Focus on the Family

John Fuller: This is John Fuller, and please remember to let us know how you're listening to these programs on a podcast, app, or website.

Heather Avis: 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." It was like, "No, no, no, no, no." Josh and I lagged 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."

John Fuller: That's Heather Avis remembering a significant turning point in her marriage and family. You'll hear more from her and her husband, Josh, today on Focus on the Family with Jim Daly. Thanks for joining us. I'm John Fuller.

Jim Daly: Last time we featured a great conversation that we recorded a few years ago with this remarkable couple. Heather and Josh described their torturous years of infertility, wondering where God was and why He wasn't answering their prayers for a baby. Then the Lord revealed a different path for their family: the path of foster care and adoption.

Heather and Josh were willing to embrace that and now they have three children they've adopted, two of them with Down syndrome. You know, John, some of my heroes are parents who are raising children with special needs, especially when you are opting in to take care of those kids. That can be a challenging job and my heart goes out to you if that's your story.

Here at Focus on the Family, we want to encourage you anyway we can. One great resource we have is our Special Needs Parenting audio collection. This collection features some of our best programs and stories from parents just like you. Over five hours of inspiring content, and I know you'll find it helpful. Best of all, it's completely free. Contact us if you'd like to learn more.

John Fuller: Yeah, you can sign up for that collection at focusonthefamily.com/broadcast or call us. Our number is 800-A-FAMILY. We also want you to know about the book that Heather Avis has written capturing their remarkable story. It's *The Lucky Few: Finding God's Best in the Most Unlikely Places*. Check that out on the website as well. 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, I know listeners connected with where you were at, what you have walked through, and how God has sustained you. Again, John, if people missed that, I would get that through a download or just call us and we'll get you the CD, whatever we can do. But it was really inspiring, and that's a big word to use.

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—and 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. I mean, 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, you're in your mid-20s. This is going to be a load. This isn't just normal parenting. How?

Heather Avis: God 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. Pros and cons. What it really came down to is, 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.

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 and even after saying, "Okay, yes, 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 were so excited, "We got this," and then an hour later, "No, no, no, no, no, we cannot do this. What would 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. So that vacillation came 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? I mean, that's completely natural. I understand this.

Josh Avis: It was definitely a process for sure, and 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"?

Heather 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 like, "Oh, okay, tell us more. Why are you doing this?" 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.

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. I'm her daughter, so she's looking at me as her daughter like, "What is this going to mean for your life?"

So 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 could 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.

I think that's also why we went to our parents and went to 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 and I was 27 years old. 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: Let me just—this thought came to me. Do you think either of your parents, did they think, "What are we being pulled into here?" when we have to babysit and caretake? Was there any of that consideration that you're aware of? I mean, I hadn't thought about that, but that would be a normal grandparenting question here.

Heather Avis: I think there is a lot of people's first reaction, which is, "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 is really changing significantly, that's a whole other topic.

But definitely, I think 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 our 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, "Oh no, I get her, I get her, I get her."

Jim Daly: Well, I have a smile on my face because I know the kids are with the grandparents right now. So that's proof in the pudding. You know, some people, Heather and Josh, may not even understand the diagnosis of Down syndrome. They hear it and we've heard it in the news lately; there's some things that have happened in other countries. What are the obstacles? What are the hurdles? What does a Down syndrome child display?

Heather Avis: Down syndrome is just the 21st chromosome; they have three 21st chromosomes. Everyone with Down syndrome has one extra chromosome, so it's called Trisomy 21. That's the scientific description, medical, I don't know. The thing with Down syndrome is there are some similar characteristics. Often it's physical, like an almond-shaped eye, usually a little bit smaller in stature, flat face, like a flatter nose.

Low muscle tone is very common. Some kind of an intellectual disability. And then there can be heart defects; I think it's about 60% of kids with Down syndrome are born with a heart defect. Hearing problems, vision problems, higher likelihood for leukemia, higher likelihood for Alzheimer's. Those are all characteristics that are terrifying on paper.

I think that we forget as people that when you're giving birth to a child who has no special needs, that a lot of those are the same risks as they get older. If you're going to look at it, there's all these possibilities for this child who's totally healthy at birth. They could also have any one of these things, not necessarily the same for Down syndrome.

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 Macy 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, then 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.

Jim Daly: So they were protecting everybody.

Heather Avis: They were protecting their adoptive parents. She wasn't an option. 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 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?" and recognized that God had done a complete shift in our hearts in that regard. Then we went along our lives and 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 and we go in, learn more about her. 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 and we're just like, "What are you doing, Lord?" It was very frustrating. It became a baby who was very medically fragile.

Jim Daly: Right, and so now you're not just saying yes to Down syndrome, you're saying yes to "we don't know." But you're pressing ahead. Some of us are shaking our heads.

Heather Avis: I know. No, 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 this one.

Jim Daly: You know, 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. 70%. I know there's been, as I mentioned before, a lot in the news about Iceland and other countries now that almost 100% are aborted. This kind of turns that all on its head.

Some of the most powerful comments that I heard is: 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. 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. That 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." Amen.

Jim Daly: 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, and 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. Then giving birth to that—so 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. So yeah, I hope that community, those people are intimidated by me.

