Focus on the Family

John Fuller: Welcome to Focus on the Family’s Weekend Broadcast. We hope the following program will challenge you and encourage you in your faith journey.

Heather Avis: Where God resides, where His heart beats the loudest, is not in those easy, comfortable places. If you want to hear God’s heartbeat more fully, understand Him more fully, and sit in the worth and value of life and humanity, then you have to be willing to step into those hard places. You can have easy, that’s fine, but you’re missing out on the heartbeat of God if you do that.

Jim Daly: A rather profound statement from Heather Avis. She’s a mom and an advocate who wants to help you and me rethink what a normal family looks like. Heather and her husband, Josh, are on today’s Focus on the Family with Jim Daly. I’m John Fuller, and we’re glad you’ve joined us.

We’re going to share the remarkable story of this husband and wife who had a plan for their future family. But God will do what He wants with a plan. God gave Heather and Josh His heart for needy children who are often unwanted in our culture.

In the United States alone, there are an estimated 343,000 children in foster care. Just think of that number. Kids who need safe, healthy, and godly homes. A significant portion of those children are legal orphans because parental rights, for whatever reason, have been terminated by the court. Those kids really do need a family. They’re just out there in a community of foster care.

This is a wonderful opportunity for the Christian community to step up and help these children. As you hear Heather and Josh’s story today, I hope you’ll consider what God might be calling you to do to help orphans or to come alongside foster and adoptive families who need support.

John Fuller: Just harkening back to what Heather said in that clip, step into the hard places. We’ve got ways you can do that and ways to make a difference through our Wait No More program as it’s called here in the US and Waiting to Belong in Canada. Check those out and see how you can wrap around a family.

Heather has also written a wonderful book about the journey she and Josh have had in foster care and adoption. It’s called *The Lucky Few: Finding God’s Best in the Most Unlikely Places*. Look for the resources we’ve talked about here at our website, focusonthefamily.com/broadcast. The conversation that we have for you today was recorded with Heather and Josh Avis a few years ago. Here is how that discussion began on today’s episode of Focus on the Family with Jim Daly.

Jim Daly: Heather and Josh, welcome to Focus on the Family.

Heather Avis: Thank you so much for having us here.

Josh Avis: Thanks for having us.

Jim Daly: What an amazing story. I always like to get a bit of background. Jean, whenever I’m watching a sporting event on TV, says, "I would be so much more into this if I knew the people who were playing." You’re the players, and for the sake of my wife, I want to know more about you. I think the listeners can connect with that in such a deep way. How long have you been married? What formed your marriage, and where did God play a role in just you two coming together?

Heather Avis: We just celebrated 15 years last month. Technically, the real story is I was 13 when we met.

Jim Daly: You didn't get married at 13.

Heather Avis: No, I didn’t get married at 13. We’re going back to biblical themes. That’s actually not normal today.

Jim Daly: So you met at 13. Were you neighbors?

Heather Avis: Josh is older than I am. I have an older sister, and he was friends with my older sister. They met in high school. She’s very proud of the fact, Josh, that you’re older than she is—much, much older.

So you see God’s hand on it. In the last 15 years, we’ve grown together closer. We know the opposite could have happened, and we consider God’s grace there. We got engaged when I was 19 and got married when I was 20. I imagine any one of my children at the age of 19 saying, "Hey, I’m going to get married." I don't think that's a very good idea. That feels very young.

Jim Daly: I’m impressed that your parents even let you drive at 19. We’re trying to refrain our kids from even driving. That’s good. You’ve known each other since you were really kids. That’s awesome. That’s kind of rare today, I would think.

Jim Daly: Those first couple years of marriage, was it all bliss and fun? What was happening?

Josh Avis: Some people say their first year is hard. Ours was pretty fun. It was like an extended honeymoon. We actually got married the senior year of our college year. After we graduated, instead of getting real jobs or going after grad school, we moved to Hawaii and spent six months in Hawaii.

Jim Daly: Who had that idea?

Heather Avis: It was both of us. For all the 19-year-olds listening, you may want to do that. That sounds like a great idea. There are not very many times in life when you can say, "What's next?" We had no responsibilities, so we did one-way plane tickets and lived in Hawaii. We didn't know how long it would be. It was six months. We moved back home, which is Southern California for us. Then I got a job as a teacher working towards my teaching credential.

Jim Daly: What age were you teaching?

Heather Avis: I was 22 when I got my first classroom and I was teaching seniors in high school. The question was always, "How old are you?" The answer was always, "Old enough to be your teacher," but just barely.

