This is national adoption month, so I am sharing a true story of Cai and his adoptive family, who are working with our adoption program at Gateway Woods. It is obvious that God had a hand in this adoption to find just the right family for Cai, and just the right child for this family.

Cai was abandoned at birth in China, but was not adopted until he was fourteen years of age from an orphanage in China.

Though Cai had a pleasant personality and was well liked in the orphanage, he was not adopted earlier due to his special need of having spina bifida and being confined to a wheel chair. However, his adoptive family was shown waiting children from China and they felt immediately that Cai was the right child for them. China seemed the right country for this adoptive family as the adoptive mother’s mother was Korean, and this adoptive family has traveled to many Asian countries and are very familiar with the Chinese culture. Cai fit right in at fourteen years as these adoptive parents have grown children and their youngest daughter is seventeen years of age. The adoptive father was in a land mine explosion in Vietnam while he was serving in the military in 1968 and had both of his legs amputated. From this accident the adoptive father is also in a wheel chair, so adopting a child in a wheel chair did not seem daunting.

Although this adoptive family is the right family for Cai, they had little idea how to work with him. At his adoptive home, Cai had a real role model in his adoptive father who has never let his wheelchair limit his activities. The adoptive father has coached special needs children and adults and as well as participated in a variety of sports himself. So Cai went from barely doing anything for himself, to taking care of his own needs such as: cleaning his room, making his bed, showering, doing his laundry etc. He has developed a strong upper body participating in sporting activities such as badminton, basketball, and rides a rip stick very fast. This has opened up a whole new world for Cai and he has enjoyed learning all the things he can do. He has also really enjoyed going to church with his adoptive family and participating in a weekly church youth group. Most importantly, he has learned about the love of God for the first time in his life.

This is just one story of a miracle from God but in my years of working with adoption, I have seen so many miracles from God in providing just the right home for a needy child from across town and from across the world.