Luckily, Amy and I have some experience loving from a distance. After our sophomore year in High School in Elkhart, Indiana, where I grew up and Amy lived for several years, her dad took a job at a church in Greenville, Ohio. At that point we’d been an item for over two years and had no intention of letting up. it was about a 3 hour drive from my house to hers. I would make that drive every other weekend for the next nearly two years. I’m certain we talked most every night and did the “no you hang up first” thing often. Ah, young love……..

We had no choice but to love from a distance. Surely you understand how powerful young love can be? It wrecks your life. There’s nothing else to think about. My whole existence became to live weekend to every-other weekend, to work and save money for a ring, and make plans to marry this girl I loved from a distance. Young love is powerful.

But the truth is it pales in comparison to the love a parent has for their children. I am learning a whole new level of what it means to love from a distance. This isn’t any kind of romantic love, like Amy and I share. It’s a fierce, fatherly, protective, take-them-in-my-arms where it’s safe kind of love. To show them the security and consistency the love Amy and I have for our children provide them. Our kids in Poland don’t understand what this is yet. They’ve not felt the strength of my embrace or the warmth of Amy’s touch. We don’t have the privilege of visiting them every other weekend to help them feel what we so desperately want them to feel. They probably don’t even know about us yet. We have to love them from a distance yearning for the day we’ll be able to take them in our arm and say for the first time, in complete sincerity, honesty, and probably in Polish how much we love them and have loved them……from a distance. From 4,652 miles, to be more precise. It’s a great distance to cover.

But honestly, it’s nothing compared to the distance Father God has covered for us. Colossians tells us He (Jesus) left His very throne, His seat of power to become a lowly human like you and me. Father God wasn’t limited by time and distance and money so He sent Jesus to us….to live like us….to feel like us….to understand what our life is like….Jesus was the Father’s gift of love to his children. You see, God’s fatherly love is like my fatherly love. It’s fierce and protective and desires the best for us. Sometimes we feel love so deeply we have a hard time expressing our love to those we love in a tangible way. We buy them gifts, write notes of love or share moments of intimacy – but none of those things ever seem to be enough. But, this is how we, as humans often express our love. God is a little different. Sure, He blesses us; sure, He takes care of us; sure, we can have a powerful and meaningful relationship with Him….but He went beyond that. God demonstrated His love for us by sending Jesus to die for us (love is nothing if not demonstrated). And not after we had expressed any sort of love or passion for Him, but while we were still lost. Still sinners. Still broken. Still abused. Still hurting. Still wrapped up in ourselves. And, dare I say, still orphans.

I understand God’s experience loving from a distance. Anyone who is away from Him, anyone who doesn’t believe or isn’t in relationship with the Father, God is forced to love from a distance. Knowing how my heart aches for these children I will someday meet and cuddle and hold, I can’t imagine how Father God feels loving from a distance many whom He will never have a chance to meet, cuddle, and hold (hopefully you can handle the “father” imagery of God :-)). It’s why He never gives up His pursuit of every “orphan” on this planet. He loves you so very much that before you were ever considered, ever though about by anyone on earth; before your great grandparents to the 10th power were even alive, He gave you the very best gift He could think of. It wasn’t something that would perish, spoil, or fade away by life and time…..it was something that would last the distance of eternity…..the opportunity to have a new start in this life and an eternal love of the Father that will never leave you or forsake you. It’s an inheritance better than anything this world might offer.

The truth is, we are all orphans in this life – sin has made this the case. So God remedied this problem. He adopted us. He chose us. If you’ll just believe in Him, you don’t have to be an orphan anymore….you don’t have to be loved from a distance. God will wrap His enormous Fatherly arms around you and hold you tight, heal your brokenness, and, someday, bring you into His very household. I can’t wait to do this for our kids in Poland…..I know God can’t wait to do this for you and anyone else who would come to Him.

So now we are in the waiting pattern. Since we finally received the official go ahead from Poland, we have been feverishly working to complete our home study. Gathering documents, meeting with our social worker (who is wonderful, I might add!), getting medical exams including blood-work…..not gonna lie….I almost ended up on the floor, but hey…I don’t have HIV or Hep B or Tuberculosis, cleaning the house and completing small projects that have been waiting for some attention has become the norm. It’s really amazing how quickly those little projects get taken care of when one has some motivation!

