I remember our first conversations about adopting a child with special needs rather than continuing to wait for what could be many years for a healthy baby from China. Reading through the list of needs we would consider was daunting. Having to check “yes,” “no,” or “maybe” was near terrifying. But, we managed to check a few things off on that list, a list that would be amended maybe 30 times over the next 10 months, and returned it to our adoption agency with the following words: “we feel like we need to be open to the child God has for us. We do not know if she is in the sn program or not. But, we are opening ourselves to that possibility.” On the same day, I sent an email to another adoptive mother saying, “The idea of the pressure of responding quickly is scary to me as is the idea of pursuing a child only to find out that she is ‘taken.’ We want to be open to what God may have for us, but this sure is scary.” And, so started the hardest part of our wait to meet our daughter, a season of learning to trust God in a way I’ve never had to trust before.

In the midst of that, we were fortunate to be cared for and counseled by professionals in adoption from CHOP. They didn’t have all the answers as you can read in our referral story–but that is what made our referral story the very special one that God had planned for us, one that clearly confirmed His hand. These doctors and specialists have been an awesome resource for us from helping us look closely at the files of children we thought may be our child, to providing counsel to us via skype when we were frantic in China when Lydia became very sick, to giving her assessments and making sure we were doing all we could for her after we got home, to connecting us with the specialists we needed for her individual needs, to providing us support in our attachment process via email and phone calls, to simply encouraging us when they felt we needed some encouragement. I may be their biggest fan.

This past fall, Mark told me about an idea he had for starting a nonprofit to give grants to families so that they could experience this type of support. As full as my plate was already, I felt my heart leap at the idea. We did not know of anyone offering grants for this purpose. There was a need. And, ideas starting spilling out about how we could meet it and how God could use these efforts for significant Kingdom work.

We adopted because we felt God’s call to do so. We wanted to grow our family, and we both felt like God called us to this journey. We didn’t set out to do more than that. But, we came home from China as changed people. I cannot explain it any other way really. The heart of our family beats for the children around the world and for supporting families who feel called to bring them home.

We united with a few kindred spirits and stepped out again onto unfamiliar paths. And, so The Sparrow Fund was born.