Jim Daly: That’s fantastic. The typical theme then: you’re married a couple years, you’re having some exciting times, you’re without kids yet, so you’re feeling a bit footloose. You can go to Hawaii for six months and kick around. What was your favorite island? Maui forever. If somebody's going, Maui’s your favorite. You start thinking about children, and what happened?

Heather Avis: We just decided it was time to start our family. We had been married four years. We had a really great first four years because we got married so young. We traveled a ton. I think we’re both very adventurous spirits, and we thought we’d try to get pregnant and we’d get pregnant. The majority of people stepping towards parenthood think that. It’s pretty formulaic. You get married, then comes love, then comes marriage. Obviously, we don't sing that song often. I didn't have a very good teacher. I needed a better teacher. But there is a rhythm to that. You guys are expecting it’s going to happen for you, but it doesn’t.

A few months turned into more months, which turned into years. We just found ourselves on that grueling path of infertility.

Jim Daly: Heather, you expressed in the book, I think beautifully, a couple of instances where it really put a spike through your heart. One was with a student who came to you and had a serious situation. Even getting involved with that was kind of a double-edged sword for you. What happened?

Heather Avis: I’m sure people were getting pregnant before I was trying to get pregnant. In that season, it really felt as though everyone around me was pregnant. It was unbelievable how many people we knew who were pregnant. Every time we found out, it was just like a little bit of a stab in my heart, even when it was people I loved very dearly, which included my sister getting pregnant at that time when we were trying so hard.

The kicker was always a student. I had this idea in my head that I had done everything right, that I had made the right choices. I had gotten married first. We had a really healthy marriage. We were establishing careers. We were doing all the right things. We were faithful to God. We had a plan. It was the fair thing. Next, we get pregnant, and it should happen very easily because that’s fair.

Then I had a student, one girl who just had a chip on her shoulder. She had had a really rough upbringing. I had kind of taken her under my wing during the school year. She came to me during my planning period just in tears. She just said, "Mrs. Avis, I’m pregnant. My parents are going to kill me. I didn’t think I could get pregnant because I already had an abortion." She was 15. She’s crying and I’m crying, partly for her but mostly for me. How is this possible, God? This girl’s pregnant? This one here? Really?

Jim Daly: That’s so honest. I love that in your book, the way you expressed that, because it’s very human. You’re sitting there consoling this 15-year-old thinking, "How could she be a mom? Lord, I’d be the good mom. Why am I not getting pregnant?" Before I move to you, Josh, to talk about the husband in this moment, one other question for you in this regard, Heather, is your relationship with the Lord. Did you have some bitterness, or did you have a discussion with the Lord where you said, "Lord, I don't know why. Come on, I'm a good person."

Heather Avis: There were lots of discussions, lots of shaking my fist at God, hysterically crying, just totally angry moments. I feel like the ultimate lesson that God really impressed upon my heart in that season—I grew up in the church, but this idea—is that God is God. Period. It seems real simple, but just this idea that His goodness and His faithfulness and His love for me do not hinge on my ability to get pregnant or not. They are what they are. God is God.

To hold that truth, you have to be in this place where I’m going to hold that truth real tightly and I’m going to be really angry and frustrated. It has to be both. It’s an intermingling of all these emotions that feel like they’re conflicting, but God’s grace is so much bigger than that. I really felt like He met me. I can look back and feel like He met me only with gentleness and grace, almost like this arm around me, knowing it’s going to be okay. But He’s also not going to be the person that’s like, "Try this and I’m praying for you, it’ll be okay." Just the arm. Just this is hard, here I am, I am God.

Jim Daly: So Josh, being the husband, I’m sure you’re thinking, "Okay, here we go. This will be great." What was the emotion like for you finding out that you can’t have children as a couple?

Josh Avis: Heather mentioned it earlier: we have been blessed and there’s been grace upon us as we got to grow together. It was a time where we really leaned into each other.

Jim Daly: So it didn’t tear you apart?

Josh Avis: No, not at all. I felt that arm that Heather’s describing in a way that showed up. I remember sitting in our kitchen—we had this little tiny mountain home—and it was as if God was saying to me, "What’s next is better. I have something for you. Whatever is coming next is going to be far better than this."

It was really hard to keep saying that to Heather. Sometimes it would just come across as the solution is coming, and she didn't want to hear that. Sometimes it wasn't words. But I rested in that God had this firm foundation that He had given us, that something better is coming. I have such a distinct memory of sitting in the kitchen and saying that to her and truly believing it. But there were a lot of other conversations where you just had to sit in it. I would just say to a lot of the husbands out there that suggestions and solutions aren't going to be helpful right now. Just sit in it. Sit in it with your wife. Sit in it.