We met for our first of two social worker meetings on Amy and my’s 14th anniversary; August 4th. It’s kind of weird unpacking your life story for someone in such quick fashion. Before we went I was a little nervous about it, like they’re looking for ways to trip you up, catch you in a mis-step, or a lie. “Well, Mr. Carlson, I thought you said your relationship with your paternal grandmother was excellent? But that’s not what you’ve indicated now. Could you restate that and tell the truth?” One builds up, in their minds, this interview process to be more of an interrogation, like these social workers are against you or something. Nothing could be further from the truth. We spent a couple of hours answering questions, talking through the ins and outs of adopting from Eastern Europe and really enjoyed the company on our anniversary. Sure she asked us about our upbringing, our family relationships, our marriage, how our biological kids feel about all of this (they are as excited as we are!), but we felt she was very much for us and so excited about bringing these kids home. 

I appreciate what social workers do. They have a tough job. I mean think about it: in a two hour interview she’s trying to figure out if we are crazy or not. Do we have the wherewithal to parent these four orphans or will we just add some luggage to the baggage they already carry? I get it. It may be just a little uncomfortable at times for the adoptive or foster parent to go through, but really, isn’t that what we want? If MY kids were the orphans…..if MY kids were being adopted by another family who would be responsible for their upbringing, their worldview, their health, their future, and massively contribute to who they would become, I’d want the social worker to make sure those parents were worth their salt. That they had it together. That they’d love and care for my kids. Not that they were perfect, just that they would love MY kids as their own and do their best. I’d want the social worker to knock out any potential parents who would be a detriment to my kids. What loving parent wouldn’t want that? We don’t know the history of these kids yet. We don’t know how they became orphans. But I know this…..whether their parents have passed, are addicts, abusive, or whatever….in their soul, when they’re honest with themselves, they would want the same for these kids. They would want Susie the Social Worker to make sure the Carlson’s will be a great family for their kids. 

So I was nervous, but Susie (that is actually her name :)) did a great job putting me at ease and feeling so strongly she was on our side….and on the side of our kids. I’m grateful for that. 

A couple of weeks later, she came to check our our home and meet our biological kids, along with Charlie the dog, who may have eaten her shoe. We had a great hour visit. The kids loved showing her around our house and we finishing up some questions, filling in the gaps so she could go home and write the final home study report. All of our documents are in; everything on our end has been submitted for the home study, so now we do what I do best…..we wait.

Actually, we go on vacation!! We’ve been planning this trip to Florida (not Disney!) for many months. We’re looking forward to the relaxation and the beach after such a hectic and God-filled two months! It’s kind of mind blowing to think how much our life has changed since June 23rd when I first saw our children. We can’t wait for them to come home. What I love is…….

We’re Just Getting Started!! I CANNOT wait to see what God does next!!!

One of my MANY skills is patience. I am so amazingly gifted at waiting. I never get anxious, worried, agitated, annoying, or concerned. I walk through situations which require waiting or trusting God when I see nothing happening with incredible grace and faith. People often comment how they wish they could be like me when it comes to waiting.

All of the above is a MASSIVE LIE!!! I HATE waiting. In fact, the only thing I hate more than waiting is fasting. I really LOVE food and giving it up for a season of time is just painful. But waiting……ugh. The problem is, (and just admit it, this is probably your problem too), I want a microwave life but live in a crock pot world. So annoying.

God had, in our eyes, performed at least three or four major miracles….things which should not have happened, but they did, in this process. We hadn’t received a firm YES from Poland yet, but we were doing everything we could do to have the best shot at receiving it. Now, as our home study began with gathering an enormous number of documents, we moved into waiting mode. We tried so hard to go on with normal life. It was July at this point. We were SUPER busy with some other amazing miracles God was performing for the church we pastor (that should be a blog in itself), and the normal summer stuff with our four kids. Just waiting.

On July 21st, Amy and I took 9 kids from our church up to Hartford City, Indiana for our fellowship’s Kid’s Camp. On the way home we stopped at Riley Hospital in Indy to visit a young man from our church who had recently had surgery. On the way out, I checked my email. We had an email from Rebecca!

