This blog post was written by my amazing husband Michael.
Introducing Manuel baby #5
I thought I’d
share a little about me and Katie’s decision to adopt again. This may be a
little long, but I just wanted to write this to better explain to those of you
who care to read, a little more in depth of our decision. I also want to
attempt to answer some of your questions or concerns that you may have. I’m
going to base a lot of this post by what Katie and I have faced with our first
adoption, both the good and the bad. So this post is for any of you who may
have questions or concerns about our adoption, or for those of you who just
don’t understand why or how we are adopting. Bottom line, I just kind of wanted
to bluntly lay it all out there for anyone who would like to know lol.
We’ve been
through this process once, although the first time was domestically and this
will be foreign. But from experience, I can tell you that lots of people had
lots of questions, lots of doubts, lots of opinions (that they didn’t mind
sharing to our face), and we got lots of “looks,” when we announced we were
adopting, and not just adopting a child, but a child with Down syndrome! Just
to maybe let you in on some of the comments that we heard the first go around,
I thought I’d share a few real comments we got. And note, this is such a short list;
I could go on and on.
-“That’s crazy, yall are stupid.”
–from an anonymous pastor! That’s right pastor.
-“I feel so
sorry for your kids. They won’t get
the attention they need from yall
because all your attention will have to be
on your special needs child.”
-“You do
know that your son will never grow up and he will never be able to
live on his own.”
-“Yall have
no idea what yall are getting into!” (from people who have never
adopted.)
-“There’s
no way yall can afford to adopt a child, and even if you do, you’re not
going to be able to give him, and the rest
of your kids, the life they deserve.”
-“Yall can’t afford a car, but yall
are going to adopt a child. If you don’t have the
money to pay for it up front, then that’s
God’s way of saying you shouldn’t do
it.” (I’ll talk about this mindset in a
minute).
Shocking right?
And that’s just a short list. I think
it’s important to note too, most of the negative comments we received were not
from strangers or people we didn’t know well; but they were comments from
people we were very close to and would normally look to for at least emotional
support and prayer. Why do I share this information? Well one, please don’t
repeat those comments above to me or Katie. Especially my wife lol. If you make
my wife cry, you will owe me BIG TIME! But secondly, I really want to try and
paint the picture of what most (if not all) adopting parents go through.
Now I want to
share one last comment we got just because it was probably one of the most
shocking to me and then, I promise, I’ll move on. It was Christmas Day which
this particular year landed on a Sunday. I was getting ready to preach when I
was stopped by a church member right before the service. At this point, Katie
and I had not been matched with Carter and were being presented with several
different children. One we briefly considered and had asked people to pray for
us to make the right decision on was half black and half white. But this person
stopped me and told me, “If you adopt this kid, I will no longer come to this
church. This church was not made for no black person.” This is Christmas Day!
This is minutes before I am to preach! This is a church member! What did I say
you ask? I just said I still love ya but I couldn’t disagree with you more and
as long as I’m pastor here and you have that opinion, this isn’t the church for
you!” That’s extremely abbreviated of
course but that’s the short and sweet version.
So one thing I
would like to bluntly say in this post, for those of you who care lol, is what
you say to us, and anyone else for that matter that is in the process of
adopting a child, your words will go to their core. Your opinion, whether its
one the adoptive family would even normally care about or not, if said out loud
will either negatively or positively affect them. One thing that hurt us was
just not being able to answer why these people felt so strongly negative about
what God had led us to do when it really has no bearing on their life
whatsoever. So case and point here, if you have a negative opinion or you’re
just not for us adopting a child for whatever reason, first repent lol,
secondly KEEP IT TO YOURSELF PLEASE. Again, you make my wife cry, you owe me
lol.
Now as we (me and
Katie) had expected, most (not all) but most of those questions, doubts,
opinions and “looks” have ceased to exist post-adoption of our awesome son
Carter James Manuel. Why you ask? Well that’s a very loaded question that I
could rant on and on about but I’ll try and share a few reasons I believe. First of all, an idea of adopting a child and
all the talking and praying about it, became a real life human being that once
you lay eyes on, you will automatically say, “no matter the cost, no matter the
heartaches, no matter what anybody else thinks, he is so worth it!” Secondly,
when God calls someone (like He did us in Carters adoption and for this
adoption as well) who you know does not make a lot of money (not by anyone’s
standards), to step out on faith and
adopt a child that you don’t have the money for, and then that family pays for
that adoption debt free, it changes people’s perspectives. One of the best
things we got to watch through our first adoption was how God continued to
provide and provide and provide and blow people’s mind. It’s amazing what God
will do when you just trust Him to do it before He does it! And then lastly, when
God places in your heart to do something, no matter what it is, He will always
lead, guide and direct you every step of the way. He will never leave you nor
forsake you. He will provide for you emotionally, spiritually, and yes even
financially. Of course, it will always be on HIS timeline and for an impatient
person like me that was rarely on Michael’s timeline. But it was ALWAYS on
time, never late, never short.
And that
brings me to talk about finances. This seems to be where most people’s hang-ups
come from and where we receive the most “slack.” I think it will be a good idea
for me to just be upfront and tell you about our first adoption. To adopt
Carter it cost us apprx. $16,500. Of that, we raised $9,700 which leaves a
difference of $6,800. Not to share too much of our business, but Katie and I have
never struggled in the sense of we don’t know where our next meal will come
from, but we’ve never “arrived” either where we’re picking up everybody’s tab
everywhere we go. So naturally, and like probably most of you reading this, we
don’t have many opportunities to put money in the good ole savings account.
