Dreams of Adoption

If I were asked what my dreams for my life were, I'd say.....to see Selah healed & restored, for our family to stay healthy and close, and to go back to Ukraine to adopt 2 little boys and 1 little girl that caught our hearts....that's all I want in a nutshell....

We had some very tentative plans about adopting again, but they were real enough that we had talked to our facilitator about the children we were interested in. I actually told him we'd let him know if we were going to commit when we came home from our NY trip. We knew we'd have to see some real miracles if we were going to adopt three more kids but we have seen some real miracles of provision in both of our adoptions. We knew what God can do, it seems He moves heaven & earth to help orphans find homes!

Sometimes when I pray I remind God of what He has done for us and what we felt He had placed in our hearts to do. We were willingly to go back and get those three kids and give them a family. Our kids were totally with it and wanted to go get them! So I tell God we need a miracle for Selah in order to be able to do what we felt urged to do...

So I don't know if we will ever be able to adopt again, with the new responsibilities we have but let me encourage you to think about adoption. International adoption is wonderful. When I say it saves lives, I mean it saves lives, real lives... Having had the most beautiful opportunity to walk out the doors of two different orphanages holding my children, I can tell you the feeling is amazing! I think because it so closely mirrors what God does for us when He brings us into His family.

There is such need overseas. When you are there and you see with your eyes, then you become thankful for the safety net of the social care system in America. It may be flawed BUT it is so much better than what many countries have in place!

Thinking about so much tonight, but I just had to share about this. If I had a dollar for every person who has told me "I'd love to adopt BUT...." I say get your BUT out of the way:) there are some valid reasons why people can't adopt but IF it's just you don't think you can afford it or you think it's too hard, then don't let that stand in your way. If you think that you'll get everything perfect in your life and save all the money up to do it, things will never be perfect, Just Do It!

If you read back to Shad's story or the girls' story, you can see we were never at the place where things were perfect-far from it! LOL It seemed the two times we adopted, we were as far as we possibly could be from the perfect place! It looked like foolishness to adopt but we knew it was what we should do. How many of you have had hearts tugged at to adopt but dismissed it? Let me tell you there are real children, lying in orphanages all over the world who need real parents, right this very minute! I've seen hundreds of these children, and I can't look away!

Tonight I want to encourage you to step out in faith,if you feel that tug on your heart, start looking into adoption. Yes it is hard, I will not lie to you, the paperwork is hard, there are many hoops to jump through BUT the end result is so so very worth it!

I read different blogs, stories etc...and some people say different things about having the right motivation for adoption. I don't know what the "right" motivation is. All I know is we loved our kids from their pictures and pushed with everything we could to get to them as soon as we possible could! We wanted to rescue them, just like we'd want to rescue our biological children if they somehow ended up in an orphanage. We worried about the children during the whole process of adoption. Just like we'd worry about our biological kids. With the girls, we got to see them daily but it took over a month before we could take them out of the orphanage and I worried about them obsessively during that time. My biggest fear was that the institution would catch on fire. One night I was crying in our apartment, worrying that something would happen before we could take them out!

It's hard to explain adoption but the kids become your kids from their pictures. Meeting them in the flesh, is more sacred than meeting a president or king. It is such a holy moment. We didn't get Shad's or the girls' first meeting on video, it doesn't matter, it is so in my brain! In both meetings there were tons of other folks there, but I only had eyes for my kids, I couldn't tell you what was happening around me, just like childbirth in that sense of the focus is so on your child. What a precious privilege to have had those experiences!

So if you are reading this blog of mine, there is a good chance that you are interested in adoption. If you are eligible, pray about it, don't let fear hold you back. If you want any personal advice please feel free to contact me at
theclanton5@aol.com If you are moved by the things you have read on my blog, do something, if you can, adopt. If you can't adopt then help another family in some way to bring a child home. I feel the bible is pretty clear that we should help orphans but that is not necessarily why we adopted. We adopted because our children somehow were living in orphanages in other countries and needed to come home! They are not our "project" or "our ticket to heaven" they are our precious children that we are honored to be their parents. We were blessed to be allowed to adopt them and have them in our lives!

It seems people find it hard to believe that we adopted because we NEEDED the kids. We didn't know how much we needed them in our lives. We needed them to be the family we are. We're not saints, not in the least bit but we listened to God and we heard His voice and He told us that our lives would be changed as the children's lives were changed. We had no idea of the joy that would come out of adopting.

Right now our hearts ache because our little girl is injured but she is still our jewel. Truly even knowing how hard this would all be, we are so glad she came into our lives. We hate that she has gone through this, she deserves so much more than this but we are going to still ensure she has the best life.

So as always pray for Selah. But also pray for two little boys and a little girl who are sleeping tonight in an adult mental institution, pray that God will send a family for them. It might not be us, but pray that someone will come for them. All three of them have Downs syndrome. They are precious. We were able to play with the little boys quite a bit but I never saw the little girl out of her bed. So many people are reading my blogs and praying for Selah and us, I know you will add these three children to your prayers. We "named" them Sally, Seth, and Silas. (yes I know we are a bit crazy with the S names but once you start, you can't just quit doing it cause the child you name something else will wonder why they didn't get an S name...) But I have to say after these three names we are out of names:) We try to keep them Biblical but Sally pushes it (it is a derivative of Solomon)


Thank you for your prayers as always! Let me warn you, I started praying for Sarah and 4 days later we were doing the paperwork to go get her:)