Our Adoption Testimony by April Cox

My journey toward adoption began about 10 years ago. I was driving down the road listening to a Christian radio station, and a lady told her story about adopting from China. It stirred something inside of me and started a dream in my heart to do the same one day. I didn’t know when or how, but I believed that it was something God wanted me to do. Well, at the time I was married to a man who had turned his back on God and eventually was not faithful to me. He basically decided he did not want to be married anymore. After our divorce, I remember talking to God and saying “Okay God, how in the world is this dream going to come true now?”
Little did I know that soon after that I would walk into church one day to meet a wonderful Christian man named Joseph. While we were dating we talked about children, and I mentioned my desire to adopt. I think he thought that it was nice dream, and maybe wasn’t sure if I was serious or not. About a year later, Joseph asked me to marry him. Then four years later, we had a bouncing baby boy and named him Caedmon Joseph. After we got over the shock of the first year and a half of parenthood, we began to talk about adoption. We first began by talking about it and then we started praying about it and looking at adoption agencies. After researching a few agencies we found a Christian organization called America World that we believed was the agency for us.
In October of 2009 we started the roller coaster ride of miles and miles of paperwork. Caedmon had just turned two when we began all the paperwork, so as you can imagine we had our hands full trying to keep him entertained while we worked on it. It was very tiring at times.
Joseph and I started our adoption process wanting to adopt, what China considers, a “healthy child”. We later learned that it could be a 5-6 year wait, which we thought we were okay with. However, our adoption agency highly encourages all those who are waiting on a healthy child to consider thinking about their “Waiting Child Program”. These are children with a wide array of what China considers to be special needs. Some needs are very minor and of course some needs are not. After doing some research about all the different special needs and what it would require of us as parents, we decided to say yes. It was definitely not something I had ever thought we would do. It took a lot of thought, discussion, and prayer. Joseph and I are not saints. We are not super mom and super dad! Yes, we have both had our questions and fears. But we both truly believed that God would lead us to the little girl that would be perfect for our family and that whatever special need she had, we would have peace about it.
And so, our adoption journey continued. It has definitely been a journey of prayer and learning how to put things in God’s hands. Throughout this journey, I have thought many times “God is this ever going to happen?” “Are we ever going to get through this!” Well, the beginning of November 2010, our adoption agency let us know that they were going to send out a referral list. Our family coordinator suggested that we look at a specific little girl who has cortical vision impairment. Her name is Chun Yi Wan. Because she is so young, the doctors in China have not been able to properly test her eyes, and were basically guessing what they thought was wrong. She is only one, so you can imagine why they had difficulty getting her to sit still. That meant that we truly would be going into it without knowing for sure what the condition of her eyes is. I started praying. “God, this is a little scary! It is an unknown condition! Please give us wisdom. Help us to know if this is the way you want us to go!” One scripture that God reminded me of that day was “We walk by faith and not by sight.” I felt like God was telling me you are not always going to have all the facts. You need to trust Me in this.
Over the next few days God continued to encourage our hearts and He did answer our prayer for more wisdom. We were able to ask the orphanage more questions about her. Even though she was diagnosed with cortical vision impairment, they said she makes eye contact with her caretakers and she seems to see her toys just fine. They even sent us more pictures. After getting the new information and more prayers, we decided, yes! We want Chun Yi to be our daughter and a permanent part of the Cox Family!
Now, our journey has led us to more waiting. In the meantime, we will be raising money to finish paying for the adoption. That is another “Faith Journey” in itself. Then will be the finale to our adoption story; our long awaited voyage around the world to meet our daughter….
“I would have lost heart unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the Living. Wait on the Lord, Be of courage, and He will strengthen your heart: Wait, I say, on the Lord!” Psalm 27:13, 14

-April Cox
(To Be Continued...)

America World link

America World (AWAA) is our adoption agency. Aimee Meier, our family coordinator, has been instrumental to our adoption process.

Learn as I go

Creating a blog for the first time is a lot like adopting for the first time. I'm nervous, I don't know what I'm doing, everyone is going to see this and what if I mess something up.
As with many things, April talked me into this. I get to experiment (screw up) with it, then show her how to post comments, pictures, add goofy widgets to the sidebar. Anyway you cut it, I get to do the "dorky" stuff and she gets to do the "cool" stuff.
I think we both have a vision of what we want this blog to look like. We have a story and want to share it, even if it's only the two of us that read it. It reminds me of facebook. We went fb crazy for the first two weeks then we kinda settled into it. I guess we'll all see where this goes.
In usual Grammy Award winner fashion, I'd like to thank:
- My wife, April, for dreaming about adopting from China, some 10 years ago. I love you more today than I did yesterday.
- My son, Caedmon, all you need are a few good pals. You're my pal.
- America World Adoption Assoc. for giving me a clue on this journey.
- I AM. (That's God if you wrinked your forehead) There have been ups and downs throughout this. He's been there to give me strength when I was tired, beat, and ready to give up. How could I stop singing Your praise?