Adopting Teens...

Hello to anyone visiting from Adeye's blog! I love love love that she has asked for advice on teen-age adoptions and that I can be a source of encouragement, because there are so many "hard" stories out there and people need to know that there are also many "not-so-hard" stories too.

Our experience has been a miraculous one. My husband and I did not take this decision lightly and we even backed out for a period of time before proceeding again (with the same girl). There are so many wonderful blogs out there full of great insight and wisdom, but before I share those with you, I have to start by saying that commitment to prayer and seeking after the will of God is absolutely essential. You must know for sure that God has called you to this. You don't have to have full confidence in your abilities, but you do need to have full confidence that if God indeed has called you, He will INDEED equip you!!! Get on your knees with your spouse and seek His will for your family and then wait on Him to give you the peace to proceed. If either of you feel that this is not "for you", then it's not. You both need to be on the same page. If you feel adamit that this is God's call, wait on Him to move in the heart of your undecided spouse and do not push them into this decision.

Ok...

Now for the FUN...

Just about all of the blogs I follow (located on my side bar) have been through older child adoptions. They were a wealth of information and encouragement to me through this process. I know they would be happy to help you too.

As for how we prepared... We TALKED TO A LOT OF PEOPLE. And we talked as a family ALOT. We prayed and prayed and prayed ALOT. We asked for prayer from others ALOT. WE sought advice form others who've BTDT.

We asked God (every day) as a family to prepare our hearts for one another. We prayed very specifically. We read alot of scripture. Did I mention that we prayed alot? And I blogged ALOT.

We joined the yahoo group of other families adopting from our teens orphanage. We asked for updates and pictures of our daughter as much as they would allow. We sent her pictures of our family and our home and wrote letters to her telling her about us and that we were praying for her. We told her how much we cared about her and the fact that this would be the hardest things she'd ever have to do. We told her that we would do our very best to understand. We prayed for her while she was at school, we prayed for her while she was sleeping... I prayed for her as I sang worship songs at church on Sunday mornings. I prayed over her as I walked our trail, daily. We PRAYED ALOT.

We prepared our biological kids as much as possible. We gave them some tangible "worst case senarios" to work through. We also did this ourselves. I "tried on" everyone's worst case senarios and asked myself, "how would I handle that?" "Could I handle that?"....

Preparing for the trip...

We packed her things and prayed over them.

We took our 2 eldest bio kids with us (boy 14 & girl 11).

We took UNO:) And they played it ALOT. You do not need to speak English to play card games. This was a GREAT bonding tool.

We took "Napoleon Dynamite" and watched it ALOT and laughed ALOT.

We also adopted a 5-year-old girl with Down Syndrome at the same time and this turned out to be a wonderful thing for them both... To have someone like themselves to share the experience with.

We bought a pocket translator and used a great APP called "Say Hi" to communicate. We let her have some space, we let her grieve, we told her we understood, we let her call her nanny, we bought her lots of ice cream, we gave her hugs when we felt it was appropriate, we smiled at her ALOT.

We followed her cues and we did our very best to make her comfortable.

We made her an album of our home and the people in our extended family, and my friend's daughter (also an older adopted teen from China) translated it for us. She LOVED it.

Our teen came to us very prepared. She was very loved and very well-cared for in her institution. She came to us with an understanding of who Jesus is and she even brought with her a BIBLE and notes that she had taken at church in China (unheard of!). She came to us with a trusting and willing heart. She desired to have a family and she seemed very pleased with us from the very start.

We STILL make sure to talk to her and allow her to love her China. We tell that we love it oo. We talk about the day that we will go back for a visit and we have allowed her to call home once just a couple of weeks ago and it was so fun to hear her laugh and catch up with her nanny. (We have been home for 6 months. I do not suggest this right away.) We hugged her tight when she cried as she said goodbye and we once again assured her that one day we would go there again. We tell her all the time how proud we are of her. We respect her past and her feelings and we allow her to have them.

*WE DO NOT ALLOW HER ON QQ!

GOD has done amazing, miraculous things for us and we are filled with so much joy.

These girls have added so much meaning to our lives. They were definately the missing pieces to our puzzle. Our family has grown in so many ways and both of our girls continue to blossom in their new life.

I can honestly say that this has been the most incredible experience of our entire lives.

God is so good. He not only called us, but He gave us everything we needed. He has exceeded our hopes and expectations.

If you have any further questions, feel free to leave a comment or email me at rebecca@mattmckee.com.

I also wrote a post for our adoption agency here that may be helpful.

Please also let me know how I can pray for you!

Blessings,
Rebecca