Upon meeting the Jacksons, you quickly learn their unconditional love for their son. Bruk was born in Ethiopia, and Drew and Cassie were finally able to bring him home when he was 14 months old. I say “finally” because the Jacksons knew for a very long time they wanted to adopt. In fact, they knew they’d adopt long before they even knew each other’s names.

“We both had strong feelings about adoption even before we got married – we didn’t need to wait for the other person to come around to our way of thinking,” Drew shared.

Adopting a child from Ethiopia meant many hurdles for the Jackson family. Travel to and from the country for required court dates was an added expense, and it would have been easy for even the most optimistic of families to lose hope.

“We were reminded of God’s provision,” the Jacksons shared. “He has never left us without and this adoption was a magnification of that truth.”

As with many couples, the Jacksons were brought closer together during the adoption process. Their relationship grew stronger as they navigated the tumultuous journey of bringing their son home.

“We had to trust God together and be patient with each other on the hard days more than we ever have in our marriage,” they shared. This was especially important that first time they visited Ethiopia, met and bonded with their son, and then had to make the difficult journey home without him as they awaited their next court date. “We didn’t realize that it would physically hurt,” she said.

It was in those moments of pain that the Jacksons leaned into God’s Word. It was a supernatural encouragement during their moments of longing and hopelessness. It was in God’s Word that they re-learned the story of adoption, not only for their son but for themselves.

“We learned about the amazing parallel between us adopting Bruk and God’s infinite love and mercy to adopt undeserving people like us into his family forever.”

Show Hope became a pivotal piece in their son’s adoption. While money came in from family and friends, it was Show Hope’s contribution that sealed the deal of their adoption becoming a reality. They received an adoption aid grant from Show Hope, and were blessed shortly thereafter when they were chosen as a  featured family in Show Hope’s ”I Heart Adoption” Facebook promotion. As friends, family, and people they had never met banded together to “like” and share their story, the Jacksons were able to secure the final funding  needed to bring their son home.

“The grant from Show Hope was a beautiful chapter in the story of God’s provision for the adoption of our son.”

As many families know too well, the adoption process is long and hard. It’s oftentimes lonely, but as the Jacksons can attest, it’s well worth the wait.

“It’s sometimes hard to trust that God’s timing is benevolent,” they shared. “But when the waiting is over, we get to look back and praise him for what He has done.”

Help make more adoption miracles like this possible. Become a Show Hope sponsor today!

“Our family’s journey in adoption began long before my wife and I met, as God placed the desire to adopt in her heart as a 12-year-old girl. As she grew up, God continued to nurture this compassion for the fatherless. Nine years into our marriage and one son later, the Cambio family grew as we adopted our two beautiful daughters out of foster care. We later had another biological son and we thought we were done adding to our family. God had other plans …

“Two years ago we started our paper work for an international adoption. This was a test of faith concerning finances, but as Philippians 4:19 says, ‘And my God will meet all your needs according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus.’ The cost of international adoption was daunting, but this is the scripture I clung to but as we took each step of faith.

“I’ll never forget the night my wife answered the call from our social worker telling us that we’d been matched with a precious six-year-old girl from Ethiopia. Although there was tremendous joy in our home in the days that followed, there were also many financial hurdles to overcome. When we received our court date in Ethiopia, we were still $2,300 short of the funds needed to pay for the first trip. Did I mention we had less than two weeks to make travel arrangements, as well as to find the money?  The next day, God blessed us with exactly the amount we needed from our precious church family. We rejoiced that we could now travel for our court date, but we fully understood that we still needed to raise money for the second trip to Africa to bring our daughter home.

“God continued to make a way for us, and two days before our first trip to Ethiopia we received a letter in the mail from Show Hope. With trembling hands my wife had her friend open it and read the letter that was inside. It was an emotional moment of tears and shock when my wife’s friend read the enclosed words that our family was to receive an adoption aid grant from Show Hope. In that instant we realized that the Lord had used the gifts of others through Show Hope to make it possible to bring our daughter home. Not only had God provided, but He had done so gloriously! We were in awe!

“When you allow the Lord to use your life you don’t always get to see the results of your giving, your time, or your prayers. We must give with open hands and trust the One who is calling us to release what we have so that He can touch the lives of individuals we might not even know. We will never be able to thank the many Show Hope sponsors who gave to make it possible to bring our daughter home. Feeling the arms of my little girl around me reminds me over and over again of the sacrifices given so that we can share in the joy of her life. We are so thankful and grateful for Show Hope and to those who donate every month. As the green patchwork of the African landscape receded behind us on our trip home, all I could think of was how God had provided for us each step of the way. To those of you who give to Show Hope, thank you for the role you played in God’s master plan for our family!”

