Years and years ago my then-girlfriend, Alida, told me about her passion for adoption.  Little did I know that more than a decade later me and that same woman would be pursuing the adoption of a child together!

Adoption: Our Story

It only took a small amount of time for me, as Alida’s boyfriend, to catch the adoption bug too.  Over the years that followed we periodically dreamed together about what adopting a child could look like.

Then, through a series of God-ordained events, we ended up in the Los Angeles area and began to become more and more affected by the realities of poverty and injustice within America’s inner-cities.  That’s when our adoption attention turned from international settings to domestic ones.  This  was a huge change for us.

So, due to this new focus and passion toward domestic adoption, Alida and I began researching options.  We discovered and then agreed to pursue the foster-care-to-adoption route.  Basically we would become a certified foster-care home and receive foster-child placements.  As a foster-care-to-adoption family our hope would be to foster children that we may one day adopt.

Alida and I found a agency to go through and started the process in mid-September of 2014.  We told our parents, siblings, and close friends that this process was beginning and they all started praying for us.

My dad told many people, including his sister Ellen, about what we were doing so that they could pray for us.  Unbeknownst to us, Ellen’s granddaughter (my first cousin, once removed) Wendy was pregnant and had just found out that very week.  She and her family decided that it would be in the best interest of the child to give it up for adoption.  They held out hope that it could be adopted within the family.

And it could!

Ellen told Wendy about us, Wendy’s mom asked us if we wanted to adopt Wendy’s child, and we asked for a few days to think it through.  Over the next two days we prayed, researched, prayed, cried, prayed, talked, prayed, didn’t sleep, and prayed some more.  After a long process we determined that this adoption was for us!

We believed, and still believe, that this adoption is what God would have for us to do at this time in our lives.  In fact, for us and in this specific case, we realized that all our reasons to say “no” were fearful, selfish, and not centered on the good news of Jesus and his kingdom.  Those were not the sorts of things that typically influenced our other decisions in life, so we felt that it was clear that saying “yes” was the right course of action.

And we did!

This January we’ll be the proud parents of a newborn!

By: gabi menashe
Note: These feet are from a Flickr photo and not the feet of our child!

Adoption: The Reality

During our decision-making process we realized that we were not prepared for the financial differences between a foster-care-to-adoption process and a private, independent, interstate adoption.

In short, we quickly realized that attorney fees, social worker fees, state and federal fees, etc. were going to pile up.

Add to this the fact that our friends and family have very helpfully inundated us with offers of help.

In response we wanted to provide a way for people who so desired to help us and partner with us in the process.  In order to do so, we created a fundraising page.  So if you would like to offer us help in this way, simply go to the following link or copy and paste it into your browser: https://www.continuetogive.com/mattandalida .

Even more importantly, we covet your prayers and support during this time.  Please pray that this process would go smoothly and please pray for us, Wendy, and the baby.

Thank you for reading this!  Feel free to leave a comment or two for Alida and me below!  🙂