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Stay the Course: A Faithful Journey in Adoption
19 Plays10 days ago
Have you ever felt the fear of the unknown when considering adoption? Let's delve into an inspiring journey where faith and perseverance guide the way. Join us as we dive into Matt and Brooke's unexpected journey from domestic adoption plans to embracing international adoption from Colombia. Discover how their love for Latin American culture inspired a life-changing decision.
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Transcript
Introduction to 'Pause and Think'
00:00:01
Speaker
We all have a story, and at times we feel we're walking it out alone. Let's pause and think. Join us for honest
00:00:23
Speaker
Well, hello there.
Meet Jackie Darby and her Book
00:00:24
Speaker
My name is Jackie Darby, and I am here with a podcast, Pause and Think. And this is a ministry off of Who's Am i Our book that came out last year, we were so excited about our book, Aisha and myself, ah who is my co-author. And next episode, you're going be hearing from her as well.
Introducing the McGees
00:00:44
Speaker
But today we have an amazing story um that is going to be told by some very special people that I got to know really well last year.
00:00:55
Speaker
Matthew and Brooke McGee. Matthew is the associate publisher for our book, Who's Am i And Matt, you have been an amazing leader for Aisha and I in leading this whole publishing process. And through you, I got to meet your amazing wife, Brooke.
00:01:14
Speaker
And you guys have an incredible story to tell. And so I just want to hand it over to you guys and let y'all introduce yourselves and tell something about, tell the listeners about yourselves.
Brooke McGee: A Busy Life
00:01:25
Speaker
And then we'll get into the podcast. How about you go first? Ladies first. Sure. I'm Brooke. I'm a fellow mom, an adoptive mom, homeschool mom, ah busy mom, all the things, Matt's wife.
00:01:39
Speaker
um kind of sums me up, I guess. um Yeah. I don't know. see and And as you can see that Brooke is beautiful on the outside, but also on the inside. and And it is an honor for me to call her my wife. Of course, Jackie, as you said, I'm the associate publisher for Spanish at HarperCollins Christian Publishing. I have the honor of directing the Harper & Foque, Grupo Nelson, and Editorial Vida ah imprints.
00:02:07
Speaker
And I am so grateful that our paths crossed and my path crossed with Aisha's so many years ago and now just a few years ago, being able to meet you.
00:02:19
Speaker
I am an adoptive parent like Brooke, and I'm the father to Josiah and Yvette. And I'm the lucky man who gets to call this woman to my left, my wife.
00:02:32
Speaker
ah Well, that's so sweet. And you guys are such an amazing team. And yes, you're right, Matt. I am so thankful that the Lord crossed all of our paths, all four of our paths, and that we're working together for his kingdom.
Adoption Stories: Brooke's Family
00:02:46
Speaker
But today, um i want to highlight y'all's story, your adoption story. But I want to start out with a question. Um, when did the idea of adoption first come to each of you and were you always on the same page?
00:03:05
Speaker
Well, I think it's really interesting just how the Lord writes all of our stories so differently. And then um You see in a marriage how he so beautifully intertwined those stories together. And so Matt and I each have our own, um or each of our families, we have stories of adoption. My grandmother was adopted.
00:03:24
Speaker
And so I grew up with that very much being just such a beautiful concept, just seeing her life, um seeing how she was raised um by godly parents who loved her so much. And then just seeing how she's It's just been such a legacy in our family. And um so that's just part of my heritage is an adoption story. And so I'm very grateful for that.
00:03:47
Speaker
So that's something that's always been just interesting to me and use that definitely to prick my heart. Um, and I'll let you, I guess, say how you were introduced to the idea and then we can talk about together how we came to that decision.
Adoption Stories: Matthew's Family
00:04:03
Speaker
Yes. My, um, I have a sister who, although officially not adopted by, my family, it certainly feels like it. She came to live with us when she was an adolescent and essentially calls my parents just about mom and dad and her children are the cousins of our children and my my nephews and She's my sister and my grandparents are, mean, my parents are grandparents to her children, et cetera. So the idea wasn't really foreign to to us at all.
00:04:37
Speaker
And I'll just give you a little bit of backstory on how we arrived at actually deciding to, that the Lord would have us adopt. We've never had trouble conceiving as a couple.
00:04:49
Speaker
However, we've had ah trouble keeping a pregnancy. And in fact, Josiah is a miracle child, Josiah, our first son. And, um he you know, we almost lost him in utero as well.
