These 30 Minutes Made All the Difference

Maybe you’ve heard a phrase like this recently:

I was just at the right place at the right time.
It was such a coincidence!
I guess the universe wanted it to be this way.

Being grounded in God’s Truth, we know there’s no such thing as just where I needed to be, no such thing as coincidence, and no such thing as the universe making your plans.

There is only God.

This testimony from a Lifesong family could be written off simply as chance, but we know it’s much greater than that.

Praise God for being intricately involved in every detail of the following story—and in your own story.

 

In Christina’s words…

We were waiting to be matched with a child when we found out my husband was accepted to seminary. This would mean his becoming a full-time student again in a matter of months. We had been seriously saving up for seminary for 3 years, back when adoption was not on our radar.

After the loss of our first biological child, followed by a few years of infertility struggles, God made it clear that he wanted us to pursue adoption at that time, even with seminary on the horizon. Both seminary and adoption come with huge price tags.

We weren’t sure how we would navigate this.

 

Then a friend recommended applying for a grant through Lifesong for Orphans.

During the application process, a Lifesong coordinator called me to discuss our financial situation. She explained that she saw a greater need with seminary coming so quickly, and she didn’t want us to completely exhaust our savings account with this adoption.

We ended up being approved for a generous matching grant, more than we expected! This was an incredible blessing that set up our family really well for both seminary and full-time ministry without the concerns of paying back an adoption loan.

 

As this was happening, our son was being matched with a different family.

But upon his birth, his biological family decided to parent.

Six weeks went by, and this other adoptive family was matched with another adoptive child.

Within half an hour of this match, our son’s biological family called the agency and asked if it was too late to place him for adoption. They just weren’t able to parent at this time in their lives.

We got an email from our social worker asking if we’d been matched with a child yet because there was this six-week-old baby boy who needed a home. We hadn’t, so we sent our profile book for his biological family to look at. That was April 1st. And by April 5th, our son was in our arms to stay.

30 minutes is the difference between our son being in our home or another.

 

Our son had been in our home for a little over a year…

…and we had just finished our first year of seminary when we found out his biological family was expecting another baby. They were planning to place him or her for adoption.

Our agency approached us about adopting his younger sibling as it’s always good, helpful, and best for biological siblings to be placed in the same adoptive family. We were very willing to adopt this child but had absolutely no idea where the financing would come from as we had just spent so much on our son’s adoption.

We reached out to Lifesong and were so comforted and encouraged by their response. They encouraged us to reapply as they had seen this scenario happen before and several families had been helped and blessed more than once by Lifesong’s services.

The biological family decided to parent our son’s younger sibling, so we did not end up applying. But we were so thankful and uplifted to hear of the ways the Lord was providing for other families in similar positions. We knew He would have provided for us, too.

 

 

God also surprised us with another pregnancy and the birth of a healthy baby boy a year and a half later.

Two children, two arrows in our quiver.

It has been amazing to see the numerous ways God has provided for our family, both through the gifting of children and finances.

Lifesong helped move us forward in our adoption. We could not have afforded to bring our son home on our own or pursued full-time ministry so quickly afterward without their help.

They were willing to not only meet our bare minimum financial needs but instead give in abundance to set us up even better for our particular life circumstances. This has enabled us to care for our son in a unique and wonderful way.

We really felt like Lifesong was for us, wanting to bless our family for a good and healthy future as a family and a life of full-time ministry.

God is so gracious, kind, good, and faithful in all His was ways!


We believe money should never be the reason a child doesn’t have a family.

So we guide adopting families—like Matthew and Christina’s—through the fundraising process, removing the financial barriers to adoption. Download Lifesong’s free adoption financial assistance application to receive matching grants, interest-free loans, and access to our free crowdfunding platform!

 

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