CHI’s director and the on-the-ground liaison were able to advocate for us on behalf of our four kids with the authorities in Poland. They told them about our family, showed them pictures, and talked with them about how serious we are. They understood we didn’t quite fit their “normal” parameters but we really felt like these kids were our children. They shared with them about how we had literally put our money where our mouth was and signed on with CHI and booked our home study. I don’t know if the folks from Poland were impressed or not……but they said YES!!!

THEY SAID YES!!!!

With just one more hurdle to clear…..they wanted the CHI ladies to meet with the foster parents and the local adoption authority in the town where the kids were located. If they said YES to our family, the we would be on like Donkey Kong!

Rebecca said we should know a definite by the end of that week.

More waiting. But we were elated! It kept getting more and more real. Little by little Amy and I were letting our hearts fall in love with these beautiful Polish kids we’d never even met….didn’t know what size shirts to buy them….don’t know how they came to need us….they have a history all their own of which we would never be a part, but we knew; just knew, we had to be a part of their future……We loved these kids like our souls had loved them since the beginning. It’s just right. We loved them….So we waited.

We still love them. Our kids love them. So we wait. Because they are waiting for us.

When God decrees a thing………..

The last few days have been super busy….We are in the middle of our home study process, so Amy and I, for that, had medical exams. I want to say a big THANK YOU and shout out to my friends over at Kingsway Community Care Center in Avon who took Amy and I in and helped us complete the medical exam. After a quick jaunt over to the hospital for blood work. All of our paperwork is now finished for the home study so we can proceed!! This is excellent news. Oh, and I don’t have Hep B, tuberculosis, or HIV. That’s good, too, I think.

The preliminary approval we received from Poland made everything a little (OK, a LOT) more real. Like I mentioned before, we had really tried to get our hopes up, but now they were sky-high! Rebecca made it clear we could do some things to show Poland we were serious….like make our relationship with CHI official, sign with a home study agency and get that ball rolling, and start working on paperwork. Her feeling was if the director of CHI and the on-the-ground liaison could demonstrate tangibly to the folks in Poland we were in this for the long haul when they met in a few weeks, Poland would be much more likely to officially say yes. So we did all those things while we waited for the ladies from CHI to head to Eastern Europe in mid-July. We signed up with CHI right away. Why not, right? We had really loved everything about them so far. Then we started looking for an agency in Indiana that could do our home study for us. There were only three Hague certified, which is required for an international adoption. We really liked the relationship some friends of ours have had with FTIA in Evansville (Families Thru International Adoption) so we signed with them to do the home study. Up to this point there hadn’t been any investment, financially. But at this level, that had to change. In fact we needed $3,000.00.

Like, yesterday.

I had already been thinking about selling my truck. The 11MPG was killing me! The day before I was going to do the obligatory pictures and list it for sale on Craigslist, God reminded us He is The Great Provider. In conversation some very dear friends of ours found out about our plans for the adoption (not many people knew at this point) and our immediate need. We talked a little about all the upcoming hurdles and what we felt God was doing before they left and went on their way.

A few minutes after they left, I received a text from them. It went something like this…..”hey, we’ll take care of the $3000. Just let us know when you need it.”
It was one of those moments I was floored and yet I wasn’t floored. God had shown us already He was in this whole thing, He just hadn’t yet made it clear HOW He was going to provide the $40,000ish it was going to take to make it happen. This first act of obedience on our friend’s end (not their first act for sure), and our first act of true trusting faith, was God’s little way of reminding us He knows the need and has a plan to meet it. If He called us to this, He would provide for us to accomplish it. I think, as a believer, I consciously understand this, and as a pastor I constantly preach this……I just don’t always live it. Can’t you relate?

What a joy it was to write a check to PAY IN FULL our home study and our initial fee to CHI!!! Never have I been so excited to write checks totaling $3000 in my life!!

This wasn’t the first miracle God had performed for us…or rather for these kids. But it was a MAJOR confirmation of what we felt God was already showing us. What’s for absolute CERTAIN, is this miracle would not be the last.

