Brad and Angelina

Since we started the adoption process, we have gotten a lot of comments from people calling adoption "trendy." While it's true that international adoption is on the rise recently, it is so much more than just a current trend...

Heather and I are still in the early stages of adoption right now. We are finishing up our Home Study today, actually. We are just starting our third month in the process and I'm not sure how much longer we have until we get to bring Little Arthur home.

To be honest, when we started discussing the possibility of adoption a couple of years ago, I wasn't sure we would ever actually do it. I have always wanted to, but I didn't really know the first thing about it, much less the timely and costly process it is to adopt. But, after a couple of years of marriage, we started talking and praying more seriously about starting our family and adoption was at the forefront of both of our minds.

Heather and I have both traveled to Africa in the past and have gotten the chance to experience, first-hand, the incredible people there. The more time we have spent with these beautiful people, the more our hearts have connected. Our world views have expanded and opened up to much greater things because we now know our brothers and sisters across the world. We have witnessed their resilient strength, amazing culture and unabashed love.

But we have also witnessed a great need. We have seen the poverty and disease that has overtaken much of Africa. We have spent time with orphan children who so desperately need homes. These kids need to know love and opportunity. They need to have a father and a mother.

And this has been the case forever.

The miracle of adoption is anything but trendy...

Adoption has been at the heart of God since the very beginning.

Deuteronomy 10:18 says, "He defends the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and loves the alien, giving him food and clothing."

He is called "a father to the fatherless" in Psalm 68:5.

And Romans 8:15 says: "For you have not received a spirit that makes you fearful slaves. Instead, you have received God's Spirit when He ADOPTED you as his own children. Now we call Him, 'Abba, Father.'"

Heather and I firmly believe that adoption is the most tangible form of the gospel. Once we were fatherless, without a home... and now we have a Father, who calls us His children and who will never leave us. And that is exactly what I will be to my Little Art.

So, before you assume anything, know that we aren't adopting a child because Brad and Angelina are doing it... Although I think those two are doing a great thing... We are doing it because God has called us to do it.

"Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress." - James 1:27