Our adoption story is one being filled little by little, step by step, as God was quietly preparing us for a beautiful plan. And of all things, He used Facebook to put the final piece into place.

The ripple effect of adoption hit us when some old friends, who have themselves adopted seven children, posted an advocacy push for a sibling pair from Costa Rica – a brother, age 5, and a 16 year-old sister who is deaf and has no language. (In fact, One17 posted the advocacy push as well!) As we read the stories of these two children, we couldn’t get them out of our hearts and our minds.

A blurry photograph, pseudonyms, and a profile including special needs are not the stuff of magnetic and unfathomable connection… usually. And yet here were these two siblings in need of a forever family. We already have three wonderful biological children of our own. But there were two more… And over a series of phone conversations, lots of prater, and careful consideration, we knew they were our two.

What began slowly, with years of consideration, suddenly needed to move quickly. With the girl’s advanced aged for adoption consideration, the Costa Rican authorities were moving toward separating her file from her brother’s if no one came forward. Our hearts were filled again with the heavy notion that this family – what was left of it – shouldn’t be separated. Instead, we knew their family could become part of our family. So our family submitted a letter of intent so they would not be separated, and now the race is on to raise money, fill out paper work, and learn an entirely new language (ASL) in the shortest amount of time possible. And so we pray and we wait and we work… and we hope we will be able to get them soon.

We also know that telling our story is part of the bigger Story, and that if He can inspire us to adopt partially through the story of our friends, that maybe someone else is being called through our story, too. So we feel called not only to live the story, but to share the story.

We are waiting for our official match (we have a soft match already) in the coming weeks and then travel arrangements are made. We are expecting to travel in July or August this year.

Watch the Martin’s  full video here. We love hearing about how the Lord is moving in the lives of our Lifeline families. Share your family’s story or testimony by emailing [email protected]