It’s a question we get somewhat regularly. Adoption IS very expensive. It takes an enormous amount of funds both in our country and in the other country to pull this off. If you’ve ever adopted before, especially internationally, you understand the costs every family incurs. Generally speaking, the adoption of one child ranges in fees from $25,000 to $30,000 depending on the country of adoption.

Our adoption is a little unique as we aren’t adopting one child but four. There is a reduction is fees as this is considered “special needs.” Also, any child over the age of 3 is considered an older child and thus “special needs” because they are harder to adopt out. and we have some of those.

So all of our fees including travel, home study, immigration documents, agency fees, and Poland fees are going to push $40,000. We’ve received to date around $4500 of that through the generosity of some of our friends. This is a large expense for our family and there’s basically no way we can just cover it.

The Lord has encouraged us with peace, knowing He will provide all we need!!

As soon as our home study is complete we can begin applying for grants, and there are a gazillion out there…..but there is also fierce competition for limited funding. We have already perused them and picked the 15 – 20 we will apply for, thanks to the hard compliation work of a couple of our friends. We CANNOT WAIT to start that process and see some real movement in that number!

But perhaps you’d like to be a part of this…..it’s OK if you don’t, financially, anyway, but many people love to be a part of something bigger than they are. I keep telling people who ask, “Amy and I will raise these kids for the next 20 years….putting food on the table, taking them on vacation, building memories, helping them through school & college, helping them become useful mammels……but maybe you’d want to help us on the front end….help us get them home so we have the opportunity to do all of that.” There is absolutely NO PRESSURE in this…. and we love you the same!!! But there are basically two options if you’d like to be a part of this:
1. You can send a check to help cover expenses. Send it to us at 620 N Carr Rd, Plainfield, IN 46168.
OR
2. You can give through gofundme.com. You can check out our page by clicking here.

Whatever you do, we are grateful and always will be. Our kids will know your name and have a full understanding we couldn’t have brought them home without youre help. Not to mention all that treasure in heaven stuff……

Any questions?? just ask!!

The email I received in reply let me know the ladies at CHI had forwarded my email to their on-the-ground in country liaison. But there’s a slight wrinkle. The on-the ground liaison isn’t exactly on-the-ground. She’s here in the States visiting her family! But from the States she had forwarded our email on to the main authorities to see what they would think. Now look, it’s important for us to understand the weight this country places on their birth order rule:

Two families had previously inquired about these children with the main authorities with less complicated birth order issues than us. Immediately the reply was “NO.” No discussion. No advocacy. Just “NO.” Why should we expect to be any different?

Honestly, we didn’t. We were inquiring because we believed God wanted us to, but Amy and I had refused to allow our hopes to rise. We wanted these children, sure. We believed God wanted us to have them, yes. But we could be wrong, right?

So we did what every normal Christian who’s ever read the book of Joshua does in a situation like this……we put out a fleece! Now I don’t recommend employing a fleece (asking God to show you his will with a physical or tangible act) for every decision. But for MAJOR decisions or life-altering situations, we have found it to be quite helpful. The key to a fleece is making sure it’s only something God can do (you can’t be able to manipulate the outcome) and you can’t tell anyone about it (so THEY can’t manipulate the outcome). It has to be God. Our fleece was this….if the main adoption authorities in Poland came back with an agreement to CONSIDER us….to review our file…then we would take that as God telling us this was His will and we should move forward. We figured for this to happen, with the complicated birth order thing, and the history of Poland saying “NO” to people less complicated than us, this would have to be God. Our wonderful case workers at CHI asked us to write a little bio of our family and attach a few pictures to send on to the on-the-ground liaison. We did so and then just had to trust God would show us what the next step would be. These kids were in danger of being split up….basically our deal with God was (neither do I recommend you make “deals’ with God a habit!!) to move on our behalf in the country so we could adopt them, or bring along another qualifying family to trump us who would take all four. They simply could not be split up no matter what!!

Three days went by. We still didn’t allow our hopes to rise. We knew the on-the-ground liaison was on-the-ground in the States until the middle of July so we didn’t expect to hear much until she returned to Europe. We went to Elkhart to visit my parents and sister’s family over the fourth – so at least our minds and hearts were occupied.