Jim Daly: Heather, that had to be hard. I know discussions I’ve had with Jean when I’m saying, "Here’s what I think the Lord’s telling us," and she’s not thinking the same way. That can be a hard conversation in your marriage. How did you manage that when Josh is saying something better’s coming when you’re feeling like you’re at the bottom? How can you say that?

Heather Avis: That’s exactly how I managed it. "How can you say that? Why would you say that? I don't want to hear it." But again, I just keep going back to the grace piece of it because I wasn't this great holy person. I was angry and frustrated and bitter and I didn't want to hear it. That’s okay. I feel like it was okay to be those things and to feel that way. There’s another side to it. I got to the other side of it and I could look back with fresh eyes and good perspective, but there’s just not an easy way out of hard things. Infertility is one of those. There are lots of hard things people go through, but there’s just not an easy way out. You’ve got to be in it. God’s grace is sufficient for all of your bitterness and anger and resentment. It’s seasonal.

Jim Daly: We went through a season of infertility and I did not talk about it with anybody else. Did you all share that and have people along with you for that?

Heather Avis: That’s a great question. No one’s asked me that before. Looking back, it’s such a foggy time. My memories are people saying things like, "We tried for a year," or "We tried for two years," or "We tried for five years and got pregnant," in an encouraging way. But that was the most discouraging thing someone could say to me because a year in trying to get pregnant is like dog years. You’re like, "Wait a second, I think that’s 100 years at least," is what that feels like.

I don’t know that we did. We had lots of people being prayerful. We had lots of great support. Our family was really supportive. We had wonderful pastors who came alongside really gently and just lifted us up in prayer and let us know they were doing that. But in terms of someone who had gone through it, no. Also, because we were very young, not a lot of people we were doing life with were struggling with infertility.

Jim Daly: So how many months or years do you move through this part of the trying and the tears and just the realization that maybe it won't happen for us? How long did that last before you started thinking maybe there’s another way to go?

Heather Avis: I think it was about two years of trying to fix it, trying to make it work. We never went as far as in vitro fertilization, but we tried everything else. I had had a test done that affected my body really negatively, and my OB-GYN just said, "I think that’s it," basically stamping me with infertility. The only way you're going to be able to conceive is through IVF; we could try that. That was it. We knew that that wasn't going to be a road that we were going to travel down. That really felt like, "Okay, that’s it. Now what?" My desire to be a mom was still very much there.

Jim Daly: Let’s turn the corner though. This is where you begin to think maybe adoption is an option. How did that idea start within the two of you?

Josh Avis: We always thought about adoption, but what we thought we were going to do—we go back to that plan—was we’ll have our own biological kids and then we’ll adopt. With Heather teaching in special ed with a community of kids that were just amazing, some of the kids were in foster systems. We had seen that, and so we just thought we’ll have our own kids and then adopt.

Heather Avis: We were at that crossroads. We knew we wanted to be parents. We knew we were going to grow our family. So IVF or adoption, that was really the only way that was going to happen. IVF wasn’t an option, so it was adoption. I think there were a few weeks there where we were mourning, and then I think that I was ready to adopt before Josh was. I remember being online, and this was 10 years ago, so things were very, very different. But Googling international adoptions and trying to figure out which is the fastest. What is the fastest way I can get a baby in my arms? We wanted a baby. Give us a baby.

Jim Daly: Some might go, "Whoa," but I get it.

Heather Avis: We didn't know anyone who had adopted 10 years ago. Not one person. So we’re asking around, and it turns out one of my teacher’s aide’s sons had adopted. She said, "Why don't you have dinner with them?" This is a couple that loves the Lord fiercely and just exudes Jesus. They invited us to their home, total strangers. We go to their house and they open the door, and there’s these two rowdy boys running around the house. I don't know what we were expecting, but when we left, we left realizing this is just a family. Wait, what we just experienced was family.

Jim Daly: That is a beautiful statement. Really, that is probably one of the most beautiful things I’ve heard about adoption. It’s just a family.

Jim Daly: What’s next? You walk away from that evening with your new friends and they’ve probably encouraged you that adoption is a good thing. What’s the next step?

Josh Avis: We asked them a ton of questions, and so they started pointing us in a direction. I think we still created a plan out of what we were going after. Part of that was if we can go after a private adoption agency, at least we’ll have some control over age and the health of the baby. You can check the boxes. For those that don't know, we’ve done foster, so you have a list of things that seems bizarre, actually. Very bizarre. Would you accept head-knocking children? Children that set things on fire? It’s a very interesting concept to get to check those boxes.

