The Journey Begins - Part 1

November 2004

It was just a normal day, like any other day, when I was sitting at my desk working in my home office with the radio playing softly in the background.

While working, I would usually listen to WCSG Christian Radio (Grand Rapids, MI). I was distantly aware that they were speaking about November being National Adoption Month. For some reason I started tuning in to what they were saying and realized that they were discussing a website that had pictures of thousands of older children that were waiting to be adopted. They were talking about how these toddlers and older children just wait and wait for families because "everyone" prefers to adopt babies as young as possible.

Out of curiosity, I typed in the website. Over one hundred pictures popped up on my screen, as I scrolled down the page one little girl with hauntingly sad eyes jumped out at me. When I looked into Nadia’s eyes I could no longer breathe. It was as if she were the only one on the screen and her eyes held mine, pleading with me. My heart was beating fast and I told myself stop it, stop it – enough already! With trembling hands, I closed the screen.

For two days I tried to put her out of my mind. Every time I closed my eyes she was there, with her pleading eyes and haunting beauty. As I lay awake at night, my husband sleeping peacefully beside me, I prayed.


Please God, you can’t be asking me to do this can you? I will do this if you are asking, but Pat will never agree. You know what is in my heart and I will do anything you ask, but you will have to change his heart.


He will never agree to adopt a child, of this I am 100% certain. I had dreamed of adopting from a very early age, but when I married him I knew that he did not have the same dream and I had accepted that.

Her eyes continued to haunt me for two days before I even mentioned her to Pat. When I did he reminded me that although he greatly admires people that can adopt, he is not the type of person that could love another child as if it were his own. I told him that I knew this about him and that was the exact reason that I had not brought it up earlier. I was only mentioning it now, because I just could not get her out of my mind. That night I thought about her again as I lay awake in bed, wondering about her life and the deep sadness behind those beautiful eyes. When I did find bits of sleep, I was dreaming about her and in my dream she stretched out her arms as tears threatened to spill over her lashes and run down her porcelain cheeks. I ached to take her in my arms and comfort her in her distress. Suddenly I was wide awake with the words from James 1:27 echoing through my mind “Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress…”

I could not eat, I could not sleep and I could not focus on anything else so the next day I went into my office and pulled up her picture on the computer, I stared at her for several minutes but just could not let it go. I told Pat that I needed to show him what was haunting me. I needed to put this to rest and to do that I needed to hear from him, after he saw her picture, that I was crazy to even be thinking of such a thing. I knew he would tell me to forget it; it was never going to happen.

For several minutes he stared at her silently. I stood in the doorway watching his back as he stood unmoving but looking at the picture on the screen. I could hear a clock ticking in the background and vague random noises as I waited for endless minutes. I knew he was trying to find the right words so that he would not hurt me when he told me that he was unmoved by Nadia’s picture.



When he finally spoke it was with a raspy voice and he said only three words “make the call”.

Click here for part two.