How We Decided to Adopt. . Again

Ever since Jonathan came home from Guatemala in July 2007, we have felt that God wasn’t done growing our family.

Two months after Jonathan came home, Su wrote the following in her prayer journal (inspired by a scrapbook layout she had seen in a magazine years ago):

These 4 are enough. . .
These 4 fill my days and nights and sometimes beyond
These 4 are brimming with my hopes and prayers
These 4 fill my homes with an obscene amount of laundry and mess and dirt and noise
These 4 can't hold any more of my love

But there's room in our home for at least one more
There's room in our van for one more
There's room in our hearts for one more
We have all this extra love that's missing a child

Over the past 2 1/2 years, the thoughts of another child have grown not only in us, but our children as well. One night, Rob and Brooke were driving by a huge mansion. Brooke out of the blue said, “We could have lots of kids if we lived there.” And almost immediately Rob had this overwhelming sense that there were more Soutters to come.

One time during worship at church, David saw a picture in his head of our whole family in a plane flying to Africa.

And then one night before bed, while praying, David asked God to speak to him. David told us that he got a picture in his head of a hand holding up 4 fingers. But he said the thumb was missing.

David said the picture was God telling him something was missing, but he could not figure out what. Su and Rob looked at each other, knowing what was missing.

Anna’s heart broke for the orphan when she and Rob took a missions trip to Guatemala the summer or 2008. They loved on the children in many orphanages including the one where Jonathan had lived.

And then Anna read an article in American Girl magazine about a family that had 20 kids, 5 biological and 15 adopted. And since then, Anna has asked, and sometimes begged for us to have more children.

This is the same girl who was not excited when we told her we were adopting a little boy from Guatemala because it was one more sibling to get into her things.

From September 2007 to February 2010, the desires grew and the confirmations came. We felt we were ready, like we had our bags packed, that we were even in the car with our seat belts buckled, but God had not said go.

On February 2, we talked and prayed and asked God if it was time to move. Neither of us heard anything. The following day, on the way to work, Rob felt like God said “Go. It is time.”

That afternoon we called Adoption Ministry of YWAM: Ethiopia and began the process. As we took the first step, we prayed for the $600 application fee to go with it.

The next day Su’s dad called and left a message on the answering machine saying he had a surprise for her. The surprise was a check; Su’s grandma had recently passed away and Su’s dad wanted to share… the check covered the application fee.

Coincidence? Maybe? But we saw it as God’s perfect timing, God saying, “See, I really did say go. I will provide. I love this little boy in Ethiopia more than you.”