Heather Avis: You were checking all the boxes that said healthy, well-adjusted. We wanted a newborn. As little as possible, preferably day one, I’m in there for the labor and delivery. That was the dream. And that’s a good thing. It’s a natural thing. We were first-time parents, too, so we just didn't know. We were just dipping our toes into the adoption world and trying to understand God’s heart in adoption. When we started down the adoption path, our goal was growing our family, not knowing more about the Lord, not seeing His heart for orphans. None of that. It was all selfish. Just I’m going to grow my family.

Jim Daly: I’m so glad to hear that because when I read your story, you two stand next to the Lord in terms of extending your home and your love and your parenting to strangers in the beginning. Where did you go, how did you do your first adoption, and what motivated you to adopt the child you adopted?

Heather Avis: We end up at this private agency. The family that we had had dinner with who invited us in their home is the agency they used. It’s in LA. While private adoption is expensive, they were a little more affordable. We wanted that healthy infant, so we did the whole process, checked off the lists, and we end up leading a group in our church on a trip to Romania to do a summer camp for youth in Romania. It had been our third summer, and so we’re so excited about this, but at the same time, I’m wanting this phone call so that I’m not going on the trip. I’m waiting until the night before. Please call me. Adoptive parents know that a call comes, and usually it’s that day. Sometimes you have a weekend, maybe a week to prepare for this baby. You drop everything and your life changes, but you can’t live that way when you’re in the process. At least we found that you had to move forward with life, live life normally as you could, but ready to drop it all.

Jim Daly: You’ve got to hold it loosely.

Heather Avis: I sent my social worker a little email: "Hey, we’re going to be out of the country just so you know if we don't answer our cell phones or don't check email." Go to Romania, spend this week at this camp. It’s amazing; God’s doing awesome things. We go to our hotel room. In the email, I said, "How are things going?" She emails back and we open it. I’m in Romania. I open up the laptop and I see an email from her. My heart drops. Anytime I see her name, my heart drops. Who’s my baby? Then I remember she’s just replying to my email. She says something like, "Thanks for letting me know. Things are really slow. We have a couple babies with Down syndrome placed in with our agency. It’s always hard to find placements for them. Your profile’s been viewed once. Hang in there."

Instantly God did something in my heart when I read those words "babies with Down syndrome." It was instantaneous and I was not excited about this. I wasn’t like, "Yes, Lord, let’s step towards this." I was like, "No, no, no, no, no. No." I got down and our team was waiting for us. We were going to go to dinner. Josh and I lag behind and he’s like, "What’s going on?" I tell him, and I’m waiting for him to say, "Oh no, that’s not what we’re going to do." And he goes, "Yeah, I think we should pray about that."

Jim Daly: Can I ask you a tough question? Were you hoping he would say, "What? No, let’s not do that"?

Heather Avis: Yeah, I was hoping that he’d say no, we’re not waiting for those babies. She’s just telling us that happened, so we’ll wait for our baby.

Jim Daly: Josh, I’ve got to ask you. Why did you respond with what you responded to? A lot of couples listening to us now are going, "Why? Why would you do that?"

Josh Avis: I’m getting choked up hearing her talk. These are my kids, so just hearing her explain it that way gets me choked up. I think I’m just a firm believer everything happens for a reason. If this was the reason we were going and this is the direction we’re going, then let’s step in that direction.

Heather Avis: I think a lot of people look at our story. So there’s these two little girls with Down syndrome, and the short of it is we adopt one of these children with Down syndrome. From the moment we read that email to bringing our daughter home, it was mostly us saying no, or us saying, "I don’t think so, but we’ll keep stepping this direction." We weren’t these amazing holy saints. We were fighting what God had laid before us, fighting against it, and God kept meeting us with, "Okay, let’s keep moving forward. All right, that’s nice. Let’s keep moving forward."

Jim Daly: I so appreciate that honesty. We are at the end of this day, but I want to come back. I mean, people are going, "What? You can't stop now!" But I want to come back and really understand your heart, your relationship with the Lord, what He was speaking to you. Let's come back next time and pick the story up right here where you're adopting your first child who has Down syndrome. Can we do it?

Heather Avis: Let’s do it.

John Fuller: Today on Focus on the Family with Jim Daly, we’ve been hearing from Josh and Heather Avis about their remarkable journey from infertility to adoption. They’ve captured their story in Heather’s book called *The Lucky Few: Finding God’s Best in the Most Unlikely Places*.

Jim Daly: What I love about this couple is how they kept listening to the Lord even when He seemed far away. Have you ever felt that? I have. It’s my prayer that today’s program is motivating you to get involved in some way, especially in what the Bible calls pure religion out of the book of James: caring for widows and orphans. One way you can do that is through our Wait No More program here at Focus on the Family. What we’re looking for are Christian couples who will consider foster care or adoption or even respite care where you bring children into your home for a day or two to support and give those foster parents a little break. That’s something my wife, Jean, and I have done quite a bit.