00:05:02
Speaker
So we took that as God's providence to perhaps make adoption part of our family's plan and when we moved back to the United States from living in the Dominican Republic and this would have been in 2017 we started to talk seriously about it and in January of 2018 we actually attended our first orientation in Florida with an organization there that specialized in adoption
00:05:34
Speaker
So I never knew that about y'all, that you each had adoption in your families, which just makes it so much more special and touches my heart knowing I didn't even know that.
Divine Influence in Adoption
00:05:47
Speaker
And so that just shows, you know, I just see God's hand in all of this, how he, he, he, united our hearts together. And so that that's really special. You know, I'm thinking to myself, wow, my grandkids one day might be telling the same story you're telling, Brooke, about, you know, my grandmother was adopted and just how...
00:06:11
Speaker
that was a positive seed planted in your hearts. And then through, it sounds like some painful, very painful situations of losing babies and not being able to carry them full term, um God used your pain to plant the seed of adoption even into your own personal lives as a couple. And And we met your son. He's an amazing young man. And just how, like you said, he's a miracle.
00:06:38
Speaker
But God hadn and had more to the plan. And so i'm that just really touches my heart hearing hearing about how adoption was just planted in both of your lives many years ago through your own personal families.
00:06:52
Speaker
So i have another question. um How did you decide on an international adoption versus adoption just maybe within the states?
Choosing the Adoption Path
00:07:04
Speaker
Well, I think um we were living at florida in Florida at the time. And just from the stage that we were at currently with our son, our biological son, um we were looking at maybe domestic adoption. We weren't really sure what the Lord had for us, but we just knew that he was calling us to do that. And so we were just going to take some first steps and just trust him to open and close doors.
00:07:27
Speaker
And that's exactly what he's done. um Obviously, we know that God is sovereign over all of those doors, and so we're just obedient to walk through them and and just to trust him in that. So it turned out that we were on a waiting list for quite a while.
00:07:43
Speaker
um there was kind of some, just some things going on in the organization, maybe some chaos, long waiting list. We're not, you know, that's okay. That's part of our story too, is that the Lord must have would have us wait, um even though we thought we were ready then. We also um are, we were close to several families that were fostering.
00:08:03
Speaker
And so we got quite attached to ah little girl in foster care and went through the foster care system to try to adopt and pursue this little girl. I met with, the birth mom and everything. And it seemed like that might would be what the Lord would have for us. However, um that ah her story changed and her um she was no longer adoptable.
00:08:24
Speaker
And um and we're very grateful for how her story has turned out because it turned out to be a beautiful story over the years.
The Move to Tennessee and Adoption Plans
00:08:30
Speaker
We've kind of followed her. And she's got a really beautiful story and ended up being adopted with several other like half siblings that were not adoptable at that time that we were pursuing her. So um but so we were we definitely had some some heartbreak there. But the Lord sustained us through that and also um just kept reminding us of his faithfulness through all of that pain and waiting.
00:08:52
Speaker
um We moved again to Tennessee. And as soon as we got here, we still knew that the Lord was calling us to adopt. And so we immediately, once we got settled here, started asking around in our church, um who's adopted here, who's had good experience with certain agencies, um just started having coffee with folks and having great conversation about the Lord and um and just their adoption stories. And the Lord led us to...
00:09:17
Speaker
ah a beautiful organization, Lifeline. ah um And so we got connected with them. And over one cup of coffee, we went from maybe domestic, we weren't really sure, to back to international adoption, which was kind of always our just kind of deep down.
00:09:34
Speaker
We love Latin America so much. We love Spanish. um And so it's kind of always been just, I guess, kind of deep down what we had hoped. And um so ah things were moving along again after COVID um as far as adoptions go for a couple of countries. And so we started pursuing that route.
Why Colombia? The McGees' Adoption Choice
00:09:54
Speaker
Yeah. And could add- I can hear- ahead. I'm sorry. just wanted jump in and say, you know, you're sharing your story in minutes, but I can feel- years and the emotions that could have and probably did go along with those years of waiting and, you know, having a foster child and giving her back. And of course, I understand it's always the heart to reunify the family.
00:10:30
Speaker
But as a foster parent, somebody who's caring for that child, you do get attached. And you know there's there's just some major emotional things that go along and there's heartbreak and tears.
00:10:44
Speaker
But I love how hearing how Through it all, you guys just kept seeking the Lord and saying, God, whatever is your will. And so go ahead, Matt.
00:10:54
Speaker
What do you want to add to the to this story? Yes, we we thought that domestic our excuse me domestic adoption was going to be easier. but it turned out that international adoption, at least in our case, was was much easier.
