Which country does The Lord want us to adopt from?

When we first thought about adoption, we assumed we would adopt from China due to the gendercide that was/is taking place because of China's only child law and stigmas in place. But since the Lord moved our timeline up, we are unable to adopt from China (their age requirement is 30 years for both parents). 

Todd and I both kept feeling led to Asia after a week of fasting from social media and weeks of prayer, so this narrowed down our scope from like 150 to 4!

After we felt peace about moving forward with Asia, God shut the doors of some of these countries. And we thought Thailand's international adoption was closed, but after talking to an adoption agency, it seems we were misinformed, so now we find ourselves between Thailand and South Korea. 

Both of these countries allow us to be 25 years old when we adopt (both turning 25 this year), you have to be married for at least 3 years (we will be married for 3 years this June), for South Korea, your other child must be at least 1 year old and for Thailand, your other child must be 18 months old when you apply.

So now we are praying God clearly leads us in our decision of which country we will be adopting from! We trust Him fully and lean in to listen carefully to Him.

How we knew God called us to adoption

“Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.”  James 1:27

When Todd and I were about 16 years old, we attended a Winter Jam concert with our small group, where several Christian bands and speakers all come together. One presenter spoke on international adoption and in particular China. Todd and I both knew from then on that God had put adoption in our future. 

Over time and as we have grown together, we had come up with a plan that we believed would work best for our family. Well, for those of you that do not know me, my name is Alex and I am a planner. Because of this, The Lord is constantly showing me that His plans are perfect and that I need to let go of what I think is best. Submitting to God's will and plan for our lives is our ultimate goal, but is something that is a constant struggle for me. With that said, Todd and I were very confident in what we thought our adoption plan was for our family. We thought that we would have 2-3 biological children and then when they were old enough to really be able to walk the adoption journey with us and were able to understand how adoption mirrors the gospel, we would pursue international adoption. But, God has better plans!! 

A couple of months ago, I (Alex) started to feel The Holy Spirit telling me that we should start looking into adoption. Since this was not in line with my timeline, I shrugged the feeling off because "that couldn't be hearing that right." But over many weeks of The Spirit's prompting, I finally mentioned something to Todd, half hoping he would say "you must be hearing wrong because that is not our plan." But instead, he said "let's pray about it!" So, we did. Over several weeks confirmation after confirmation and a peace that surpasses all understanding, we told our friends and family about this new, updated plan and humbly asked for prayers. 

We are beyond thankful for a God that is continuously moving in our lives. And to say we are excited about this journey to our newest baby would be an understatement!