Greg and Leigh's Adoption Story from Poland

Just over two years ago when my wife and I began discussing adoption. The choice of where to adopt from came easily. We had spent several summers serving on mission teams throughout southern Poland and had developed a love for the country and the people we had met. So deciding on Poland was the easy part. The hard part was, figuring out what to do next.

After searching the internet, we discovered there were just a few agencies in the USA that have adoption programs with Poland. Upon reviewing the agencies and contacting them all, we decided upon Saint Mary Internatonal Adoptions (SMIA). One main reason was the prompt response we got from an employee of theirs named Jennifer. We spent many nights asking her lots of questions, some serious, some ridiculous, and lots of "what ifs". Each time we spoke to her, she answered what she could, eased our minds and admitted when she didn't know something, found out the answer and got back with us. Like most people, we were full of questions and always felt like we could call SMIA at any time and speak with someone.

During our adoption journey, we were blessed and surprised by getting pregnant and delivering a second little girl. While working through the pregnancy and adoption process, we were able to take our time with paperwork, fundraising, and planning. However, there were deadlines to meet and paperwork that required some work.

One thing we have to remember is that adoption does not come without sacrifice. Along our journey, we had to sacrifice our money, our vacation, our pursuit of "stuff", and much more. There were and still are people who don't understand what we did, why we did it, and why we are talking about doing it again. The most frequent questions that we hear are:

"You already have 2 beautiful children, why do you want to adopt?"

"There are so many kids around here that need a family, why not adopt locally?"

"Adoption is so expensive, that's why we don't do it."

We agree that there are thousands of kids in the US that need a family. We went to Poland. Perhaps others may feel a calling to adopt a child locally. Working together, we'll try to eliminate the orphan crisis. God placed a burden on our hearts for Poland that led to our our mission work there. Through that work, our eyes, our heart, our home, our love and our lives opened to a little girl who was growing up unwanted and unloved.

I had spent that last 8 years as a school teacher in elementary and middles school grades, in both regular and special education classes. My wife works as a speech therapist. We were living the life. We thought we had it all figured out. We would budget money here and there for the adoption, we'd go during the summer when it was convenient for us and get home in time for school to start. We had the plan.

Then, as He often does, God had another plan. Upon praying for God's direction in our life, I lost my job. Our income was cut in half.

What do we do? Delay the process? Stop it all together? We pressed on. It was not easy, but we trusted that the very same God who gave us this calling would somehow provide. After job interviews came up empty, we got the call from Lina about a little girl. We had prayed that God would send us the child He wanted us to have and that we would accept the first one offered to us. She was a strawberry blonde, red cheeked, fireball whose medical needs for the future included special education and speech therapy? Coincidence or a sovereign God with a sovereign plan?

The prayers came, the faith continued, it grew and led us to Poland months later. With one income, we were able to go to Poland twice, stay 6 weeks as a family, and come back home with an adoption balance of nearly $0. Am I saying that our story will be your story? No. I am saying that we were faithful and God is always faithful. If He calls you, He will provide. All you can do is be faithful.

Remember, our adoption of children is not without sacrifice, just as our adoption as children to our Heavenly Father did not come without sacrifice. So the question you need to wrestle with today is not will you adopt, but why would you not?

Visit the Poland Adoption Area of RainbowKids to learn more about adopting a child from Poland.

Contributed by Saint Mary International Adoptions