Our Journey to Lily

Lily-Anna YuWei Faith Vedder
america world adoption agency

   Our journey to Lily began when God planted the seed of adopting a baby girl from China in my wife’s heart around summer 1999. It was through the faithful prayers of my wife, Peggy and 6 yr. old daughter, Sarah that my wife began to see God move in the area of “softening” my heart. Our Story is primarily about three things: prayer, faithfulness as we walk with Jesus and God’s overwhelming gift of provision.

     Because my wife home schooled our children, we were a “one income family” that struggled financially from week to week, but have always seen God provide for our needs. This is an important part of the story because it would be through the prayers and our steps of faith that the flood gates would be opened by God. After God had planted the seed deep within my wife’s heart, she naturally came to me and expected that I would be completely on the same page as her. Being the only provider of a family of six and being the “practical” person that I was, I explained to my beautiful wife that unless God provided in “a huge” way it was not something that I felt we would be able to do financially. Not only did I not believe we could afford the adoption, but we already had four biological children to raise and financially support. But, because we serve an AWESOME God, a God that takes not only children, but orphans very seriously, we would later see His hand move in a mighty way through the blessing of a gift that would be given to us selflessly and without conditions. On June 12, 2004, two days before my wife’s 40^th birthday, my wife’s mother (who out of her poverty decided to bless us with $5000.00 to start the adoption process. When I arrived home from work that evening, this $5000.00 blessing would be presented to me by my wife and her mother. This gift was what God knew that I needed to take the first step of faith and to know for certain that God would provide for the financial part of our adoption. It was then that we decided to step out in faith and proceed with the paperwork process of adoption, still not knowing where the rest of the funds would come from.   Within that first week, God began to move and gave us Lily’s name out of Hosea 14:3-5. God also put me in the path of a woman who I had never met before, who after sharing with her our heart to adopt decided through the move of the Holy Spirit to bless us with the second $5000.00 dollars towards adopting our daughter. As we began to share with others what God was doing in our family, the beginning of what would be Lily’s testimony began to be revealed to us by God. We personally witnessed hearts that were touched and changed to the point of many people wanting to financially be a part of what God was doing in and through our adoption journey. The details of this journey were truly remarkable, amazing and supernatural. Too numerous to detail in this short story, but know that where God guides, God provides. He truly did this for us to the point, where He provided all the necessary funds that allowed a family of six to travel to China and return a family of seven.

    Exactly one year after that first step, on June 13, 2005 Lily was in our arms and officially became our daughter on my wife’s 41^st birthday, June 14, 2005. God’s timing was and is always perfect! This journey to Lily is a testimony of how AWESOME God is and what God can accomplish in and through our faithfulness in trusting Him!

Lily has truly changed our family! We love her so much! She brings us so much joy and laughter, she is amazing! She is also looking forward to her little brother, Benjamin.

“I waited patiently for the Lord;

And He inclined to me and heard my cry.

He brought me up out of the pit of destruction, out of the miry clay,

And He set my feet upon a rock making my footsteps firm.

He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God;

Many will see and fear

And will trust in the Lord.

How blessed is the man who has made the Lord His trust,

And has not turned to the proud, nor to those who lapse into falsehood.

Many, O Lord my God, are the wonders which You have done,

And Your thoughts toward us;

If I would declare and speak of them