John Fuller: That's Heather Avis and she intentionally became the mom of two children with Down syndrome. Today on Focus on the Family with Jim Daly, we're featuring a conversation we recorded a few years back with Heather and her husband, Josh. Heather's written the book *The Lucky Few: Finding God's Best in the Most Unlikely Places*. As you can tell, it's really inspirational and so we hope you'll get a copy when you call 800-A-FAMILY or stop by focusonthefamily.com/broadcast. Let's continue with the conclusion of our conversation with Josh and Heather Avis on today's Focus on the Family with Jim Daly.

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

Heather Avis: I will answer that. I'll go back just a little bit because you had said, "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 there is a baby in my arms, and I'm a mom, and it's the most incredible, life-giving experience of my life.

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. 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.

We are now front row seats to miracles. Seeing God's goodness, like this gift to get to experience that and see God in that way. So we just held this child like, "Oh my gosh, this is the best 'yes' we've ever said. we've 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 and she's thriving. Health-wise 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.

Jim Daly: Josh, you are feeling this emotion, man. Your eyes are all watery.

Josh Avis: This story still gets me choked up. Yeah, it's—I mean, you just see we serve such a good God and He loves us so much. So we got a front row seat to see this miracle baby. We just celebrated her ninth birthday and I remember when we talked to her cardiologist early on. 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."

Jim Daly: Because of the lung issue. Wow.

Josh Avis: And so nine was a big one for us. She just celebrated nine years old.

Jim Daly: That is good. 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, "God will take any child in the world, who do you want for us?"

Josh Avis: It wasn't quite that angelic. We were closed-fist on the first one like, "We want—we had the list, we had that." This one we walked in and said, "God, our hands are open." So it was fitting.

Heather Avis: It was the best, it was so good. I mean so hard, right? All the mamas, all the parents out there know it is no joke, parenthood. But so worth it. 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, little girl. We knew birth mother was Guatemalan and birth father's unknown. She came home at six months old and we've done DNA tests and things, so she's half African American, half Guatemalan. She is just a spitfire. She's a world-shaker, but she's six, so that's really hard.

Jim Daly: In the book, you touched on this and I'm glad we have a couple of minutes here to dig into this because you said she's your strong-willed child. Those of us with strong-willed kids were all laughing and going, "Yeah, got one of those." But 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 be helping her." I kind of had a little conviction about that. So 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. It's not me, it's because of you. But maybe you can teach us how to look at it differently.

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

Jim Daly: What did that look like on a day-to-day basis?

Heather Avis: It's really hard, it still is. I mean, she's only six years old and Macy's nine and 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, 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.

Jim Daly: But she's arguing a lot with you, I'm guessing.

Heather Avis: Yeah, or she's pushing boundaries. Truly is, "Where is the line?" and then she's going to put her toe over it and she's going to look at you and go, "Now what?" Sounds like a healthy family. Just family. We always say 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: I tell you, parents with a strong-willed child, I think we repeat that our pillow talk at night is, "I know it's hard right now, but I think it will really serve him well." Jean and I have had that chat. Now you have a third child and we're running out of time, but describe just quickly your third child. Also Down syndrome.

Josh Avis: Yes, so again we wanted to be parents again and this time around, 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 Reicker is—I would describe him as—he's the bear of joy. He really is. He's three and a half.

Jim Daly: I love the name, August Reicker. Sounds like a character in a novel.

Josh Avis: We have a beautiful relationship with birth mom and he just fit right in.

Jim Daly: Okay, this is the big push now. We're down to the last minute. You're convincing me, you're saying things that I'm warming up to. What should I do next? "Maybe I should look into adoption, maybe I should foster adopt, maybe I should ask for a special needs child, maybe Down syndrome, maybe something else." Push me over the line.

Heather Avis: I think it's 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: Can I end with this one? I keep saying that, don't I, John? 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. It's not. But how do we shake the shackles of that desire to have an easy life, a comfortable life? Now I'm starting to really put a knife into people's sides and say, "Lord, I know You're not calling me to that." That is a big step. That's not a little step.

Heather Avis: No, you're right. I think that as in the West we are pursuing this idea of leisure and comfort—how do we have this easy, comfortable life?—and 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.

So if you want to hear God's heart beat 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: That sounds so much like what the Lord would say to all of us. Heather Avis, author of the book *The Lucky Few*, and Josh, her wonderful husband, man, you guys, you are rocking it. It's awesome to see. Thanks for being a great witness.

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. I think that's the easiest way to start.

If you'll check out our Wait No More program in the U.S. 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 thanks 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 Dolores. 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 Dolores in helping us anyway 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: Yeah, 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.

Guest (Male): One in five households cares for a child with special needs. Is yours one of them? If so, we know you want your child to be taken care of no matter what happens. If you want to secure your child's future by preparing a will but need extra guidance for your unique situation, Focus on the Family can help. Download our resource, *15 Questions to Ask if You Have a Child with Special Needs*. It's our gift to you at focusonthefamily.com/specialneedsebook.

John Fuller: Focus on the Family is a listener-supported ministry.

Jim Daly: Join us next time as we once again help you and your family thrive in Christ.