-David Cambio

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For adoptive families: How have you seen God provide through others throughout your adoption journey? Leave us a comment with your story of hope!

First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes the baby in the baby carriage.

It’s a cute, old rhyme, but most families know that the journey is never so simple.

Happily married and ready to start a family, Paul and Monika Allen were met with heartache in 2009 when their first child was stillborn. It was a devastating loss that led to a time of deep grieving and prayer. As they mourned, they were reminded of their desire to adopt. Even before they were a couple, both had a desire to adopt a child from a very early age. Paul grew up with siblings who were adopted, and they had spent their entire adult lives working with at-risk children, volunteering with ministries, and dreaming of a large family.

In the fall of 2011, Monika began to feel God urging her to prepare for motherhood. Though confused and unsure, the Allens began preparing for a baby as best as they could.

They started praying for their child, wherever he/she was, with faith that it would be the child that God might have for them to parent. They found a social worker and began saving money and researching grants. They completed a home study and filed paperwork. Adoption seemed like an impossible task, with its mounds of paperwork and bills, but the Allens found solace in setting and reaching the tangible goals, the things that were possible.

As they researched, any organization involved with bringing children into Christian families was on their radar, which is how they first heard of Show Hope. Monika remembers their grant application as straightforward and organized. The couple also took to social media. They began sharing their story on Facebook and through Monika’s blog, and eventually were able to share their story through Show Hope’s “I Heart Adoption” Facebook promotion last fall to help Show Hope raise additional adoption aid funding.

“It was fun helping an organization that had helped us,” Monika said.

People they didn’t even know began to give financially to help bring their child home. They found that friends, family, and even strangers were eager to participate in their journey. With assistance from Show Hope, other grants, and help from friends and family, they were able to finalize the adoption without going into debt.

Paperwork wasn’t all that they did during this preparation period. Monika made it a point to celebrate milestones in their adoption process. Instead of capturing shots of a growing belly, the couple took photos of getting fingerprinted for background checks and when they installed their first car-seat.

Then, in May 2012, about nine months after beginning to prepare for a baby, they received word that a birth mother in Texas has chosen them as parents. Their baby boy was born in July.

“[Through this process,] I learned how generous people are and how many people love adoption. The financial side of adoption seemed impossible — I often wonder if our social worker thought we were a little nuts! But I’m so glad we didn’t wait until all the money was in the bank before we got started,” Monika said. “If we had done that, I wouldn’t have my beautiful son right now.”

The few months since bringing baby Cole home have been a whirlwind for the Allens. As new parents, they’re adjusting to late-night feedings, lack of sleep, and juggling schedules. And as newly adoptive parents, they’re still processing the miracle that took place early last year, in their own hearts and in Cole’s adoption.

“Overall, the experience deepened our hope, our trust, and our love,” Monika said. “Both in God and for each other. It feels very vulnerable to put yourself out there, hoping that someone will choose you as a worthy parent.”

Trust and love, two fruits the Allens have gleaned from their adoption process. Each step along the way has been taken cautiously but faithfully, and the reward has been great.

“Ever since we brought our son home, my heart and soul have felt more alive than ever before,” Monika said. “I love being a mom and my husband loves being a dad. The deepest cry of our hearts has been heard and answered in the most wonderful way possible. Not a day has gone by where we haven’t thanked God for the gift of our son.”

“When Dillon and I began talking about marriage, he told me that some day he wanted to adopt. After we married, the Lord granted us two children by birth, Hailey and Caleb, but Dillon again brought up the possibility of adoption. We sought the council of older families who had adopted and prayed that the Lord would give us guidance and direction. In 2008, we started raising money and began the paperwork to adopt from Rwanda.

“Even though it felt long to us, it was in God’s perfect timing that we received Adeline’s referral. We booked our tickets and planned to leave April 30th. However, a few days before our flight, Dillon received a call that Adeline was sick and being taken to the hospital. We were advised to leave as soon as we could in order to be with her. It was a mad rush to change plane tickets and get our other children settled, but we ended up leaving that same night.

“Although Adeline was still sick when we arrived, we were very thankful to finally meet her. It was wonderful to be able to take care of the one we had been waiting for for so many years. We stayed in Rwanda for two weeks and then traveled with Adeline to Ethiopia to process her visa. Africa was truly beautiful and we felt so blessed to be able to spend time in our daughter’s birth country.

“Praise the Lord, Adeline has made a full recovery, and we are thrilled to have her home with us. The grant from Show Hope was a blessing in the deepest sense. We know that we would never have been able to complete the paperwork and send in the required funds to bring her home if it weren’t for the Body of Christ holding us up and giving us the means to continue.