I was sitting with my brother-in-law Scott on his couch at his place on July 3rd. Just hanging out celebrating my niece’s 11th birthday. We were getting ready to head back to my moms when I checked my email (remember, I always break the rule!). I was shocked to have something from Rebecca at CHI. She was as shocked in her email as I was to receive it…….POLAND had agreed to review our file!!! This was HUGE since they had only ever said “NO” to families like ours! They weren’t saying “YES” but they also weren’t saying “NO!” It was a solid…..”MAYBE.” And we would take it!!

Rebecca wanted to talk soon. It was almost 9PM here, but nearly 6PM where CHI is located. I asked if she wanted to wait until after the 4th or talk now. She didn’t know it, but my heart was racing and my eyes were huge. Amy and I were thinking, “This all just became a real possibility.” Isn’t it amazing how surprised we are when God reveals Himself in just the way we had asked? Rebecca was happy to talk right then – and this is what I have grown to LOVE about CHI – so I called her. We talked a few minutes about home studies, the next steps, and the fact that Poland wanted to know we were serious. She was very clear, this wasn’t an approval but only an agreement to take a stroll with our family. The on-the-ground liaison would be returning in two weeks, and CHI’s director would be joining her – what great timing for advocacy, right? We had two weeks to do whatever we could to show Poland we were serious and wanted these kids to be ours. If we could get a few things on the record, we might have a real chance. We were all shocked at this whole thing and really standing in amazment at all God was doing for these wonderful kids.

The only person not shocked (I mean my mom still wasn’t sure we hadn’t lost our marbles….and looking back, I’m not so sure Amy wasn’t a little in her camp at this point, too!!) was our friend, Kim…..who made clear to me, “God already said ‘Yes”!!”

Every day, I break one of the cardinal rules of “executives” who work in an office setting. I check my email like a bazillion times. The experts, whomever they may be, tell you not to, but only once late morning, and once more 30 minutes before you head home. I fail miserably at this rule. So, like normal, as soon as I shot the website contact off to the agency listing the sibling group of four I had just inquired about, I checked my email.

The tinging of my outlook is nothing significant. but the email I received from the agency to which I had previously sent an email was. The case worker who had received my email was very kind in responding to me. She said that her agency, Children’s House International, would be happy to help us on our journey to adoption and recommended a couple of country programs into which we could look. Then she said something to the effect she knows we’re only looking for two kids, but she had a sibling group she couldn’t help but share with us. If the four siblings in the attached picture did not find a family soon, they would be split up and adopted out separately……I popped open the picture she had attached. Staring back at me were the four faces of the very same children I had just found and inquired about on the photolisting website. I couldn’t believe it. Literally in the same moment I received another email from another case worker at CHI who had received my inquiry from the photolisting website about those same children. It suddenly dawned on me, I was talking to two different people at the SAME agency about the SAME children!

I had yet to say ANyTHING to Amy…..

So I took a picture of the picture on my email and texted her. I said something like, “Hey! Check out these four kids. I think maybe we’re supposed to bring them into our family.” I’ve learned a lot in 14 years of marriage. One of those things is the fact Amy moves much sssssllllllllloooooowwwwwweeeeerrrrrrr than me. I was ready to get on a plane, fly to Eastern Europe and bring these kids home. As far as I was concerned they were already our children. God had said so.

Amy texted back one word……..”FOUR?!?!?!”

I don’t remember the rest of our text conversation that day. I began to chat with the two ladies from CHI via email. As I asked a MILLION questions and they so graciously answered, my heart continued to be drawn to these children. Finally I asked them what was weighing on me. We have four biological kids. I’m a pastor. How would the adoptive country feel about that? Would they be OK with it. “Oh, yes!” was the reply. “They’ll love that you’re a pastor and have no problem with big families!” This was excellent and welcome news! But then the bomb dropped…..”How old are your kids?”

Not thinking this would matter at all, I shared the ages of our kids, which is 10 down to 4. I remember getting the reply from both ladies sitting at our dining room table……The country would not approve/allow our family to adopt these kids. See they have a rule. The oldest child being adopted must be the youngest child in the family doing the adopting. They really don’t want to disrupt birth order. So all four of these kids would have to be younger than our youngest, who is four. Obviously we weren’t even close! I guess I get that, but my heart was just broken. Here I (and Amy had started to feel what I was feeling) feel like these are OUR kids, that God had planned it that way, but the country would say NO. I’m not gonna lie…..I was VERY DISAPPOINTED.

