Chapter 1 An Oprah TV Special

An Oprah TV special did have a lot with our decision to adopt. The special involved Oprah Winfrey bringing Christmas to children in South Africa. She took special care to follow several of the girls to their homes and tell the story of the life they were leading, or struggling to live, with parents dying of complications of the HIV disease, and our hearts were touched. Our hearts were touched, but, at the time, we did nothing.
Months later, I was traveling home from a business trip to France, and read a People magazine. The magazine focused on the plight of the orphans and gave two organizations as references if anyone was interested in adopting from Africa.
Americans for African Adoptions, and Adoption Advocates International, . We were interested and our hearts were touched, but, at the time, we did nothing.
Then, of course, there was this photo from Sudan,

Our hearts were touched, and we knew we had to do something. But, we also knew that adoption was expensive and we had no money. Looking to the Lord to provide the way was not something that was a real possibility to us at that point.
Eventually, the knowledge that if the situation were reversed, and we were the ones needing someone who had more, to reach out and help us, that we would really want someone to do it, we would really want someone to sacrifice and figure out how to help us. We knew there were children that were praying for a family. We knew we had to do something.
We began with finding out more about adoption from Liberia.
Quite honestly, because we were looking to Africa, and because Liberians speak English and learning a language didn't sound like a good idea on top of everything else, so without any more thought than that we began to learn about children in Liberia. Which is kind of putting the cart before the horse. At the time, we knew nothing about home studies, we knew nothing about I600-A approvals, we knew nothing about the process at all. But, we were learning about children in Liberia. As it turned out, we identied children before the process was underway, which isn't the way to do it. But, it worked out, and we have 5 children from Liberia. 5 successful adoptions out of 6 attempts....