Hamersma Adoption Testimony

The plagues were attacking the sources of security (idols) of the Egyptians. One of these was the fertility goddess, Heqet (frog plague). She was to keep people safe in childbirth and “breathe life” into their children.





In the modern day, we too seek the goal of safe childbirth and healthy children. We've moved beyond praying to Heqet, and instead we depend on assumptions about how simple it will be to harness our own fertility at the time we desire to, or on medical technologies or other sources for providing some means of becoming parents, hopefully of a healthy child.




We decided we were "ready" for children in 2002, but God closed the natural doors for us to have children. After some limited and ineffective medical intervention, we decided to pursue adoption instead, in January 2006. We decided to adopt from Russia, where the process was supposed to take 6-8 months. I remember feeling a weight lifted: "THIS way will work - we will still be able to get the children we want." In whom did I place such confidence -- an adoption agency? A country with endless bureaucracy? It hardly makes sense, but at first I was sure that adoption would work for us and we'd become parents as planned. It would just be a matter of going through the prescribed process so that our child would be delivered to us (granted, later than expected, but that would be manageable).






The first lesson we learned was that God is in control.


There was a very specific moment in our first adoption process - having been led along for over 2 years getting the message that our adoption was right around the corner - that I had a very dark moment with God. I realized that He was in control, and at that time it didn't feel good to realize that. He could thwart our efforts. He did not owe us children, and had never promised them, and he was going to do whatever he willed for us. It was a scary moment for me but also a step toward a right understanding of God. It turned out we had to trust God with the destiny of our children much like Moses' mother did when she placed him in the Nile.




Our God is not Heqet, in the sense that He does not promise fertility (or any particular outcomes) but rather His own faithfulness. We know in the Bible of a few special cases in which God makes a promise of fertility to an individual, but imagine the thousands of Hebrew women who probably cried out to God to give them children but remained childless. If we became parents, it would be a gift from him, and nothing less.


Another lesson we learned was to relinquish the illusion of control over the health of our baby and over the inherent risks involved in adoption.






Our adoption process required us to make a lot of choices most people never make about their children - how old or young do you want the child to be upon arrival? Do you want to select the gender? Race? How much money are you willing and able to spend? What medical conditions are you willing to accept? Keep in mind, there is no way to avoid making a choice, as your adoption is overwhelmingly likely to proceed with a child with your maximum acceptable risks. Filling out these forms in some sense felt like playing God. But at the same time, we still had to fill them out, and then pray for the best. A friend whose children are biologically her own mentioned to me that our process really reminded her how God controls the health of our children, even though the many rules of modern pregnancy may lead expectant mothers to believe they alone control their child’s health.


A third lesson we learned was to depend on God, our church community and our adoption community.




Our first adoption process felt like wandering in the wilderness -- I described it to people as a time warp. We kept making friends with other childless people who were getting younger and younger than us! I remember telling our community group honestly "I just don't trust God with this." It was a scary thing to say out loud. Praise God for their withholding of judgement on my unbelief, and their kindness in seeing us through those hard times.


We ended up traveling to Russia in May 2008 to meet our child, and after a second trip to Russia in June we returned home with Meredith who had just turned 1 year old. Knowing the length of the possible process, we then prepared our application for a domestic adoption in January 2009. In most domestic adoptions, there is no “waiting list” but rather each family submits their profile and just waits to be chosen by a birthmother, which could happen quickly or slowly or never. By God’s grace, in September 2009 we were chosen by Lucas’s birthparents during their pregnancy to adopt him. In March 2010 we were at the hospital when he was born (photos).


The last lesson we’d like to mention is that children are not a human project or even an act of faithfulness by God to give us something he promised - they are a pure gift of grace.


It is an incomparable thing to watch someone sign a piece of paper entrusting their child to you permanently. We witnessed Lucas’ parents sign these papers two days after he was born. I will not forget Lucas’ birthfather’s words upon signing: an awkward “Congratulations.” I got a short hug from his birthmother, a stoic person just trying to hold it together. Their parting words were, “We’re trusting you.”


The idea that Lucas was entrusted to us is not unique - if you have a child, biological or adopted, God has entrusted that child to you. When we feel like incompetent parents and that our children deserve better, we try to remember (with our friends' help) that God really has chosen us to be their parents. While full of responsibility, it’s ultimately a gift of grace, and the things we do for our kids pale in comparison to what God has done for us.

Sarah and Rob Hamersma