No child left behind: Couple adopts four ‘high-risk’ siblings from abusive home
Oct. 2, 2013 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The Onufers knew they wanted to adopt. They’d known for a long time. What they didn’t expect was to be given four children from a “high-risk” situation…all at once.
After visiting China and seeing children in extreme poverty, Ryan and Erica were both convinced that adoption was part of their calling as a couple.
“We wanted to adopt before having any biological children, so that our adopted children would feel ‘chosen,’ not as though they were an afterthought.”
As they approached their five-year anniversary, they contacted an adoption agency and began the stressful process of filling out paperwork and allowing the agency to conduct a home study. But after only two months, they felt led in a different direction. They had previously decided on both foreign and domestic adoption, but their hopes to adopt a child from Haiti were soon disappointed when Haiti closed its doors to outside adoptions. Erica then phoned a local foster care/adoption agency and soon after signed up for training classes.
“We decided on the first night that we wanted a sibling set of two, but that three would be our absolute maximum,” she told LifeSiteNews.
Five months after they began, and before their training was complete, the adoption agency left Erica a voicemail message.
“We know you’re not finished your training and aren’t to be placed for close to a year, but we feel like these children are a perfect fit for your family. There are four children.”
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