“Adeline is thriving at home in the loves and care of a family! She loves to play with her older brother and sister. She is a beloved daughter and a living picture before our eyes of what Christ has done for us. We look forward to meeting each and every one of you in Heaven and thanking you personally for the way you helped bring our precious daughter home.”

-Dillon and Adrienne Stengel

Our inspiration to adopt came at a local adoption seminar after years of prayer and infertility. At the seminar, we met an adoptive family and fell in love with the thought of a child who needed us just as much as we need them. Our daughter Ava was adopted from China on February 16, 2005. She is the sun in our lives.

The next few years were spent learning to juggle parenthood and work. When we decided to take a leap of faith and start the process again in the China program, we didn’t really know how we were going to pay for it. We trusted that the then three year wait would give us the time to gradually save up the money as we moved along in the process. After a year of unforeseen expenses, we ran out of money and put the adoption on hold. A year went by and our dream of adoption was slowing fading away. We made the decision to sell our home to get the adoption back on track, only to find that our program was now taking much longer than we anticipated. Even though the cost was more, we made the switch to the Korea program to bring our child home sooner. Over the next eight months, we encountered one financial setback after another as I got laid off and we looked for a new place to live…But God had a plan! We committed to continuing with our adoption process trusting that God would provide…and he did!

Thanks to a Show Hope Adoption Aid grant, we were able to welcome home our son, Eli Seong jun Harris from Korea. He is a perfectly fitted piece in our family puzzle, and the joy he brings to us is indescribable. The love Eli shares with his sister is heartwarming and simply amazing! We knew God would provide and he did through Show Hope!

Thank you to the sponsors who support this wonderful ministry – you have been the answer to our prayers!

Rick & Wendy Harris

One of my favorite things about my job is helping people who are passionate about caring for orphans engage with Show Hope in meaningful ways. One of the ways that you do that is through your monthly sponsorship. Each and every month, you’re helping children like Asher come home to their forever families!

To extend the impact of your sponsorship, we’re asking you to do three things:

1) Share this video on your social networks: Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, etc. We encourage you to include a sentence or two on what you love most about being a sponsor.
2) Sign up for our monthly prayer updates. www.showhope.org/pray
3) Consider becoming an advocate this year, and using your hobbies and talents to raise awareness, funds, and hope on behalf of the fatherless.

One of my favorite aspects of my job is getting to know and learn from the families who have been blessed by the generous giving of donors and received grants to bring their children home. In many cases, these conversations happen on a computer screen, but it is even more special when God allows us to do life together. That is the case with my pastor, Jason Egly, and his family, who brought home two daughters from Ethiopia with the help of a Show Hope grant. I am incredibly thankful for their friendship and example and thrilled that Jason is sharing with us in the post below. - Jaimee Marks

“Praise the Lord, the God of Israel, because he has visited and redeemed his people. He has sent us a mighty Savior from the royal line of his servant David, just as he promised through his holy prophets long ago.” Luke 1:68-70 NLT.

I have been studying Scripture and preparing sermons for several years now and one of the reasons why I am so passionate about it is because God continues to show me things I have never realized before … even in familiar passages. One such example was a few weeks ago, on the second Sunday of Advent.

I was preparing to teach Luke 1:67-79. In this passage, Zechariah gives a beautiful song of praise to God after the birth of his son John. After 400 years of prophetic silence, God had broken through with the birth of John the Baptist who would prepare the way for the coming Messiah. In his song, Zechariah uses five synonymous words or phrases to describe how God has acted on behalf of His people: He has visited us (v. 68); He has redeemed us (v. 68); He has sent us a mighty Savior (v. 69); He has saved us from our enemies (v. 70); He has remembered His covenant (v. 72); and He has rescued us (v.74).

As I identified these, the one that really seemed odd to me was, “He has visited us.” How is visiting on the same level with redeeming or saving or rescuing us? If I had been writing this, I thought, I am sure I could have come up with a better phrase than “He has visited us.” But seeing how my words are not inerrant and Luke’s are, I decided to dig a little deeper.

The word visit is translated from the Greek word episkeptomai, which means to inspect, examine, or look around; most often in order to help or benefit the poor, afflicted or sick. Ahhhh … now this is beginning to get intriguing. The light bulb in my head is showing signs of a flicker.

Because it had just happened recently, my mind flashed to the image of President Obama paying a visit to the victims of Hurricane Sandy. When a President visits an area that is afflicted by some sort of natural disaster, it is not for the purpose tourism or sightseeing, (and hopefully also not for political maneuvering.) It is to comfort those who are hurting and to promise them that help has arrived, backed by the full resources of the government.

And now the light bulb is burning full blast.

I remembered that James 1:27 says, “Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.” (ESV, emphasis added.)

