“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
After Lance returned from a mission trip to Kenya in 2007 and showed me pictures of all the Deaf orphans there, I began to seriously dream of adoption. I mean, I had thought about it before, and our 3 kids had been asking us for a while to have another child or adopt, but I didn’t entertain the thought for too long until that moment. When I shared with Lance what the Lord had laid upon my heart, I was thrilled to discover he felt the same way! We immediately started to research adoption and discussed how amazing it would be to become parents to a precious Deaf child. Who better to provide a supportive home to a Deaf child than us: a Deaf father and a mother who’s an interpreter?! Unfortunately, we soon found out that our income would prevent us from being approved. I don’t know why we didn’t even try; maybe it was a lack of faith, or just assuming it wasn’t meant to be.
Then, in 2008, Lance retuned to Kenya. He spent a week at a Deaf orphanage that he had briefly visited the previous year and was profoundly touched by the time he spent there. Before Lance even arrived home from his trip, he told me that he KNEW God was calling him to start a non-profit to help this specific orphanage. I said “yes” without even needing to think about it. This could be our “adoption”! We established Lance’s Deaf Orphans in September of 2008 and have been honored to serve these children over the last two years.
Now, fast forward to September 2010. I was checking email and noticed an announcement from Colorado Deaf News. There was a 6 year old Deaf boy from China who was in desperate need of a home. I asked Lance if I could inquire about him. He said he knew we wouldn’t be able to adopt him because of our income, but to go ahead and ask anyway. The adoption agency said that income was not the only thing they considered when choosing a family for a specific child. They loved that Lance was Deaf and the rest of the family signed. The agency thought we could provide a wonderful environment for this little guy, so they started to process our application!
For two weeks we thought that this precious Deaf boy would be part of our family. We started to pray for him, think of names, and come up with fundraising ideas. There was no doubt in our minds that we would get him, there were just too many signs. For example, he was born on our anniversary, and Lance and I had both come up with the same name without even discussing it with each other. Then, we got the devastating news…..we fell too short of China’s income requirements and could not adopt him. We were happy to know that another family responded to the announcement, so it meant this child wouldn’t be left an orphan, but the pain still cut so deep. I bawled for days, as did our kids. We couldn’t imagine why God didn’t want US to be this boy’s forever family. In our opinion, no one could have given him a better home.
Then, Lance said something profound. “Maybe there’s another Deaf boy out there that no one is looking for. Two families wanted this little guy, and that’s wonderful! But maybe there’s a different Deaf boy that’s waiting for us to look for him,” he encouraged.
My heart leapt for joy upon hearing those words! I immediately called my friend Cheryl because she had adopted from China and worked for an adoption agency. She put us in touch with a wonderful agency called ASIA who helped people like us to get waivers (that would mean China would “waive” the income requirement and we could still adopt). When I told the representative of our circumstances, she encouraged me to apply because she thought she could make a solid case for our family.
As we were waiting to hear back from China about our potential waiver, ASIA sent us two files. Both boys were hard of hearing, so we sent the files back and asked for a profoundly Deaf child. We knew that we had the skills and environment to raise someone who was Deaf, and we didn’t want him to struggle to communicate with his own father. ASIA quickly found a profoundly Deaf boy on the shared list and sent it to us. The moment I opened the file and saw his picture, I knew he was the one. Here was the little guy destined to be a McWilliams.
I immediately informed the adoption agency we wanted to pursue this child and they “locked” his file for us. That meant no one else could ask to adopt him unless things fell through for us. ASIA told us it would be 2 to 3 weeks before we might know if our waiver was approved or not. I asked the Lord to let us know sooner because my heart couldn’t handle waiting that long. Plus, Lance informed me that if this did not work out, then we were done trying. Oh man, that made me pray even harder! But, I also had so much peace about everything, which was unusual for me. See, I tend to worry too much and I can be soooooo anxious. Yet, for some reason, a calm came over me like never before. I just knew I wanted our circumstances on His hands and not my own. All there was left to do was to trust and to wait……..
(For regular updates, please read the next page “If you build it”)
Isn't he cute??