But when GOD decrees a thing, there isn’t a nation, government, leader, or anyone/anything else which can stop what God has set in motion……

So I sent a reply (actual email I sent to CHI on Thursday, June 26th):

So here’s my thoughts…..I hear what you’re saying and I get the difficulty of it.
But they are a sibling group about to be split up soon if no one adopts them. What the country is looking for has proven very difficult to find. If they could see that, they may make a waiver or exception to their rule.

What do I need to get in place for CHI to advocate on our behalf for these children?? We want to ask…God may do a miracle if we’re supposed to adopt them. If not, then what have we lost?
I will do whatever you tell me for CHI’s people on the ground in country to go to bat for these kids and our family adopting them. Just tell me what that is!!

I’m not trying to be difficult by any stretch of the imagination – I sure hope you aren’t hearing me that way. I’m 100% certain you know more about this than I. But I know God does miracles – and if He’s in this, He might do one here. He specializes in what seems impossible – even in Easter Europe!!!  If He doesn’t and they still say NO, I will accept His will and move on! But He does work miracles. I’m not saying He will here – I have no special revelation – but we’ll never know if we don’t try. Again, what do I need to do? What fee do I need to pay? What form do I need to fill out? What do I need to write? I want to advocate for these children…..Amy and I aren’t just looking for any orphan or sibling group – we’re looking for THE orphan or sibling group God wants to place into our family….our sons and daughters. I’ve looked at literally thousands of pictures and profiles and found NONE who stir my heart like these. I must at least try….I hope that makes sense. Again, please forgive my ignorance and passion. They are sometimes raw and deep.
Jeff & Amy Carlson

And then I heard nothing….not a peep. Silence….all weekend long, which if you know me DROVE ME NUTS!!!!!!!!! I thought I had scared off CHI! I could hear them in the break room talking about the crazy dude from Indiana who just didn’t “get it.” By Tuesday, July 1st, I couldn’t stand it any longer and sent a “just checking in” email. I needed to know something. Anything, at this point.
Would God work a miracle for us? But not for us….for OUR CHILDREN?

Four biological kids later, Amy and I found ourselves pastoring The Journey Church in Plainfield, Indiana. This church isn’t a typical smallish mid-western church, it is FULL of kids who’ve been adopted both domestically and internationally….we have African-American kids, Chinese kids, Mongolian Kids, Korean kids, Latino kids, and coming soon….POLISH kids! As the Lord began developing this awesome community with a heart for foster kids and adoption, He began to rekindle the yearning of Amy and my heart for this. Having a group of biological children ourselves we could not imagine them ever being separated should something happen to Amy and me. This would be just devastating. Yet it’s the reality many orphans who are part of a sibling group face all the time. Few people desire to adopt groups of two, three, four, or more children. So many times these groups of siblings get split up so they can all be adopted out. When we realized the great need our own children were reflected back to us….and we decided when we adopted, it would be a sibling group of two or MAYBE three.

So we prayed, and looked, and prayed and looked. In October of 2013 we found a brother and sister in Bulgaria. They were of Roma descent. Because we had spent time the previous two summers in Eastern Europe working with the Roma, we really prayed and considered these kids. Something was off, though. We weren’t getting those “knowing” feelings we usually get from God when He is in something. So we passed. It didn’t feel good saying no to these kids, but we knew it was the right thing to do. We decided, after that, to let it rest a while, and honestly we stopped looking on international adoption websites for photolistings of kids. Then something happened.