I say all that to
say, $500 is a lot of money to us much less $16,500. And to add to the
financial struggles of our first adoption, the same year Katie and I had to pay
$16,500, between me and Katie having many unfortunate medical emergencies, one
of which Katie breaks her ankle, we had a total $8,000 of medical bills that we
had to pay through the year. So from December to February we had paid $27,000
to some place or someone for various reasons. Now we have never had $27,000 in
our savings account, not even close. But I want you all to hear this.
Everything was paid on time and in full. And remember, we raised $9,700, so it
was me and Katie’s responsibility to come up with the other $17,300. To this
date, I can not tell you how we paid for it, but all I can say is that God did it.
Now I want to be
clear about this as well, I don’t say that to brag or to pat me and Katie on
the back for a job well done, but I do have a reason to mention this. When it
comes to asking people to donate money towards our adoption, again many people
have the mindset, “if you can’t afford it, you shouldn’t do it.” But please
don’t forget, when God tells us to do something, we can’t afford NOT to do it. It’s
our belief that because God has told us to do this, God will provide the
finances to be able to do it. And as you can see from the above financial
breakdown of our last adoption, God has proven Himself to be good on His word.
So as far as
finances go, this adoption will cost us approximately $28,000. To date (3/2/14) we have raised $185. That
means we have $27,815 to go. That’s a big number for us. But we’re not scared
of it because last time I checked; God’s got that in His bank account. Now I
don’t know how much of that God is going to have Katie and I personally
responsible for, but I can tell you by faith if its $27,815, we’ll do it.
Again, please don’t take that as being cocky or egotistic but rather I pray you
see that statement as a statement of faith. But one thing you will see us do
often, especially on facebook, is give you opportunities to give towards our
adoption. When people see those kinds of posts often by the same people, it may
seem that we are greedy or needy, but one point in writing this will be to
hopefully debunk that idea. Our goal is to just raise as much money as possible
through people who want to be a part of bringing home an orphan. If you don’t
feel led to do so, that’s ok. We’ll be alright. But all I will ask you to do is
pray about it. If God tells you, give nothing, then give nothing. But make sure
you have an answer from God before doing anything, even to give.
Now lastly I just
want to briefly say why we are adopting again and why China.
The real brief but real answer is, because God say so, so it be so lol. It’s
always been a practice of me and Katie to do whatever God tells us to do no
matter the risk, cost, and do it even if we don’t agree with it (which that’s
not the case here). Now we have failed so many times at doing this, but the
times we’ve listened and obeyed, God has blown us away. It’s contagious. When
you step out on faith on something you have no idea how your going to get from
point a to point z, and when you give God the opportunity to be God, He’ll blow
you away every time. So we are adopting for the same reason as last time, God
said so. (See James 1:27 and John 14:13 as well).
Why China?
Well Katie wanted to adopt from China
when we got married. It’s always been a dream of hers. I convinced her the 1st
time to stay domestic which of course she was fine with, but her dream never died.
Honestly, I was hoping it would because I felt like 4 kids is plenty enough
lol. But it never did, and Katie continuously reminded me of this dream of
hers. Now if you don’t know Katie personally, she doesn’t ask for much. She’s
easy going and very low maintenance. Any mans dream. So when she asks me of
something, I am going to do everything I possibly can to make that happen for
her. She deserves it. Not to mention, she is the most amazing mother to our
children and any child would be lucky to have her as their mom. Now with that
being said, adopting a child from China
was not like her asking for a sweet vacation or something like that. This is
life changing and affects our whole family in every way. And I didn’t have any
problems telling her that. All I told Katie was how we couldn’t afford it, how
this and that needs to happen first, and on and on I would go. I told Katie
basically what a lot of you may be thinking of realistic issues that we have,
will have or may have. You see, I left God out of it because I knew He was big
enough to take care of any and all those problems.
So as much as I
wanted to tell Katie that I was good with adopting from China,
I just couldn’t for a very long time. To be honest, I ignored her and ignored
her because I knew if I really prayed about it, I would be scared that God may
tell me to do it, and then like I said, I would have to do it. Well Katie
became more and more persistent. She would send me pictures of waiting children
like every stinking day. She would research and research and research some
more. She would sit me down and make me listen to her. But again, in one ear
out the other, until….I began to pray about it.
I began to pray
that if we are supposed to adopt a child, specifically from China,
then God needed to place that desire in my heart. When I pray about something
as serious as that, I always ask God to tell me so clearly that if I disobeyed
Him, I would fear His discipline. Secondly, I prayed that if it was not God’s
will, then to take the desire away from Katie (to be honest, I prayed that
prayer a lot earlier than the first). Speak to her clearly that this is just a
dream that needs to die. Well by now you
know the outcome; her dream will come true lol. But not only will her dream
come true, but mine will too. You see God placed this is Katie’s heart long
before He did mine, but He did put it in mine. And when God places something in
your heart to do, when it’s finally completed, it feels like a dream come true.
There are so many children that have been abandoned in China;
10,000 to be specific. There are so many orphaned children there; apprx. 50
million to be specific. And chances are, they will have a much lesser chance of
hearing about Jesus Christ where they are now then if they were here with us.
That’s one of the things I’m most excited about! Not only giving a child a
loving home, but giving them so many opportunities to hear the Gospel. In
short, we want to subtract the enormous amount of orphaned children in China
by one!
Now I hope I’ve
accomplished something by writing this post. I know its long but I appreciate
all of you who took the time to read it. I could seriously write a book on just
our adoption experience, but I just wanted to as briefly as I could, touch on a
few things. I don’t know why, but I just felt like I needed to write this. But
hey, while I got ya here, we would love for you to commit to praying for us and
our child and yes even consider giving to our adoption, Only if you pray about
it, and only if God tells you to. Seriously. Click the link below if you feel
led to give. Thanks for listening. Love yall!
Michael Manuel
3/2/14
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