HOPE FOR LIFE

Our first answered pray! We knew that once we had signed the contract, the clock had started. We had not even begun a home study to be approved to adopt. We found out a few days later that the home study was going to cost us over two thousand dollars and we had to pay for it before they could start. We immediately started seeking the Lord for his way in this. That next, Sunday my Uncle called me and said that he had shared our story with a couple at his church and she wanted to talk to us about the process. I called her and we were able to visit and I shared our heart and God’s direction for us with her and she in return shared their story of adopting their sweet daughter. She shared that after her experience she joined with other families in her church to support orphans and adoption, she wanted to speak to them first but she felt that they would also want to help. Later that night she called back to let me know that they had all agreed to help start our process of bring one more orphan home by paying our home study fee. We were blown away! HUGE confirmation!! They came to our home and we were able to meet their sweet little girls, one being adopted from China. She was the first child we had met from there and it made both our hearts skip a beat to see an Asian little girl running around our house!! Precious! Thank you so much to Mark and Amy and all the families from Hope from Life and New Life Church. No better blessing that to be used to do God’s will in others lives, and I hope I will be able to continue through in that tradition. 

Lannie Whitney Gotcha Day July 5, 2010

My first Confirmation

June 22^nd, Friday night we went over to our new pastors home for pizza and share our heart about adopting. We needed to have our Christian families support for sure. They asked us questions and prayed with us. Saturday we just seemed to pass the time, we knew we didn’t have many more hours left. Sunday morning will be here at sun rise. Oh… the last day to make our final decision. So we were still able to breathe at this point we were not yet committed and we were just going to watch a good ole’ movie to get lost for a few hours late Sat. night (23rd) It was almost 10 pm and the phone rings. My BFF? What would she be calling this late for her, she’s the early riser. She goes on the let me that her and her hubby had a date night and they were just getting in and then she asked a weird o question! Is Jeremy there? YES WHY? Well we just wanted to tell yall something really quick can you put it on speaker phone? Jeremy pressed speaker and I heard Wes say,” Guess what?” I started screaming crying “she s pregnant!” YUP!! I weep as if I had lost something. I had; all uncertainty! All my doubt and fears where gone. I knew in that moment that it was the perfect time. See we had our sons only eight months apart and even thought we had lived in two separate countries at the time. We were best friends and from the age of two and three years old our boys have been inseparable. They do everything together. For the past five years our plan has been to have our second children together and to share even more than the first time. Baby showers, nursery décor, baby names and shopping. She had been the phone call each and every time I was one day late, every pregnant stick tested and each tear of disappointment.  This was such a sweet gift to us, now she was having a baby and so were we, neither of us would be left out. The timing was to perfect her finding out the same weekend that we had to say yes to Jiang‘s referral.  

The confirmation in my heart, thanks Carla for being that special person I will always get to share my life journeys with such similarities. It continues to bond our awesome friendship in such a strong bond being on the same page in life. Can't wait for our children to be in our lives!

I love you with all my heart.

He Opened the Door!

We always wanted a big family…well medium. Three or four children would do. We have tried to have another child since Peyton was three but through my sickness through out the past few years we were sure. Last year I had a explore surgery done and find out there is nothing physically there to stop us from having another child and so through my own journey of not conceiving I had to look to the Lord. I am sure it will not take you long to sense that I go to the Lord for everything, I love Christ with all my heart. I knew that he wasn’t partial, he creates life. I just needed to get to the same page with him about how our family would be completed. So since we knew we wanted to adopt “one day” the Lord really started speaking to me and preparing my heart. Could this really happen? I started looking on rainbow kids website that I had seen on TV and Jeremy and I knew that we would love to help a child that no one really wanted. We had talked about it for years so I knew his heart and that understanding that not many people would take a chance on a child with “problems”. So just looking, we came across a 6 yr old little girl from Bulgaria that had a bone defect and we contacted her adoption agency.

Sasha

We were so curious about the process, the costs and could this ever be a reality for us. They shared her medical file and we learned that there wasn’t any way that we could care for her like she needed. She would be in a wheel chair her whole life and would never walk. We were sad and a little discouraged. God continued to encourage my heart for ministry and his plans for my life but I didn’t share it with anyone.  This is June 2012 and a few days later I had to get ready for kids camp. I help with a children’s rodeo bible camp each summer and I am on the prayer team for the kids. That second night the speaker was praying and she stop and said “God had been calling someone to a life of ministry but they had not told anyone about it and he needed them to answer that call in their life because it was things he had planned”. I knew it was this moment! I got up RAN to the front and threw my hands up and said Lord I want the life you want for me. (See that last piece, that 25% left that we clutch onto out of fear that we will miss out on what we think will make us happy, you have to let go of it!!!!) I knew as I drove home that our lives were fixing to change and I hoped my husband was ready for it!

