Thirteen Acting Wickedly Toward 7 The Covenant

the Lord as we were returning from a family vacation. On the way we had stopped in Waterford, Michigan where I was born and raised to see some friends who had also moved away but were visiting their mother.

They had recently adopted a beautiful little girl from China. As I picked her up to say hello the Holy Spirit suddenly stirred within me. I thought to myself, “Lord, are you trying to tell me that we too are going to adopt a Chinese child?” That thought was kept to myself as we drove off to continue home across the state to West Michigan where we live.

Half way home, Shelley looked over at me and said to my surprise, “So what do you think about adopting?” “Well,” I responded, “let me tell you what just happened back there.” As I proceeded to explain to her my experience, we both knew that we should seek the Lord and see what He said we should do next. Within a couple of prayerful days, He had confirmed that this was definitely His will for us.

We have four biological children whose ages, at the time, ranged from 12 to 19. The Lord led us to a local adoption agency and the mountain of paperwork began. I had been interested in China for quite awhile. The Lord had placed that interest within me through different avenues, the most prominent being the information given through The Voice Of The Martyrs magazine. Their founder, Richard Wurmbrand, had been imprisoned for 14 years in a communist Romanian prison where he was brutally tortured for his faith in Jesus Christ. The ministry supports the persecuted church throughout the world through various means.

Little did we know that in just a couple of months after going to China to receive our daughter that Shelley would be fighting for her life.

As I waited for the ambulance to arrive, I hurriedly woke up the kids to tell them what was happening. They could tell by my voice that something was terribly wrong and soon came to see their mother who was slumped over on our bathroom floor.

I called one of Shelley's friends who quickly came over to be with our children while we rushed off to the hospital. I will never forget the worried looks on their faces as they watched the paramedics working on their Mother. All our lives had in an instant taken a drastic turn.

Looking For An Answer

It was a long day at the hospital as doctors tried to figure out what was happening with Shelley. They waited for the results of an MRI to confirm what appeared to be a stroke. Because she was only 44 years old, they wanted to be certain before proceeding.

Early Tuesday morning, as I walked into her room, Shelley softly said to me, “My head hurts.” Her headache would build with intensity throughout the day because of the spinal fluid that was being trapped within her brain cavity.