He and his wife are actively involved in their church each week, bringing their four young children.

To know that because we were available we are blessed with a front row seat watching God work in their lives.

Just before the boys came we had another foster placement, we told them that we were only available for a couple of weeks. They moved those boys just before our newest were arriving.

About a week later the state called and said that the new home wasn’t working would we take one back.

After some discussion we said that we would take both of them on weekends. We felt it was a good compromise because they would be in church each week. During this time our license was expiring so in order to keep them we renewed. A couple of months later they ended up moving to a relative.

Since we had renewed our license we continued with foster care. Ultimately we took a 3 year old boy (please take him for only a month, because there is someone getting licensed to take him- apparently I am a real slow learner to keep believing everything the state told me),

2 months later I get a call, “his mom just had a baby, will you take the baby, I need an answer right away?”. Talking to my husband and a quick prayer we said, “yes”.

The caseworker had to know that mom was pregnant, why didn’t they give us time? Our youngest was 11, now we are taking a baby. This was crazy. Quickly we started shopping for all the things we no longer had.

About nine months later birth mom asked us if we would adopt him, after praying again we excitedly said. “yes”.

It took 2 ½ years for his adoption to be final, a caseworker wasn’t detail oriented. I spent many sleepless nights worried that they would find a relative…

Worried that they would say our house was unsafe for foster care because we had taken the roof off to expand a story. During the craziest times of the remodel the caseworker never once came to see him, we felt that was a blessing.

Since there was going to be such a big age gap and we didn’t want to raise an “only” (with 8 older siblings). This time I went online looking for an available child.

NWAE.org, allows you to search by age, sex and abilities. We found a 6 year old that would fit. His foster mom agreed to a playdate in the park and we decided to proceed. His adoption went quickly as he was already legally free.

Fast forward another few years as we continued to do foster care….

We got a call asking if we would take a girl (since we fostered her once before) for a month, just until school got out. Surprise, we ended up adopting her a couple of years later. She had been in the system for six years, so much for the permanent plan after 12 months in care.

The state has lots of room for improvement.

Now, when we are together with all our 11 kids, 9 kids in law (almost, two are recently engaged) and now 22 grandkids (2 more are due next year) the house is very full of love, noise and activity.

My husband had emergency surgery during a recent remodel and most of the kids came to the house getting it livable so he could come home to a house that wasn’t buried in sheetrock dust.

Our family works together if they joined by birth, adoption or marriage.

Over the course of 20 years we had almost 170 children come through the house.

Some were there only from midnight to 7 am, others up to 1 ½ years. There are a handful that I wish I hadn’t met but out of that many kids to be able to say that about only a few is amazing. The shocking things for me was the fact that only 2 or 3 had tears because they were arriving on a strangers door step.

These kids were coming from a very different place and they were happy to have a place to sleep and regular meals.

During this journey we were very blessed to have supportive extended families, the foster kids were welcomed and treated like everyone else.

It probably didn’t hurt that my parents had adopted my two sisters and my husband’s parents had adopted his brother.

Not quite sure why we were surprised about eventually adopting. It builds a nice support system for our adopted kids when they have questions about adoption that there are a number of family members to refer them to.

My mom for years would save clippings for me from the newspaper about children that were available saying, “this one would fit in your family”.

Some memories stick in my mind:

• Watching an adopted child sit with a new foster placement and say, “I understand, this is a safe place” is wonderful.
• Having a 10 year old ask questions about her Sunday school lesson and then ask Jesus into her heart.
• Having a 12 year old girl ask, “what will you do when your husband hits you?” After I try and explain that I don’t think it will happen after 30 years of marriage and go on to explain that it usually starts in a dating relationship she says, “My siblings and I would run down the fire escape”. In her world it was a certainty, she didn’t ask if he would hit me but when.
• A new foster child arriving and a current foster child says, “This is my cousin”. Not a strong family support system there.
• Having new kids come out of Sunday school saying, “that was fun”.
• Having a child who arrived a couple of days before his birthday and when we have gifts and a cake say, “last year my parents forgot”.
• Getting a call that a child has been suspended. That wasn’t part of my usual education experience.
• The first time a teen ran away, we were searching the house from top to bottom. It took a while before realizing that she really wasn’t there.
• Agreeing to take 2 children on July 2nd, in our driveway as the kids are getting out of the car the caseworker mentioning that the 5 year old sets fires. Be sure to keep an eye on him. My husband slept in the hall outside his bedroom door the first night. Going to a 4th of July party I didn’t let him out of my sight. Turns out he was a 5 year old with no one watching him, most 5 year olds would experiment with fire if no one had explained that they shouldn’t.

Adoption is a journey but we have a couple of generations of proof that it works and the bonds are just as strong with adoption as with birth.

An interesting side note, as my sister (who happens to be black adopted to white parents before it was very common) was attending adoption classes with my mom (because she was single and wanted to adopt in case she never got married) listened to the caseworker explain that cross race adoption doesn’t work.

It actually does, the caseworker wouldn’t open her eyes to the example in front of her that proved it did work. Genetics play a role in personality and choices but the family bond and care is more important than genetics.

At this point I can’t imagine our lives without having adopted. I am sure that if we didn’t take this journey I would be more organized, have more put together photo albums, few weeds in my garden, a smaller Christmas list, maybe even chances to use fine china.

I would be missing out on needing to depend on God each day, watching God work in lots of kids lives, lots of grandkids who love to play with their cousins, a full house for many of different events…

I wouldn’t have had as many answered prayers, I might not have realized how much I need God working in my life. I wouldn’t know as many people. I wouldn’t have in house tech help for my cell phone.

Fast forward to today, we have a freshman, we will be in 63 and 65 when he graduates from high school. God has a sense of humor. The things that we said were crazy for other people to do we end up doing.

That being said, I have no idea what my days would look like if we hadn’t adopted. Having teens in the house keeps us busy and gives lots of purpose to our days. I love watching our youngest as he is learning and growing.

I doubt that I would still be playing Ping-Pong or pool, I know that we wouldn’t have a basketball hoop and be playing 21. When our youngest arrived I felt that I had been given a gift, a new baby straight from the hospital.

I remembered having dreams that if a baby was left on my step I would do everything in my power to keep that baby. We weren’t looking but when he arrived I felt that it was a dream, a baby was dropped on our doorstep.

If you are considering adoption, pray, read and then jump on the roller coaster, sometimes it is hard and sometimes it is scary but it is so worth it. A chance to make a difference in your life and in the life of others.

There are many children who need homes, please consider giving one a place to belong.

Adoption will grow you, change you and challenge you. At this point I would have thought I had seen everything and heard everything, but there continue to be new challenges to work through.

~ Foster and Adopt, Mom of 11

Oh friend, thank you!

Again, so very humbled that you would be willing to share!

This month, we are opening up Rich Faith Rising (for the first time ever) to mom’s and dad’s who will be sharing their very own, personal adoption stories.

Many have contacted me about sharing. However this month, God has layed specific people on my heart, people who are friends and from my very own community. (Please check back, as likely in the future we will open this up to more people.)

The point of this month is to point to God’s goodness, but to also remind us that adoptive family’s are real people, just like you and me. People who simply step out and are willing to care for children in need.

Is God calling you to foster or adopt? Check out the link foster/adopt in the menu to learn more.

If you have missed the previous adoption stories shared here, click the link, Personal Adoption Stories to read more.

Thanks for reading! And please join us Friday, for another adoption story!

(Joining  Chasing Community, Heart Encouragement, Tune in Tuesday, & Salt & Light today)