00:11:09
Speaker
And of course, as we have traveled and lived in Latin America, we have fallen in love with it. Of course, I can imagine the same is true for you after being in Guatemala for so long, you and Randall, ah your husband.
00:11:22
Speaker
But um when Brooke came home, I can remember her coming home from meeting with the representative in here in the state of Tennessee with Lifeline. which is based out of Alabama.
00:11:35
Speaker
She says, have you ever considered Colombia, which is where we adopted our daughter from? And I said, no, but I've been there before. And of course, Brooke and I have traveled in that northwest section of South America.
00:11:47
Speaker
And it's a culture that we really love. And we could see ourselves easily ourselves easily adopting from that area of Latin America. And I don't even think we had to think twice about it. It was just, yeah, let's go ahead. I think the Lord's directing us at least to consider it.
00:12:04
Speaker
And then of course, after ah week or so, it was obvious that he would have us adopt from there. And the other part of that too is our son at that time was much older and kind of a different stage, much more settled after ah moving back to the U.S.
00:12:19
Speaker
um because we have a lot of transition for for those years in Florida. And so he was much more settled and we were at a place where we felt like um we could take on more and look at their huge needs for sibling group adoptions and more severe special needs. Those kids um are just a lot harder to place in homes. And so we felt like we were at a place where we could say yes to a lot of things. And so we were pretty open to whatever the Lord had for us. So that's kind of another part of that story.
Adoption Journey: Challenges and Growth
00:12:49
Speaker
um Had a vet been available back then, you know, we would have missy well we would have not been able to handle that at the time. So anyway, just all part of our our story.
00:13:02
Speaker
So do you guys feel that Maybe there were more hurdles in an international adoption versus domestic or maybe the same.
00:13:13
Speaker
And it's just depends the route God sent you on. I think it just depends on what the Lord has for you, for us. It was, you know, several closed doors and waiting and heartache, but we also had just such, uh, testimonies of God's faithfulness in those times in our marriage.
00:13:29
Speaker
Um, you know, just grew so much through those years that, um, I feel like we were much more prepared to handle some of the challenges with this adoption, um, and any strain and stress that that did put on our family just in, in bringing, um, in bringing her here and, um,
00:13:48
Speaker
So I just, we just trust the Lord's sovereignty in that. but Very true. And I, you know, we didn't miss out on Yvette. She's the one, you know, who the Lord had for us all along.
00:14:02
Speaker
And the five or six years we spent in the process were just years of preparation for us before actually, you know, bringing her and welcoming welcoming welcoming her here into our home.
00:14:16
Speaker
What I hear is endurance, perseverance, and just staying on the track that God had for you despite the hurdles and the heartache and the tears, but you were just so persistent. And I love i love hearing that. And, you know,
00:14:38
Speaker
Sometimes um the picture of adoption is just painted with rose colored glasses and now you're enjoying the beauty of up to that point,
00:14:49
Speaker
you know the beauty of it but up to that point it wasn't all rose-colored glasses. And you guys certainly endured and persevered to wait for the gift God wanted to truly give you. And so my heart, you know, i don't want to get emotional, um but it just, it really touches my heart as an adopted child,
Jackie's Connection to Adoption
00:15:15
Speaker
hearing um just what you as parents have gone through and walked through for us as children.
00:15:23
Speaker
you know And I know that one day vet's going to be sitting in my and my shoes and being able to express and share um what her parents, what you guys have done um for her.
00:15:36
Speaker
um Because my parents aren't aren't alive anymore. They're with the Lord. um And they are not hearing what, what I'm expressing now, but it just, it brings the whole story into, you know, it's not completed.
00:15:51
Speaker
It's not completed because the vet's a little girl, but that it's, it's beautiful. It, there is a beautiful, you know, ending. I know you still have many, many years to go.
00:16:02
Speaker
um And I know there's still going be trials and things you're goingnna have to walk through. But our heart is to give hope, you know. So with that, what kind of encouragement can you guys give fellow parents who are maybe even thinking about adopting or or who are in this waiting, enduring process or or even maybe have their child like you guys do? So what what kind of encouraging words can you guys give as parents?
00:16:34
Speaker
Well, I think... huge amounts of just my growth and closeness with the Lord came during, of course, pain, during times of waiting, during those those times.
00:16:46
Speaker
um And so, you know, god God is good in the waiting. He's good and the yeses. He's good in the no's. And I think We have just learned to trust him with opening and closing the doors and just to walk through them and trust what he has for us and know that if it's hard, he'll sustain us through that.