To visit.

I have always struggled with this verse because to simply just visit an orphan or a widow in their affliction doesn’t seem like nearly enough. As an adoptive parent, to have simply just visited my little girls while they were in their orphanage in Ethiopia would have seemed pointless. An insult, even. I wanted to bring them home! Immediately!

But what if the James 1:27 visit was the Luke 1:68 kind of visit? Could it be? Surely not. That would be too easy. I looked up the verse in my lexicon and … unbelievable (oh, me of little faith) … there it was, as clear as day: Episkeptomai.

How could I, a pastor, a (wannabe) Greek scholar, adoptive parent, and orphan advocate have missed this?!

Now it makes so much sense! This is why orphan care (and widow care, don’t forget) is so important for the church! Because it is exactly what God did for us. He visited us. And so much more…

When God sent his Mighty Savior Jesus into the world as the Envoy of the Kingdom of Heaven, it was to visit us while we were afflicted by the disastrous consequences of sin, and it was for the purpose of comforting us and promising us that help has arrived, backed by the full resources of the Kingdom. He didn’t just come and look around and give us a few nice suggestions about how to pull ourselves up out of our disaster. He came to redeem, save, and rescue us. And he didn’t just visit … He stayed. And he gave His life — the most valuable resource of the Kingdom of Heaven — for us, orphans of the hurricane of sin. And He adopted us into the family of God. Forever.

This Christmas, I was (and continue to be) thankful more than ever to God for sending His Son to visit us. I am also thankful to Show Hope sponsors and donors, who not only helped my family visit two little orphan girls in Ethiopia, but to bring them home, give them a forever family, and introduce them to the One who gave His life for them.

-Jason Egly, pastor at Ekklesia Nashville

Addis Nigat was ten months old when she finally joined our family. Our daughter’s name, which means “new dawn,” brings us back to the very beginning when we simply felt that God was calling us to something “new.”

Our journey began while leaving a church service one afternoon. Both Tim and I felt God was calling us to something “new,” and although we didn’t fully understand what this meant, we distinctly felt that He was asking us to step out in faith and allow Him to do a new work in our lives. Completely unsolicited, we started to receive information about adoption, orphans, and Africa in the mail, through email, and in our encounters with people. It was almost unbelievable. Through ministries we were involved in, sermons, mission trips and other events in our lives, God really began to give us a heart for the orphan. As He continued to narrow our focus and grow our desire to give a child from Africa a family, we began to look for doors He was opening.

Starting the process of adopting from Ethiopia grew our faith. It was amazing to see how God provided by not only by choosing Addis specifically for our family, but also by caring for her when we could not. However, we continued to face many setbacks and getting our daughter home took three times longer than we originally expected. It was a marathon that sometimes made us wonder if it would ever really happen, but God continued to provide along the way.

One of the most meaningful parts of our adoption journey was when we finally passed court and Addis legally became our child. After all of the delays, health concerns, and financial struggles she was our daughter at last! We were finally able to bring her home. I look at Addis now and am so thankful that we answered God’s call to adopt. Our daughter has brought continuous joy to our lives and is such a beautiful reminder of God’s love for us.

Ultimately, this process has strengthened our confidence in God’s leading and has encouraged us to follow Him in other areas of our lives. It was a tremendous blessing for us to receive the adoption grant through Show Hope! Thank you for helping us bring Addis home!

-Kate Carlton

Help make more adoption miracles possible. Become a Show Hope sponsor today!

Even before we were married, my husband and I felt the Lord calling us to adopt. During a trip to Asia, a strong burden was placed on our hearts for the children who had no forever families. As we married and had our first son, the burden was still there for the orphan. Just after our son turned one, we felt we needed to start the adoption process and were led to South Korea. Everything we did through this process was an exercise in faith because like many families in the adoption process, we faced many obstacles. While our biggest obstacle was financial, God prevailed and provided in ways that we could have never imagined. The support of Show Hope allowed us to pay fees and continue on our adoption journey to bring home our second son, Neylan.

We traveled to South Korea just 11 months after beginning the process, and brought Neylan home one week before his first birthday. One of our best memories of the entire process was the travel itself. We were determined to take our two-year-old son along for the ride because we wanted to be able to introduce him to his new brother for the first time. We are excited to be able to give Neylan a forever family and ensure that he knows about the God who loves him and wants an eternal relationship with him. Adoption has given our biological son a brother and best friend, and it has been fun to watch them develop their relationship and bond.

We were tremendously blessed to have been granted a large amount from Show Hope and for that we are so grateful. We were bless to never lack the money needed to pay for Neylan’s adoption when it was due. The work that Show Hope is doing to advocate for the fatherless is remarkable!

-Becca Foster

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