John Fuller: A rather profound statement from Heather Avis. She’s a mom and an advocate who wants to help you and me rethink what a normal family looks like. Heather and her husband, Josh, are on today’s Focus on the Family with Jim Daly. I’m John Fuller, and we’re glad you’ve joined us.

Jim Daly: We’re going to share the remarkable story of this husband and wife who had a plan for their future family. But God will do what He wants with a plan. God gave Heather and Josh His heart for needy children who are often unwanted in our culture. In the United States alone, there are an estimated 343,000 children in foster care. Just think of that number. Kids who need safe, healthy, and godly homes. A significant portion of those children are legal orphans because parental rights, for whatever reason, have been terminated by the court. Those kids really do need a family. They’re just out there in a community of foster care.

This is a wonderful opportunity for the Christian community to step up and help these children. As you hear Heather and Josh’s story today, I hope you’ll consider what God might be calling you to do to help orphans or to come alongside foster and adoptive families who need support.

John Fuller: Just harkening back to what Heather said in that clip, step into the hard places. We’ve got ways you can do that and ways to make a difference through our Wait No More program as it’s called here in the US and Waiting to Belong in Canada. Check those out and see how you can wrap around a family.

Heather has also written a wonderful book about the journey she and Josh have had in foster care and adoption. It’s called *The Lucky Few: Finding God’s Best in the Most Unlikely Places*. Look for the resources we’ve talked about here at our website, focusonthefamily.com/broadcast. Now here’s part two of our conversation with Josh and Heather Avis on today’s episode of Focus on the Family with Jim Daly.

Jim Daly: Heather and Josh, welcome back to Focus. It was so wonderful last time. You spoke so boldly, so transparently, and I’m sure listeners connected with where you’re at, what you have walked through, and how God has sustained you. I want to continue on. We dropped off last time where you had been working with an agency, you’d just taken the trip to Romania, a missions trip. The agency had texted you or emailed you saying, "We have two kids, but they both have Down syndrome. It’s hard to place Down syndrome children." But right at that moment, you kind of thought, "Okay, maybe."

I do want to say it’s almost angelic. Most people would say, "I can’t carry that burden. That’s too much for me. The Lord will know. I’ve got so much that’s going on." How did you process that? How did you say, "I could do this"? You’ve only been married four years. You’re young, in your mid-20s. This is going to be a load. This isn’t just normal parenting. How?

Heather Avis: God just kept nudging us along the way. We had a week left in Europe that Josh and I just did together. We went to Greece and we spent that entire week—the majority of our conversations were around this idea of adopting a child with Down syndrome. Josh would make lists, pros and cons lists. I’m not that organized in the way that I think, but Josh is. He would do lists: "All right, pros and cons."

What it really came down to as people who love Jesus and who desire to have a heart that beats like His: not one of the items on the con list was a good enough item to say no to being parents to a child who needed parents. At the end of the day, there was a baby who needed a mom and a dad. We were a mom and a dad. That was it. And that’s enough. That’s enough. I think that’s a huge piece of adoption: at the end of the day, there’s a child who needs a family. You can be a family, and that can be enough.

We moved forward in that way. Even after saying, "Okay, let’s learn more," we got home from Europe, called the social worker. It’s a very long story, but even in that moving forward, it was a rollercoaster. We’re so excited, we got this, and then an hour later, "No, no, no, we cannot do this. What will this look like for our life? This is terrifying. This is overwhelming. We’re not equipped." And then the next day, "Okay, we can do it, we can do it." So it wasn't just seamless.

Jim Daly: I appreciate that. Did that vacillation come from both of you, or was it one of you predominantly that was retreating after going forward? Or was it a shared kind of thing where, depending upon the day, Josh, you were saying, "Honey, come on, really?" And then the next day it was you? That’s completely natural. I understand this.

Josh Avis: It was definitely a process, for sure. It was up and down. I think it was a lot of hard conversations where I would pull her up or she would pull me up or you would try to convince the other. Even hard conversations with family, to be honest, and hard conversations with our support around us saying, "Are you sure about this?"

Jim Daly: Were family members saying, "Hey, don't do this"?

Josh Avis: I think they were just protective of us. No one ever flat-out said, "Don't do this," but it was a lot of, "Oh, okay, tell us more. Why are you doing this?"

