Adoption Stories

Michael was one of thirteen children by a mother who was a crack cocaine addict. He didn’t know his birthday. He didn’t know his father. He wasn’t even sure if Michael was his real name. Every day’s goal was mere survival. He had attended eleven different schools by the time he was fifteen years old in part due to his bouncing around the foster care system. He had no permanent address. He was a black homeless teenage dropout surviving on the streets of inner-city Memphis.

The adoption story of our little Mason began when Michael and I were at the dawn of our married life. Because of a diagnoses of Type 1 Diabetes before we were married, Michael and I knew that it would put me at great risk to carry a child for nine months. We began to prayerfully consider adoption. It was through our study of God’s own adoption of us into His forever family that we embraced the thought of it with joy and anticipation.

Imagine a church, just before a wedding is about to begin. Everything is in place, and everyone is in place. Pan to the first rows reserved for the bride or groom’s family and you’ll see they are empty. No parents, no brothers or sisters, no aunts & uncles, no nieces or nephews, and no cousins. Just empty pews! How sad, but that is a sad fact that will be played out time and time again for former foster youth who aged out of foster care without ever getting a family of their own.