It was June of 2014 and I was on a 21 day fast. We hadn’t really explored, talked, prayed, or anything else about adoption in several months. Frankly, our church, which had just planted a new campus, was consuming much of our life. On a whim one day, needing a mental break, I googled “Best International Adoption Agencies.” The first one listed was called Children’s House International out of Washington State. I perused their website a bit and shot off a general “contact us” email stating the following:

Hello!!
My wife and I have been thinking/praying about adoption for a very long time. We are seriously interested in a sibling group up to three children, though two  is preferable with at least one girl in the group. We Would also prefer the oldest in the group to be no more than 7 or 8 years old. The younger the better. We are open to Hungary, Poland, Moldova, Georgia, or Bulgaria. I’m not sure how to proceed with the application, because any of these would be acceptable to us. Please advise.
We have traveled to Europe on mission’s teams in the past and have a great love for the Roma people, though we are open to other children as well.
Please help us know what the next steps would be and/or what children in a sibling group are currently waiting.
Thanks so much!!!
Pastor Jeff Carlson

As soon as I sent the email I went to the website called rainbowkids.com which lists photolistings of kids available for adoption around the world. We always searched in Eastern Europe since that is where many Roma orphans are from. As I looked through my search results, I came across the listing of a group of four kids. They weren’t Roma, and I wasn’t looking for four kids, but I was immediately drawn to them….something in my spirit leaped. At the bottom of the web page there is a “contact listing agency” form. I filled it out and shot it off to whatever agency was listing these kids. It simply read:

We are interested in info on this sibling group. We are VERY EARLY in the adoption process so guidance is a plus!!
Thanks!
Jeff & Amy Carlson

All of this happened within the span of about 20 minutes right in my church office. If I didn’t believe in the activity of the divine, what happened next would have been almost ridiculous………

So many people have asked us how all of this adoption stuff came about. Well, naturally it’s a LONG story and starts much longer ago than most people would think. I will attempt to tell you some of the backstory now and continue the story with future posts. So here is part 1.

Amy and I first became an item of some sort when she was 14 and I had just turned 15. We were only “good friends,” at least as far as her parents thought. All the way through High School we were together and became best friends. Shortly before graduation, the Lord really convicted us that our relationship had become a bit of an idol to each of us and we needed to lay it down, bringing Jesus back to the center of each of our lives….this is the spiritual way of saying that we broke up! For three years. While we attended the same college. Yeah. Awkward.

While we were living our separate lives, I had ventured home to Elkhart one weekend for a school break. I went to a Sunday night service at my home church, Calvary Assembly of God in Elkhart, where a missionary named Sam Powloc was speaking (pronounced POV-lock). He had been a missionary to Poland and was home on itineration. I have no earthly clue what he preached about that night but I remember literally RUNNING to the altar at the end of the message. I couldn’t get there fast enough to respond to the drawing of the Holy Spirit in my heart. Now, I was already saved and serving God, so this had much more to do with my surrender to His plan and will for my life. I prayed and wept at the altar as some of our pastors and my mom prayed with me. I know Sam talked about the people of Eastern Europe (this wasn’t too long after the wall came down). The powerful work of God in my life that night through Sam Powloc and his ministry in Poland has always stuck with me as a pivotal and life changing experience.

Later that same year, I was back at my church home away from home, James River Assembly of God (now James River Church)  where Christ for the Nations was ministering on a Sunday evening. They were sharing, not about Poland, but about the “sewer children” who live on the streets and sewers in Bucharest, Romania. Thousands of orphans live in the sewers because they have no place else to go. This absolutely broke my heart…I remember standing and weeping during the prayer response and committing to God that I would give my life for those orphans if He would call me. I meant every word.

At Christmas time that year (1999) Amy and I rekindled our relationship through some very cool “God-moments” and were married on August 4th, 2000. It was like we had never missed a beat…except we both now had Jesus squarely in the center of our lives and relationship, right where He belongs. We knew we wanted to have four kids….but from VERY early on in our marriage, we knew we wanted to adopt children who would otherwise not have the opportunity to live in a loving, safe, and godly home. Amy had not experienced what I had, but we shared a common desire to rescue whatever orphans God might bring our way. At that time, we didn’t have any specific country or type of adoption in mind…we were just willing when the Lord brought the opportunity our way. And He quickly did, just not the way we expected it.

Makes me think of a few things…..
1. God is always working in our lives for His purposes. Even things which seemingly aren’t connected are usually connected in the whole plan of God. We take the short view…but God’s view is a LONG view.
2. The WAY God brings things to pass is not usually (or EVER!!) the way we would do it. This has been played out in my life like a broken record!
3. We must ALWAYS remain mouldable, teachable, and sensitive to the Holy Spirit’s voice in our lives. He is ALWAYS speaking….are we listening??