Happy Gotcha Day

Gotcha Day - February 14, 2003

Four years ago today our family was immeasurably blessed with the addition of Carly Beth, Ryan Jackson and Wesley Peyton through adoption. The joy that these three children bring to our family is beyond words. Every day I am so grateful that we listened to the voice of God and not the reports of therapists and doctors

While we celebrate Valentine's Day, our family also celebrates Gotcha Day. I walked into the courtroom a mother of three and a few minutes later, I emerged, suddenly the mom to 6 children. They were 19, 18, 5, 4, 3 and 3. Looking back it was no wonder people wondered about my sanity. I can't begin to tell you how many times I heard, "Better you than me" and I would just smile and agree with the speaker while replying, "We think so, too."

According to The Voice of the Orphans, the United Nations counts 143 million kids around the world as orphans, 143 MILLION children waiting for love and needing a family. The Voice of the Orphans was founded in part by Focus on the Family in an effort to raise awareness for the need for people to step up and take care of the orphans of the world.

I did a little research and if you combine the last reported population for the entire states of Florida, Texas, California, South Dakota, New York, Indiana, North Carolina, Nevada, Idaho, Hawaii, Wisconsin, Alaska, New Mexico, Virginia, North Dakota, and Vermont, you would get 142,952,031 people - still less than the number of children waiting worldwide for adoption.

Would you like to adopt but think you can't afford it? The entire cost of our adoptions consisted of Bill missing 2 days of work. One day for interviews and one for the actual adoption. That was the TOTAL cost. There were no other adoption fees that we incurred. The state of Indiana paid for all of our attorney fees, it paid for our hotel, meals and our gas to go to the interviews and visits with Carly and Ryan.

In the United States, there are over 500,000 children in foster care and over 125,000 of them are available for adoption. You can read a lot of valuable information at this site on foster care adoptions. Recent changes in federal law mandating how long a child can be in foster care before the parental right termination process is begun has had the desired of effect that so many children don't linger in the foster care system for years on end. Foster care adoptions are a great way to have a family

We are constantly told how "blessed" the kids are that we adopted them. Maybe - but we are the blessed ones. They have forever changed our lives for the better. You have no idea how richly you will be blessed by opening your home and heart to a child in need. I speak from experience - I had no idea myself but I am forever grateful that I now know.