Joshua and Alexys have an incredible story of God sovereignly putting their family together. After an unexpected cancer diagnosis to unforeseen barriers in starting their adoption journey, and then a long wait, they eventually found their son. Theirs is a story of waiting on God's perfect timing: which can sometimes feel unending and agonizing. But also a story of God's unwavering, steadfast faithfulness.
It took me several days to try and think of what to include in telling our adoption story as I’m sure that if I included everything, I’d be writing a book. In light of trying to keep it shorter, I decided to tell of the major ways God moved for us and our son because, after all, all of the glory from our adoption story is His.
Our adoption journey started out a little differently than most but in other ways the same as many stories we’ve heard. We knew we wanted a family someday and adoption had been part of that conversation ever since we were teenagers. Our original plan was to have a biological child or two and then adopt last because we knew how expensive it could be. We figured when we were ready for our last child, we’d be older and be more financially able to afford an adoption. My health took a very unexpected turn and I ended up having thyroid cancer. We were told to wait a year before trying for a family to make sure that every little ounce of radiation had left my body. We decided we’d wait the year and then talk about starting our family at that time if we were ready by then. Two months after my “all clear” scan, God met us in an unexpected place: as we were painting our kitchen and dining room. I had asked Josh if adoption had been on his heart and mind lately, and through that conversation we knew without a doubt that the Holy Spirit was prompting our souls, asking us to adopt first, not last, as we had intended. I remember ending that conversation with Josh by saying, “Are we, like, actually doing this? Like DOING, doing this?” To which he replied, “I think so?!”
It felt like forever for us to get started and we had been turned down by the very first agency we applied to because they wanted me to wait to be three years cancer free. We knew God wanted us to do this immediately but we also know that His “start immediately” could’ve meant something different than our “start immediately.” We were VERY discouraged to hear “no” but we knew God wanted us to do this. We sought out other agencies in our local area and they all required us to be older which would have made us wait another 3-5 years to even begin. At this point, we were lost, frustrated, confused, and a little angry at God. Why did He prompt us so strongly, only then to not make a way for us to actually go through with it? We found out about Christian Adoption Consultants and were eventually connected to Susan! We felt such peace adopting with the help of CAC. Adopting locally just wasn’t going to be part of our story and the only reason we even began looking locally was because we knew it was cheaper and that we’d be able to go home and not have to wait for ICPC. What we thought was the smarter move was actually quite the opposite considering our son was born thousands of miles from our home! God knew what state we needed to adopt through and ours just wasn’t it.
We ended up signing on with several different agencies in several different states. We were ecstatic to receive our first case but quickly became numb to hearing all of the “no’s.” We presented to many different types of cases: boys, girls, twins, and even a 5-year-old boy and his 2-month-old sister. We were told “not yet” a total of 62 times. We knew that every “not yet” got us one step closer to our “yes,” but that didn’t take the pain away from not having a child in our arms when we were so ready for one. We were open and ready for whatever child God would have for us, and finally, after 2 years and 5 months, our lives were forever changed.
We were going about our normal Friday night and had begun heating up leftover tacos for a late dinner. I heard my phone start to ring and saw it was an unknown number from one of the states we were waiting in. It doesn’t matter what you’re doing when you see that sort of number on your caller ID, you just answer it! My belly felt full of butterflies and I started to shake with anticipation as the caller said the expectant mom we had presented to about a week ago had picked us. Time stood still, tears welled up in my eyes and I popped around the corner saying, “Josh! We’ve been matched!” to which he had about the same reaction as I did. We hadn’t felt immediately drawn to the case when we read it. We had asked if there were any red flags and after hearing “no,” we took that same leap of faith that we had taken 62 other times and said, “God, if this is the baby meant to be in our family, then let it be so, and if it’s not, shut the door”.... AND finally, the door remained WIDE open. We had three months until his due date and a lot of fundraising to finish doing to make this adoption happen.
Upon being matched, we needed an additional $16,000 in under 48 hours and God showed up in a miraculous way. He provided it through many generous givers and through one woman in particular who gave us a check for almost $12,000. She said she had always wanted to give extravagantly, she felt confirmation from God to give to us, and she loved supporting what we were trying to do. We had only spoken to this woman twice before; she hardly knew us! We continued to fundraise for the remaining amount but felt God telling us to stop. To us, doing nothing felt wrong and counterintuitive. We had another $17,000 that we’d owe in just two and a half short months so we thought, “Why on Earth would we just sit still?!” We remembered back to the very beginning of our journey and felt that the Holy Spirit was inviting us to trust Him. To trust Him when we wouldn’t end up adopting locally, to trust Him with every. single. “no,” and to trust Him with the timing and to trust Him with the finances. Affording an adoption was our biggest fear back when He called us to do this and He was asking us to trust. He came through and provided fully for the first portion so why would He not come through with the second portion? We fought off fear and lies from the Enemy every day and finally let go. We didn’t fundraise anymore and many people questioned our decision. Even we questioned it some days! It seemed silly but we had to not lean on our own understanding and let God do the work He set out to do. He asked us to adopt, but He didn’t ask us to figure everything else out on our own!
We were out celebrating my birthday on a Sunday after church and we had about two weeks left until the little man's due date. I received a call from our case manager reporting he had been born the previous day, but because of a whirlwind of circumstances, she waited until then to let us know. We packed that night and flew out the next morning. We had shared our story on our social media pages prompting people to give if they felt led and that’s the extent of our “fundraising.” We got done signing and were finally led back to his bassinet. Time stood still and we were in awe as we studied every detail of his face, learned what his cry sounded like, did some skin-to-skin, and just stared at him for hours. I could write a whole other book about how beautiful he was, the joy of knowing that THIS was the face we had dreamed and prayed about, and the eventual relief we’d feel when his birth parents would sign their consents after waiting an extra day to sleep on their decision. I find myself wanting to go on and on about Asher, how perfect he was and still is, and his tremendous strength as he worked through what he needed to in the NICU to be discharged after 16 days instead of the months it normally takes other babies, but I want to make sure my words and your attention remain on the one who orchestrated this entire story: God, our Father.
God went on and provided every single cent we needed for the remaining payment of $17,000 while we snuggled our sweet baby in the hospital, in addition to the additional funds for a rental car and hotel stay for three weeks while we remained out there waiting for him to be discharged and for ICPC to clear, the last minute flights to and from, and attorney fees.
In the midst of waiting, we definitely wanted to be matched sooner, we wanted all of the money to be there so we didn’t need to stress, we wanted the pain to go away, and so many more things; but, my encouragement to you would be to stop, and trust. Let go and let God…
If we had adopted in our timing, we would’ve missed our son by years. If we had adopted locally, we would’ve missed our son by thousands of miles. If we had fundraised how we wanted to and the way friends did their adoption fundraisers, we wouldn’t have come anywhere close to raising enough money and would’ve had to take out a loan. God’s hand was in our story from start to finish, even during the waiting times when we didn’t think anything was going on. He had a plan, He had a story, and He had the perfect way to bring Asher into our family. His story is much greater than something we could’ve written and we can’t wait to tell Asher one day how much he is loved, valued, cared for, and fought for by not only us but by his Heavenly Father who led us straight to him.