Advice for Prospective Adoptive Parents
00:17:05
Speaker
And, um, and if it's beautiful, that will either way, we're just a testimony to his glory and to sovereignty. and that those are not easy lessons learned, I guess, but I'm just so grateful for those. and you know, at the time it's,
00:17:21
Speaker
it's hard, but I'm grateful for the things we've learned through them. And then just one other quick thing in the know is that to when the, when um we kind of the story, I know we'll probably go into more detail about our adoption vet, but just when that door open, it flung wide open. And I mean, just the floodgates opened of,
00:17:46
Speaker
funding, the grants, the timing of everything. It just, it wasn't like it just peeked open, it flung open. I mean, we saw her picture and we were like, that's our daughter.
00:17:57
Speaker
We're coming to get you. And, and it just all happened very quickly. i know not everybody's story is like that, obviously, but we just, we were just in awe of that.
00:18:08
Speaker
And I guess it just ah really helped us to trust the Lord even more, just seeing his faithfulness in that. So. There are two expressions that come to mind. One is the hand of God won't lead you where the grace of God can't keep you.
00:18:26
Speaker
And also stay the course. if If you've ever seen the movie The Patriot, that was you know a major theme to stay the course. And It's a bit daunting when you first set out because you don't know whom you're going to adopt.
Adoption: Challenges and Sanctification
00:18:43
Speaker
You don't know how long it's going to take. You don't know what the obstacles are going to be. i think one of my biggest fears um especially as a husband and being, i have the analytical mind in the group, um is how am I going to pay for all of this? Well, the Lord provided for that um in in in ways that were that that surpassed all understanding.
00:19:08
Speaker
um And it's just, it's something that I am so glad we were obedient to do because although we are providing a home ah where that can thrive physically, emotionally, and most importantly, ah spiritually,
00:19:29
Speaker
we're doing those things as well. The type of sanctification that she is bringing to us, I think, is more valuable for us than we ever would have even considered or guessed at the at the outset.
00:19:44
Speaker
um And so when it becomes difficult, not only in the process of getting all the paperwork together, getting everything apostilled, of having all tests run, I mean, every all of the red tape, and it's necessary red tape,
00:19:59
Speaker
in the process of adopting, you know, you must stay the course. And also when you know that child, see that child for the first time, you must stay the course. And when you bring him or her home, you must stay the course because that's actually when it starts to, I think, become the most difficult.
00:20:17
Speaker
Stay of the course. And I would just, if anyone out there is just kind of considering adoption or it's just been something that maybe it's been on your heart, but you think, oh, I don't know if I could, or I'm not sure if it's just even remotely there in your heart, I would just encourage you to not only to seek the Lord and, and, to and to be, um, to prayerfully consider that, but just do something, have a cup of coffee with somebody who has been adopted or has adopted, or just, just talk to people, find out their stories. And in doing that, the Lord's going to
00:20:51
Speaker
He's going to guide you and lead you.
Encouragement for Adoption Exploration
00:20:54
Speaker
um But I would just encourage you to take take some steps. um I know that that you guys, with your all of your resources, have great connections for people.
00:21:05
Speaker
um So just do something. Yeah, that's great. Great encouraging words um to the parents who maybe even have a little thought of adoption.
00:21:19
Speaker
And, you know, I just want to thank you both for just opening up, sharing how you got to this point. um I know Yvette is just a little girl still, and she's probably not able to express at this point all of her Thanksgiving. She's not a ah She's not at the age where she fully understands how God's writing her story, but I can see it being um way further down the road.
00:21:50
Speaker
um And I just want to express to both of you how um special your story is to hear adoptive parents, the again, like I said, the endurance, the perseverance, everything you went to get to this point um Because I know I certainly wouldn't be sitting on this end.
00:22:08
Speaker
We definitely wouldn't have the book, Whose Am i um if it wasn't for you as adoptive parents and and Matt, you as an an assistant publisher who who caught the vision, didn't just catch the vision, but your heart is so entwined in our
Closing and Upcoming Episodes
00:22:27
Speaker
heart. Aisha's heart is another adoptive parent.
00:22:30
Speaker
My heart is an adopted child. um to to just talk about adoption and share our stories because it's God's story and it's his heart in adoption because he's our heavenly father.
00:22:45
Speaker
And so I just want to thank you both. I want to thank you as listeners for listening today to Matthew and Brooke's story. um But I want to tell you to please join in again for another episode because Aisha is going to continue interviewing them and allow them to share about their adoption with Yvette.
00:23:09
Speaker
And so join us again in the next episode of Pause and Think to hear part two of their amazing story.
00:23:20
Speaker
Thanks for joining us for this episode of Pause and Think. For more resources and information, go to whosami.org.