Heather Avis: I have always been a cheerleader for the underdog since I was really little. Since my parents can recall and since I can recall, I’ve had this heart that breaks for the brokenhearted. So my mom, I think, was worried that I was trying to rescue, that I was trying to do this big noble thing and rescue this poor, poor child and that my intentions maybe weren't going to be healthy in the long run for me. And I’m her daughter. So she’s looking at me as her daughter: "What is this going to mean for your life?" I did have a conversation with my mom where I just had to say, "Hey Mom, you have to trust who you raised me to be, who God’s made me to be, and what He’s calling us to in this. I need you to just trust right now."

Jim Daly: Did you appreciate the question for solidifying the decision you already had in your heart? Was there any appreciation for your mom’s forcefulness with that?

Heather Avis: Oh, absolutely. I can see myself as a dad of a now 17-year-old in a few years—he might make that decision. I might ask that question, in part just to make sure that my adult son or daughter really has counted the cost.

Heather Avis: And I think that’s also why we went to our parents and went to our people who we could love and trust, because we needed that support and the different perspective. We needed people to be pushing back because it was a big decision for us. I was 27 years old, and it was a big decision because we also at any given time could have said no, firmly and officially, and then probably within a few weeks been receiving a phone call for this healthy infant we’d been waiting for.

Jim Daly: Do you think either of your parents thought, "What are we being pulled into here? When we have to babysit and caretaker." Was there any of that consideration that you're aware of? That would be a normal grandparenting question here.

Heather Avis: I think there is a lot of people’s first reaction: "What does this mean long term? Like, what are you going to do with this child when you're gone? Who's taking care of this child as an adult?" Things are very different now in the Down syndrome world; that narrative’s really changing significantly. That’s a whole other topic. But definitely, I think all of everyone in our family was like, "Okay, this has huge implications on the entire family," because it does. Even my older sister, who had two kids at the time, and thinking of my future daughter’s cousins, and that there’s no burden or pressure on anybody. But if the day comes that no one can care for our daughter and she does need extra care, is it my nephew and niece? Everyone here is affected.

Before that child enters our lives, a child with Down syndrome, I think that it is this idea of "this is a lot, this is heavy, this is too much." And then enter said child, and everyone’s tune changes almost instantly to like, "No, I get her. I get her. I get her."

Jim Daly: Now, let’s move through that story a little more. Because you didn’t stop there. This is number one. What happened? What’s it like bringing Macyn home? Night one, week one, month one, year one?

Heather Avis: We have to back up a tiny bit. When we first say yes, we want to move forward with possibly adopting a child with Down syndrome, the social worker says, "Oh, okay. Well, one of those babies was placed and the other one is so—we just found out all these medical needs, we’re not looking at placing her." We recognized later that they thought she wasn’t going to live. They thought she wasn't an option. They were protecting their adoptive parents.

They had just discovered this lung condition called pulmonary hypertension and that her heart defect was more severe than they had recognized. At six weeks old, which is when we had found out about her, she was going to go in for a heart surgery. Not open heart, but like a very serious heart surgery to help prolong her life. That’s where we had called and said we’re interested. And they’re saying, "Oh my gosh, we don't know that she’s going to live through the surgery." But they’re not telling us that.

So we hang up the phone and go, "Oh my gosh, what if we don't get a kid with Down syndrome?" We recognized that God had done a complete shift in our hearts in that regard. And then we went along our lives. A month later, they call and say, "Hey, that little girl we told you about went through her surgery. We have a better grasp on her health. Are you still interested?" We said yes. We go in, learn more about her, and all of a sudden Down syndrome is a back-burner issue because she’s on medication, she’s on oxygen 24/7. Her lung condition is so severe that they don't know how long she’s going to live. We’re just like, "What are you doing, Lord?" It was very frustrating. It became a baby who was very medically fragile.

Jim Daly: But you’re pressing ahead. Some of us are shaking our heads.

Heather Avis: We were shaking our heads and still moving forward. We didn't want to say yes, but we knew no wasn't the answer. So we kept taking steps forward. That’s what that looked like for us in that moment. When I talk to a lot of people who say, "How do you move forward when things are so scary and things are so challenging?" for us, it was one foot in front of the other, literally. I’m going to lift up my foot, I’m going to put it down. I have no idea where my second step is, and I don't have to know that. I just have to know that.

Jim Daly: I want to just bring in some of the statistics because it’s so important. 70% of babies that are in utero that are diagnosed with Down syndrome are aborted. This kind of turns that all on its head because some of the most powerful comments that I heard is that why are we discriminating against children that just have some different physical attributes? And they are impaired in different ways, but they're still human beings made in the image of God that need protection. As parents who have adopted Down syndrome children, what does that make you feel like when they are talking about eradicating Down syndrome by aborting everyone who's diagnosed with it?

