Update

Through prayer and discussion, we decided to put our profile in for the Caucasian male baby in Missouri. I had written in our last post that we were unsure about whether we should because we had hoped to adopt transracially. We weren't sure if this was a right reason for saying "no" to this situation, so we took a few days to think it over. Just so you can understand our thinking on this issue, here are the reasons why we love the idea of adopting transracially:

1) There is a huge need to adopt minority infants in the U.S. and we want to help with that need.

2) God adopts and redeems people from all tribes, tongues and nations into His family (as the verse in our blog header states), and we love the idea of having a similar diversity in our own family. We want our current home to resemble our future home as much as possible.

3) We believe Christian churches are too racially segregated and would like to help bring about racial diversity to our church.

We believe these are all God-honoring reasons, so that is where our conflict came in over whether or not we should adopt a Caucasian child. After discussing this with our pastor, here are the reasons why we decided to go ahead and put our profile in for this child:

1) An orphan is an orphan: they're all children in need of loving Christian homes.

2) Special-needs children also bring diversity to churches and homes that is heaven-like.

3) Christians that are pro-life should be willing to adopt the special-needs children that are put up for adoption. (We're not saying that every Christian family should adopt a special-needs child, there are several additional considerations.)

4) We're in a better postion than most to care for a child with special needs. We have amazing health insurance through Luke's company so we can afford to pay for any extra medical bills.

I was sharing with some friends at our Wednesday Bible Study how having this time of waiting has given us opportunities to think through a lot of things regarding adoption. There are a lot of issues surrounding adoption that we hadn't thought about, but when situations like this arise we have to think through them and decide what is the right thing to do. I don't know what the Lord has planned for us regarding adoption, but we're gaining a lot of wisdom as we wait to find out! (Maybe that is one of the reasons why He is making us wait....)

Regarding this little baby boy, his condition is one where the prognosis is unknown. He may live a completely normal life, or he may have some speech and motor issues. We pray for God's wisdom for his birthparents; they have a very tough decision to make and an emotional road ahead. Please pray for them and for the birthparents in New Jersey and Mississippi. As always, we'll keep you posted if we hear anything.