Our Family-----His Story: The Welshes Adopt!

“What made you guys choose to adopt?!” How does one answer this question? How do I explain the story we entered into, with both fierce intentionality, and also blissful ignorance? How do I explain the years of God’s faithful work hidden on the underside of the tapestry? How do I explain our fumbling steps as he laid that tapestry in front of us? Would words do it justice? I hardly think so—and yet I will gladly tell our story. Indeed, this story isn't even ours. The story of our lives, of our adoption in faith, and of our family’s becoming is really the story of God, who he is and what he has done, both before we knew it, and as we walked in it later by faith. It began in our childhoods. God works over years and decades, and for us he worked even in darkness and pain.

Bear with us as we wander through our lives to show you how God brought us to be us, the Welshes, a family of eight.

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Daniel

Dan’s story at first glance looks like a ball of yarn that’s been well loved by a household full of cats. There are knots, tangles, interweavings, a few frayed edges, and to unravel it all is a feat (although for me—it’s an honor.) It may appear unrelated to our adoption story, but the strings of Daniel’s life come together to create the backdrop for our family and God used what was dark to bring light; not just for himself, but for all of us.

Daniel’s mom and dad lived lives of addiction and substance abuse. During his early years he spent the majority of his time with his birth mother who was unstable and physically violent. His body wears the scars that reflect the horrors of late night binges, drug induced rages, and meth crashes. And while Dan is not simply a product of his tragedy, avoiding it would do a disservice to what God has done for him and through him. Daniel is truly lucky to be alive, it's neither an exaggeration, nor is it a badge of honor he displays boldly. God spared him, and God drew him, and now God uses him for his glory every single day and it is something that we are infinitely grateful for, and amazed by. We call the most visible of his wounds, spanning his forearm, his "shark bite" and every time I see it I praise the Lord for his lovingkindness in saving Dan physically and later, spiritually. An angry boy with a hard story, becomes a humble man with a fleshy heart that beats for his savior. Who can do such a thing? Who could perform such a miracle? Only God.

Eventually Dan’s father gained sole custody of him and while the physical abuse had left with his mother, the presence of drugs and alcohol were still there. It has only been through time, perspective, and even the stories of friends and loved ones that Dan has been able to see the state of his life with his father who he loved, and who loved him. Dan’s dad was an imperfect person who loved his son as well as he able, and we seek to honor him in that. However, they had times of homelessness, hunger, and at their best they traveled all over the northwest living wherever they could with the helicopter loggers that Daniel‘s dad worked with. Then, when Daniel was 10 his father died in a car accident in Montana and grief struck this little boy, my husband, who had lost the only safe person he knew.

Through a series of wild events Dan ended up in the foster system. His time in the system exposed him to the realities of families searching for extra pay checks from the state, families who had already found the kids they “picked,” and what other kids in the system looked like.

After a couple years in foster care his paternal aunt legally adopted him. In her home Dan, now 12, was given a school where he attended regularly for the first time in his life. He ate consistently, learned to work hard (a huge credit to his late father, and new adoptive father) and excelled in school. He played sports, went to the local youth group, and hid his pain through anger and fierce determination. However, the Spirit worked hard on Dan, chipping away at the edges, until brokenness finally gave way to wholeness. God reached down into the dark and the dirty, into the hard and the bitter and where there was darkness and death—he created life. This is our great joy. In a world where suffering finds a hold, parents don't live up to God's plan for them, husbands and wives forsake their covenants, we see that things are not as they should be. But God, rich in mercy, reaches down and makes these moments matter. Dan's story would matter greatly for his future family, now my family, and through God's work in him, we see glimpses of what wholeness lies ahead for believers who are adopted into God's family.

While Dan's early life is riddled with pain and heartache it's important that we acknowledge that his biological mother is not who she once was. The realities of his past are important, but so are the realities of our present. His biological mother eventually got clean from her years of drug and alcohol abuse and leads a normal and upstanding life. We praise God for this act of common grace in her life, though still pray for her salvation.

Jessica

My story is infinitely less dramatic and my undertones of adoption are harder to locate. I served in church nurseries with foster parents who brought their babies to church every week, and we'd hug these babies a little tighter the weeks before they returned home to their biological parents. And for as long as I can remember I thought to myself, “One day—I’ll adopt.” A simple longing, a quiet thought when I'd play MASH with my middle school friends, but still—it was there. My brokenness didn’t look as dark on the outside, and while God didn’t rescue me from physical harm, the darkness inside me showed as much death as Dan's. I needed a new heart, and only because of God's infinite goodness and his faithfulness—he gave me one.

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So, what made us want to adopt? Well, this. We believe in the reality that we were once strangers to God. In our brokenness God took us as orphans and made us his, a birthright we couldn't earn and an inheritance we did nothing to deserve. This is the adoption story. God used our spiritual adoption to stir our hearts to physical adoption. And for Daniel, his physical adoption played a large and unexpected part in our family's becoming. This is the backdrop, the glue, the colors that make everything else come together. There's more unraveling still to be done and hopefully by the end you will see a great great God and will praise his lovingkindness along with us.