Heather Avis: It makes me feel like, at first, it’s like, "Wait, what? That doesn't make any sense. Like, why would you do that? Because they're the best." And then it’s infuriating and then it’s a little bit terrifying for humanity as a whole. As humans, we’re okay or we’re wanting to live in a world where everyone is "perfect" with air quotes, or doesn't have different abilities.

Then you can go more concentrated as the church and say, "Okay, if people with different abilities are being formed in their mothers' wombs, created in the image of God as they are, then if they are image bearers of God, we’re missing out on a huge piece of God if we’re not willing to do life intimately with them or let them live at all."

Jim Daly: And Heather and Josh, the statement here, this is not a political statement. This is the condition of humanity. This is something that is in us. How do we treat one another? Do we do that by simply killing them? I mean, it seems—and you’ve got to be somewhat intimidating to that community who wants to eradicate Down syndrome. For you to say no, we will love these children, we will take these children in, God has given me a purpose in doing this, they must go, "What?" It’s got to be an anathema to them.

Heather Avis: Definitely. I think that the majority of people who are in the world in which they’re choosing to eradicate Down syndrome are people who are not doing life with Down syndrome. I don’t know this for a fact, but I could just—I want to say with a lot of confidence that chances are these people do not have a loved one with Down syndrome. The decision is being made purely out of fear and ignorance.

So it’s not even a pro-choice/pro-life issue with what’s happening with the Down syndrome world and community. It’s an idea of: are people with Down syndrome human? Are they worthy of life? Are they worthy of acceptance? And in the church again: are they image bearers of God? Do they have giftings and talents like the rest of us? Can we see God in them? The answer is yes to all those questions. So people are deciding to terminate a pregnancy based on fear and ignorance. So then giving birth to that—every time a child with Down syndrome is terminated, we’re just giving birth to more fear and more ignorance and then living in that.

Jim Daly: Heather, I’ve got to ask you, because I know every mama’s heart is out there saying, "Where is Macyn at today? What’s happened? Is she doing well?" So answer that question.

Heather Avis: I will answer that. First days at home, first weeks at home, what’s it like? So we say yes to this child, it’s terrifying, we bring her home, oxygen and all. And then there is a baby in my arms and I’m a mom and it’s the most incredible, life-giving experience of my life. So there we are, parents. It’s all we know. We don't know any different. The next day, our very first day as parents, we go and meet with her surgeon to schedule open heart surgery. So hello, welcome to parenthood.

Then a month later she has open heart surgery. It goes great. Two years later she’s miraculously cured from this lung condition and off oxygen and all medications. So we are now front-row seat to miracles, seeing God’s goodness, like this gift to get to experience that and see God in that way. We just held this child like, "Oh my gosh, this is the best yes we’ve ever said. We never would have known God so fully had we not taken this big risk."

Today she’s nine. Currently she has a cold, so that’s a bummer, but she’s doing great. She’s amazing. She’s thriving. Healthwise, we see cardiology and pulmonology every two years. We go in, they’re like, "She’s great, get out of here." That's what you want to hear. No other health issues.

Josh Avis: Hearing this story still gets me choked up. We serve such a good God and He loves us so much. We got a front-row seat to see this miracle baby. I remember when we talked to her cardiologist early on and he said, "This lung thing is really scary. We can do the heart surgery, but we can’t guarantee that she’ll live past eight because of the lung issue." So nine was a big one for us, to just celebrate nine years old.

Jim Daly: Miracles continue to happen. And those miracles meaning you didn’t stop there. You ended up continuing to adopt. You adopted two more children. Describe those two kiddos.

Heather Avis: We went into our next adoption just a lot wiser, I think, and having seen God so clearly and fully through our first daughter. And a lot more humbled. We went into our second adoption saying, "God, we’ll take any child in the world. Who do you want for us?"

Josh Avis: It wasn't quite that angelic. I love your honesty. You're making me feel better. We were close-fisted on the first one, like we wanted—we had the list, we had that, this, this. This one we walked in and said, "God, our hands are open."

Heather Avis: We end up with this little girl who has no health issues. She’s got some birth family history that’s pretty heavy and serious that we had to talk about just very briefly because we knew we’d say yes. This is Truly. We knew birth mother was Guatemalan and birth father’s unknown. She came home at six months old. We’ve done DNA tests and things, so she’s half African American, half Guatemalan, and she is just a spitfire. She’s a world-changer, but she’s six, so that’s really hard.

Jim Daly: And you know, in the book, you touched on this—and I’m glad we have a couple of minutes here to dig into this—because you say she’s your strong-willed child. You said something in there that at first I was struggling with, and that was her attitude and her behavior. You came to the conclusion that "I have a role in this, the way I’m parenting her may not have been helping her." I kind of had a little conviction about that. Why did you look to yourself as the problem, not Truly the strong-willed child? Because we really get on those kids in a bad way.

