How to Adopt

Adoption Process | Adoption Stories | Financial Aid

Adoption Programs

China | Ethiopia | Russia | Ukraine | Photolists

Resources

Request Info | Apply Now | Adoption Planners

About CWA

Accreditation | CWA Staff | Christian World Foundation

FAQs

Tax Credit | Adoption Links | About Post-Adoption

“God, Are You Sure?”

The Bade Family

Our family is a bit out of the ordinary. We get stares and questions wherever we go. After a long struggle with infertility, God has brought ten children into our family over 16 years by way of adoption. We are all different shades, sizes and cultures. Our children range in age from 5 to 19 years old and are adopted from Africa, Eastern Europe and the U.S.

With seven children, life was full even before we approached CWA about Ethiopian adoptions in November 2006. So why mess with a good thing?

Why? Because God is not satisfied with the status quo! He began to move in our hearts, in 2006, as we saw the devastating photos coming out of Africa. We met children who had come to the U.S. from this ravaged land and wondered if God would call us, again, to defend the defenseless.

We contacted Christian World Adoption (CWA) and soon found ourselves praying over a photo from an orphanage in Ethiopia. Two little siblings about elementary school age needed a home. God moved us to accept them and begin our paperwork.

Almost immediately we were overcome with the big question everyone has, “How are we going to pay for this???” We applied for grants and prayed a lot. We asked God often, “Are you sure we can do this??”

In April 2007, the two children who were waiting for us in Ethiopia had their younger sibling brought in to their care center as well. We were contacted about this child immediately. We agreed to adopt her and began the necessary paperwork to bring her into our family. The total cost of the adoption was increasing! We kept praying!

Humbly, we praise God for all HE has done through adoption in our crazy family. Our church, family and friends rallied around us to make our Ethiopian adoption possible by donating clothing, furniture, helping us move to a larger home and financially supporting our adoption mission! We also received a number of grants to help us pay for our adoption expenses. Because of this, financial issues did not keep us from reaching across the Atlantic and bringing three more little ones into the fold.

I am enclosing a photo of all 12 of us. The three youngest African children are from Ethiopia and arrived home August 5, 2007. We have adopted special needs kids, we have adopted out of age order, we have adopted a sibling group and we have adopted older kids. Every day I am amazed at how God is using us to minister to these little ones. There are daily struggles as with any large family. Yes, I guess some would even consider us to be living life on “the Edge.” But what great blessings we enjoy as we depend on our Lord daily! Greg is a pastor and Terri is a fulltime homemaker and fulltime mother. We know God has mandated the church to reach out to those in need and we’ve taken that mandate seriously.

We rejoice that in our local church many are catching the vision for adoption and foster parenting. More orphans are being raised in Christian homes in our church body. God is a great big God who desperately wants us to step out of our comfort zone to taste the life HE has for us!

May we as believers seek to understand God’s heart for the defenseless and the needy of our world and may we all desire to become also a “father to the fatherless…”

— Terri Bade