The next day I was contacted by the agency asking us if we would be willing to look at there special needs children’s waiting list. They knew it had not worked out for us with this one little girl but they represented almost 30 other children that were waiting on a family. We accepted and took it as the Lord leading us. We knew that we wanted to adopt a little girl but that’s all we knew. We didn’t know where she would be in this world, how old or what her needs would be and we left that all up to him. They sent us a link and password to view the children and the very first picture was this beautiful little girl that had big eyes and perfect little lips, she took my breath a little and stopped me! I was thinking that I could not just stop at the first one that was crazy. I had to look through all the children, oh but how in the world do parents do this? How do they know which child is the right one?  So, overwhelmed I continued to look through all the children but continued to go back to her. It was late that night so I left Jeremy a note to look through them the next day when I was at camp and asked him to write down the ones that he thought we should request more information on. I remember hoping that she would be on his list. I got in late that night and hurried over to the desk to see which he had written down and there it was three little names and id numbers. She was the first.

I requested the three girls’ files so we would have something to compare and trying not to feel as though we were choosing on our own. That next night we sat down to read through all the information and receive the photos of all of them. We read over hers first so careful to very detail and we were so connected to her, we did look over the other two sweet girls information and admired them but went straight back to the first. I think we just knew that this was the one to take to the next step. (Whatever that would be?) I called the agency and told her our interests in her and from the start she advised me to let her find a better fit for us, that she had so many “red flags” it probably wouldn’t be a good choice. I was a little shocked and it made me feel as though something was trying to keep us from her. She finally said that it was our choice and she would give us the weekend to decide. We only had the weekend to make this choice if were going to send a deposit (this would give us 10 days for a medical review and to accept her referral or not) This was a hard weekend. See, I wish I could tell you that we have a lot of money but that’s just not the case. Jeremy works as a customer service consultant in sales at the truck company and I stay at home most of the time. Being the best I can to our son. We have quality not quantity I suppose. We are blessed with a home and are blessed to always have enough money to meet all our needs but as far as having the funds to pay for an adoption we didn’t. We just continued to go back and forth about how we would be able to pay for this and that was when our faith had to rise! When I spoke to the first nurse from our pediatrics clinic she tried to talk me out of it all together. She said that it was crazy for us to do this and she didn’t know if she was going to share it with our doctor. Here again someone else trying to whole us back from her. It rose a fire inside of me that I can’t even explain. I went to see the dr. that next day through his office manager and talked to him about her, her apologized and quickly accepted her to care for and helped me with a plan of care. Then all started to fall into place. We called and talked to the lady at the agency after the consult of her medical file with a specialist and we heard all the worse case scenarios but we still wanted her. From that day we hit the ground running!! We had 10 days to get all our paper work done and a medical plan in place for her and send it off for per-approval. NERVE RACKING! Got it turned in and ONLY 9 days later we had word back from China that we were approved!! Amazing! So from that day on we knew this was Gods plan. ONLY 16 DAYS from the night I gave it all over to The Lord we had been chosen to be this precious little girl’s parents. We knew we had been chosen by God not China!  We have a daughter waiting!

A Little about us...

Back in the states! New Home 2007 

We are the Strickland Family. I am LaKasha, married to Jeremy and we have been married 9 yrs in January. We were married in Okinawa Japan,2004. My husband was then in the US Air force. We decided that we would take an international adoption course there because adoption was in both our hearts, but soon after we found out that we were pregnant. So we knew it wasn't the time. We had our son there almost 2 yrs later and lived there for five yrs. Jeremy was medically retired in 2007 for chronic headaches. 

We moved back to our home town in Northern Louisiana where we both were raised and settled into a safe semi-country neighborhood in a great school district. Peyton is our only child, he is seven and in the second grade this year. He is all heart. 

When we moved back in 2007 Jeremy quickly took the first available job, being out of town, and after almost 2 yrs of that horrible experience we chose our married before money. He found a new job and so did I. We both worked all the time, I felt like a hardly even has enough time to be a mom and God was convicting me. I knew that I was wasting the time I had but I just couldn’t quit work. Jeremy even encouraged me to think about it because I was going so hard. He was afraid I would burn out but I couldn’t’ stop, we just would not make it if I did. That’s what I thought! November 12^th 2009 I had been battling a stomach ulcer for over a year after my gastric bypass. I was working at my second job that day and long story short, I was admitted into the hospital where later my stomach ruptured. 21 hours later they figured out what happened and rushed me to surgery. I was critical for 12 days and spent 28 days in the hospital recovering. My life changed in a 180 turn! I went from one thousand miles per hour to Zero. At the time I didn’t know if I would ever be back to normal again much less me again. And the world kept going. No one stopped or altered their lives, even my husband had to continue to go to work and pay bills. There was only me and the Lord. I mourned the time lost with my son at the time; he was only 4 years old and didn’t have a mommy anymore. I asked the Lord”what am I to do now”. He hasn’t taken me so there had to be something important that I was to do that no one else could? I knew that day I had to live my life different and not waste a minute. I remember getting to come home and Peyton came up and kissed me on the cheek. Ahhh….tears rolled down my face because it was like the very first time I ever really felt his kiss. Everything was slowed down and I made a promise that I’d never go back to that way of life. I’ve been on this road every since, three years to the day.

Lord thank you for the impossible things you carry me through to get to where you need me to be when you need me to be there. 

My Heart Grows For "Adoption"

Adoption? What does this mean? I always thought that it was a family making a decision to take a child into their home to now be their child. Yes , of course that’s what adoption is! A simple and small meaning. WRONG! There is nothing small nor simple about it. It's GRAND! It changes your life in more ways than I thought even possible, but not just your life, many lives! And that’s why I have to share what adoption really is and what it really does.