Heather Avis: Ultimately, I’m the adult and she is a tiny child. It’s not fair to say, "Hey three-year-old, mature. Act like an adult, shape up." She was so different than Macyn. People who have multiple kids know. I thought, "Hey, I’m a really good parent," and then enter Truly, and I’m like, "I have no idea what I’m doing." She was like a refiner's fire for me.

It was really hard. It still is. I mean, she’s only six years old and Macyn’s nine. Day to day it is just a lot of grace, there’s a lot of apologizing from me to her. I apologize often, sometimes daily, for my reaction to her. What we’re trying to figure out still—and then and it’s still and I think probably forever—is God’s made her to be a certain way and maybe that rubs me the wrong way. I don't want to squelch that. Because I need control over these spaces, but she’s not going to let me have that control. That’s not bad. She’s not a bad kid. She’s not outside of God’s will. She’s on this path she’s supposed to be on, but it’s hard for me because I’m not her. We’re very different or very similar.

The characteristics that Truly has right now that are difficult are going to serve her so well as an adult. So how do we hold those, help her manage those, and not squelch them?

Jim Daly: Now you have a third child. Describe just quickly your third child, also Down syndrome.

Josh Avis: We wanted to be parents again, and this time, again, we had our hands open. We weren't looking to adopt a kid with special needs, and sure enough, He aligned things. We met a birth mother who was pregnant with a little boy who had Down syndrome, and we brought him home the day after he was born. August Riker is—I would describe him as he’s the bearer of joy. He really is. He’s three years old, three and a half. We have a beautiful relationship with birth mom, and he just fit right in.

Jim Daly: You’re convincing me. I’m warming up to "What should I do next?" Maybe I should look into adoption. Maybe I should foster to adopt. Maybe I should ask for a special needs child. Down syndrome, maybe something else. Push me over the line.

Heather Avis: I think you’ve got to take that one big step. I think you have to really abandon all those fears or say, "Great, I’m terrified, this is going to overwhelm me. Okay, I’m still going to take that step." It really is a step. It’s not some giant leap of faith; it’s "I’m going to move forward towards this, recognize that this is God’s calling on us if we love Him and we want to know Him more."

Jim Daly: It’s this battle that we have, especially in Western culture, where we have leisure and comfort as our main goal. That's not what God called us to. But how do we shake the shackles and say, "Lord, I know you're not calling me to that"? That is a big step.

Heather Avis: As in the West, we are pursuing this idea of ease and comfort. How do we have this easy, comfortable life? Recognizing that the things that are the most worthy in life are not going to be easy, period. Where God resides, where His heart beats the loudest, is not in those easy, comfortable places. If you want to hear God’s heartbeat more fully, understand Him more fully, and sit in the worth and value of life and humanity, then you have to be willing to step into those hard places. You can have easy, that’s fine, but you’re missing out on the heartbeat of God if you do that.

Jim Daly: Heather Avis, author of the book *The Lucky Few*, and Josh, her wonderful husband, you guys are rocking it. It’s awesome to see. Thanks for being a great witness.

Josh Avis: Thank you.

Jim Daly: I hope this couple’s wonderful story has encouraged you today. That’s been our goal. And that you’ll prayerfully consider what role you might play in helping children who are in foster care. There are many ways to get involved: simply offering to help a foster or adoptive family in your neighborhood or at your church. That’s the easiest way to start.

If you’ll check out our Wait No More program in the US or Waiting to Belong in Canada, you’ll find all the information that you need to engage. Of course, we’d also recommend you get a copy of Heather’s book. Send a gift of any amount to Focus on the Family and we’ll send it right out to you as our way of saying thank you for being a part of the ministry.

John Fuller: One of those financial partners who contributed wrote us and said this—it was a woman named Delores—she said, "When I hear all that you stand for, it draws me to the cross and makes me want to help however I can. What you, Focus on the Family, do for children who don’t have a home touches my heart."

Jim Daly: That’s exactly why we produce programs like this one. That puts a smile on everybody’s face and why we need your help getting the word out about providing good and godly homes for children in foster care. Join Delores in helping us any way you can with a one-time gift or a monthly pledge. Anything you can do will make a difference. Let me say thank you in advance for your generosity.

John Fuller: We welcome your support when you call 800-A-FAMILY. 800-232-6459. Or donate online and learn more about Wait No More and get your copy of the book *The Lucky Few* at focusonthefamily.com/broadcast. Thanks for listening to Focus on the Family with Jim Daly. I’m John Fuller, inviting you back as we once again help you and your family thrive in Christ.