We had a wonderful church service, with 37 in attendance in all. The message was on being available to do God's will. It was incredible, and we all learned something from it. We enjoyed a time of fellowship and lunch as usual with all of those here. That was just a sweet, sweet, time of fellowship, and very yummy things to eat, too!
We had invited our friends the Collomys to stay for dinner that evening. They drive 1.5 hours one way to attend church at our home, and we wanted to bless them in this way. They said yes, and they asked if we would be willing for them to ask us questions about adoption. You see, God has been calling them in the last weeks to consider adoption. They have 11 biological children, and God wants to add to their family. Their children range in age from 21 down to 3 years old. They are all still at home except for their 20 year old daughter. We also had Brian and Amy Pollard for dinner, too. They were at church, and they are newlyweds and have no children. Amy is Daryl Collomy's niece.
God has pricked the heart of the Dad, Daryl, to consider adding to their family by adoption. This is just amazing, and we've enjoyed watching the seed grow recently. It's been neat for us to just live out our lives in front of our church family, with adoption as our mission field, and see how God is using this to prompt others to action. It's been such a blessing. So....they really wanted to pick our brain. To ask us questions...to have a panel type discussion where their children and the Dad and Mom could ask us anything....the good, the bad, or the ugly...about adoption and how things have gone for us! We told them...."Bring it on!! Ask us ANYTHING!!!"
So while we were eating our dinner together, the panel discussion began. It was quite amazing to us, the thought provoking questions that even some of their younger children asked us.
Their 9 year old son Michael said..."This question is for Mrs. Winslow....can you tell me...has it been strange for you as the Mom to have children come into your home that you didn't give birth to?? How does it feel exactly??" You see...this precious little boy was wondering how his Mom, who has given birth to 11 children, would be feeling about a child that didn't come from her womb. This sweet little boy was more concerned for his mother, than how it would affect him. It was so sweet!
Then...8 year old Madison asked...."Mrs. Winslow, how do you think it's going to feel for us to have children in our home who aren't related to us?"...This tight knit family, is about to be loosened up to make room for another child or 2 or so, and she was wondering what this would be like and what it would feel like.
Jordan, the eldest daughter at 21, had many, many questions. She is totally on board with her family being expanded through adoption, but she wanted to pick our brains a great deal. She asked Madelyn a lot of questions since Madelyn is our only biological daughter at home. She wanted to know how it all felt for her to add all of these adopted siblings, and she had many other questions for her, too.
Jordan also asked if anyone in our family ever felt like we were adopting children to try and replace our precious daughter Brittany, our eldest, who got married 4 years ago...where we trying to do that, or did anyone feel that we were.
The evening was a time of bonding and truly beautiful fellowship for all of us. It knit us even closer together. I truly wish that every family that is considering adoption would do the same thing. Ask questions, pray together, talk it through. I think the orphan population would go down a great deal if more people would consider to take the command seriously in James 1:27...where God tells us to care for the orphans.
Thank you Collomy family. Thank you for stepping out of your comfort zone, and answering the call. We are praying for you, and just want you to know that we love you sooooo much!
1 comment:
That's awesome! We, too, have felt the Lord working through our adoption stories and I feel so very blessed to be able to answer many questions about our own experiences from people who also feel their hearts being tugged at to care for the world's orphans.
Thanks for sharing!
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