Hello to all our friends and family!  Guess what?  We’re adopting!

You may be asking “How did that come about?”   Here’s the story!

This past fall, we began talking about adding another child to our family.  Pregnancy is very bad for Lora’s back.  She has always told people, “If I didn’t have to be pregnant, I’d want a third child!”  We began to realize that would be possible through adoption.  We started to investigate some of the possibilities of adoption, and found there are a lot of them! 

In November, we attended a “Discover Adoption” night put on by Bethany Christian Services.  It was a little overwhelming.  When we got home, we thought it would be much quicker, cheaper and easier to just have our own child!  For the next couple of days, that was our plan.  But God soon made it clear to us that He did not want us to do the “easy” thing; He wanted us to be faithful to His calling, which we believe is to provide a loving family to one of His precious children through adoption.

At that first informational meeting, we learned that Infant domestic adoption was not the best fit for our family.  In December, we attended an informational meeting for inter-country adoption, also known as international adoption.  It was very exciting and we felt like this might be where God was leading us, but we wanted to explore all the possibilities before making any decisions.

In January, we attended a meeting for foster parenting and older-child adoption.  After that meeting, we felt like it was not the right fit for our family at this time.  After exploring all the options, we felt confident that inter-country adoption through Bethany was the direction God was leading us and moved forward with our formal application.

What’s Next?  What Country, gender, age?

We are now halfway through the home-study process and most likely in the next month or so we have to decide on what country we want to pursue.  We are considering 4 different countries:  Haiti, Columbia, China, and Ethiopia.  For Haiti and China you have to be 30 years old to adopt, and Chad’s 30^th birthday isn’t until July.  If we choose one of those two countries, we would have to wait 6 months before filing any official paperwork with that country.  Haiti also has the requirement of 7 years of marriage, which for us isn’t until September.  More waiting! 

We both have a heart for a waiting child, and are open to either male or female.  We don’t feel that being put on a list for a “healthy baby” is where God is leading us because many countries have a waiting list of 3 years or more, and we see adopting a currently waiting child as filling more of a need. 

A waiting child is a child that is currently living in an orphanage and waiting for a loving family to adopt them.  A child may be waiting for a number of reasons…a special need (some of which are very minor), a sibling group, or an older child. 

Because of our desire to adopt a waiting child, it is a little harder to choose a country; we want to be open to God’s leading.  It’s hard to choose just one country when all four countries have so many children waiting for loving homes!  We would love to find a brother and sister that are around 3 years old or younger that just need a good home, but we will see what God has in store for us.  We believe He will make His plan for our family very clear to us in His time. 

We are very excited to share our plans and our adoption journey with you!  Many people have asked how they can help.  Here are some of the ways you can support our family.

• PRAYERS – This is one of the most important ways we asking you to support us!  We know how important and powerful prayer is!  We covet your prayers for our family and for the child/children who will join our family.  Please, also be praying for those caring for our child/children as well as all the orphans of the world.
• WORDS OF ENCOURAGEMENT – So many parts of the process take a lot of time and energy, so encouraging words during the time we fill out paperwork, during the difficult time of waiting and during the time of adjustment when the child/children come(s) home will all be so welcome and uplifting!

Thank you in advance for all your prayers and support!  We are so excited to see what God has in store for our family!  May God bless you and your family too!

Chad, Lora, Abigail & Benjamin Dykstra

http://www.dykstramedia.com

“Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.”  James 1:27

I was able to get the website back online and fully working again!  Now I just have 5 months worth of pictures to upload!  Stop back soon - new content will be coming soon!