We are John and Becky Lee of Louisville, KY. Our story began 24 years ago with “love at first sight” when my best friend shared a school picture with John and she shared a picture of John with me. We were 15 years old at the time and lived in Houston, TX. Six months later, we met in person and were inseparable from that day forward. The summer before my senior year of high school, my parents informed me we would be moving to South Carolina. John and I had already been dreaming about the day we would get married and after every attempt to figure out how we could stay together, my parents discouraged John moving to South Carolina after he finished Marine Boot Camp because I was too young to make such a life altering decision and had my whole life ahead of me. Sadly we parted ways; I married when I was 19, had 3 boys and eventually divorced after a 7 year marriage. After my divorce, I moved back to Texas where I could be close to my parents and sister as a single mother with a 3 year old son and 1 year old twins.
Eventually, John and I reconnected after 10 years of being apart and it felt as if no time had ever passed! A year later we were married (November 25, 1998). I got pregnant with our first son on our honeymoon and he was born on August 20th of 1999. Four months later, John announced his partnership of a small investment firm was closing down, so we made the decision to move to Louisville, KY where he would begin a new career with Edward Jones investments. In December of 1999, we packed ourselves and 4 children in a u-haul full of our children’s belongings, a few suitcases of clothes and headed for a new adventure in KY. We moved in with John’s parents until we could get on our feet. We made the decision for me to go on birth control because we knew it would not look good if I got pregnant again in the financial situation we were in. After several months passed which included several months of me dealing with clinical depression, we realized the hormones in the birth control I was being given was the cause of my depression. I immediately got off of the hormones and at the same time we were introduced to the Hester’s who at the time were expecting their 9th child. We began attending an Adult Bible Fellowship class at Southeast Christian Church which just so happened to be the same ABF class that the Hester’s attended. They began sharing their story with us and their conviction to allow the Lord to reign over their fertility. John and I listened, read a lot of books and began feeling the conviction that if we were allowing God to reign over all other parts of our lives, why wouldn’t we allow Him to reign over our fertility. On February 14th 2003, our first daughter was born.
During my pregnancy with my daughter, Ellee we were introduced to several families who were adopting or had adopted from China. Our hearts began to soften and the idea of adopting internationally began to stir in our thoughts. Shortly after Ellee’s birth and many hours researching adoption, the door seemed to close due to the mere fact that we had too many children. For most countries and agencies, the limit to adopt internationally was a maximum of 4 children to a household. We put the idea of adoption on the shelf and concentrated on building our own biological family. On November, 20th 2004, J.T was born which was 22 months after Ellee. 22 months after J.T’s birth, Drake was born and 22 months after that, Tucker was born. A few months before my pregnancy with Tucker, I met Alicia Ahler’s at a homeschool function that was there with their 5 adopted teen agers from Liberia and was pregnant with her 8th biological child! After learning about her family, I called John right away and told him there might be some hope for us to adopt from Liberia, but later was informed Liberia had closed for adoption and it was no longer an option for us. Over the years I had prayed to the Lord that if adoption was something in His will for us, to please make a way and make it evident. For years I had been mediating onto the verse from James 1:27; Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world. This verse was written on my heart and I believed if there was a will for us to adopt, God would make it happen. A few weeks later, I was at the Ark at Southeast Christian Church with my children and I ran into Susan Kileen who had her two adopted children from Ethiopia with her. I couldn’t help but ask her questions about her children and her adoption. She shared her heart with me and told me about starting her own adoption ministry in Ethiopia. There was no maximum child limit in Ethiopia at the time and once again my hope to adopt began to stir once more. I called John, shared the news and decided to consult with a home study agency to get the process going. A few weeks later, we found out I was pregnant again with Tucker, so we made the decision after some wise council to put a halt on the process and wait until after Tucker was born to proceed. Tucker was born on July 12th, 2008. In December of 2009, we began to consult and research our options in Ethiopia and once again a door was closed. Susan Kileen was not comfortable assisting us in adopting through Ethiopia because she had never dealt with a family our size before. We were not going to give up there. I knew there was a way because I had been reading blog after blog about other large families who had adopted internationally. Soon we were directed to an adoption agency out of Washington State who has a record of working with large families. When I called the agency the first time, I remember trembling with fear that they would say no to us too. I remember the comforting words of the first woman I talked to who said that our family was small compared to a lot of the families they deal with. She shared that their largest family had 28 children! Immediately I felt at ease and they were very receptive to us filing an application with them. We were told our family size did not matter as long as we were willing to accept a special needs child or a sibling group of 3 or more. Three or more!!!! Wow! Not sure that is what we wanted to sign up for. I called John to relay the facts and we decided we would go ahead and fill out the application and see where things fell. The day after our agency received our application, the approved it and sent us a list of waiting children at the orphanage. The list had no pictures, only names and ages. I printed out the list and looked over it. We were told we could look at two files a week which would include pictures of the children. After skimming the list once, a sibling group of 4 children popped out like fluorescent lighting! I took the list upstairs to John who was working at his computer and asked him to pick out what children he would like to see pictures of. Without question or thought he pointed to the same sibling group of 4 that stood out to me. We immediately received the pictures of the children and a little bit about them. We knew right then and there they were the children we needed to peruse adopting. They had been at the orphanage for three years and their file had never been reviewed by anyone! Both of their parents died from TB and they were waiting for their forever family. I could not get our paperwork together and homestudy finished fast enough! Finally on August 12th, our dossier was sent to Ethiopia, just a week prior to the courts closing down for the summer.
During the summer while the courts were closed, an opportunity to purchase 50 acres of property was presented to us that we could not refuse. After closing on our property, the idea of using the property not only to live on but to create a retreat center for others to enjoy came to mind. Of course the thought of having space to adopt more was also in our thought process. When we shared our thoughts with the owner of the property, he got choked up and shared that was his and his wife’s dream as well! He proceeded to tell us their plans and offered his wisdom and help when the time came. We do not know yet what the retreat center will look like or when we will build a home on the property, but we are trusting God to show us the way if it is His will.
The courts reopened on October 11th, we were assigned a court date of November 11, 2009. This was a huge shock to us because we expected it to take 6 to 8 weeks before we were assigned a court date after the courts reopened. John and I received wonderful news on John’s birthday that we had passed court and Bethlehem – 13, Henok – 11, Samrawit – 9 and Yabisira – 5 were officially our children! What an awesome birthday gift!
This year we will be receiving the BEST Christmas gift ever. We will be leaving for Ethiopia to get our children on December 26th and we will meet our children for the first time on my (Becky’s) Birthday, December 29, 2009! God’s provision in this entire process has been amazing and it has been such an exciting journey to trust His perfect timing in it all! We cannot wait to get our children back to the United States and get settled in our home with the rest of their 8 siblings (so far). We are thankful for our supportive community of adoptive families and look forward to sharing our journey the joy of our growing family with you!
May God bless your families abundantly this Christmas and draw you nearer to Him! Merry Christmas!
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