Wen: God Changes Everything

Chan, Wen De

I am content.  I have four wonderful children, a loving wife, and a good job.  Life has its ups and down, but a lot more ups than downs.  I wasn’t at a point where I wanted to change a whole lot.  Well, God had different plans for our family. His name is Wen and he’ll be a part of our family as soon as we can get the paperwork done.   

That’s how I felt going into July.  That was about the time our friends Stephen and Michelle Wahe were hosting a 12 year old boy named Jacob from China for a month in hopes of finding a forever family for him through the Orphan Hosting Program.  Children in this program spend one month in the United States in hopes of finding a forever family.  At the end of the month, they return to China and if no family steps forward to adopt, the child is released from the orphanage at age 14 to fend for himself.  

As we explained this to our children, they started asking a lot of questions.  “What happens if no one adopts him?”  “Why doesn’t he have a family?”  “Why can’t we adopt him?”  Tough questions for a family that is content to answer, but we did our best to provide answers.  We prayed about the situation and prayed that Jacob would find a forever family.  We also prayed that if God were calling us to adopt this boy, that he would make it clear and that he would open our hearts to that possibility.

So a few weeks later when we found out that our friends Ross & Jenn Franke were adopting Jacob, we were overjoyed.  We were happy for the Frankes, happy for Jacob, and a bit selfishly, happy that the story had a happy ending and we didn’t have to wrestle with any difficult or life-altering choices.

But God was just giving us a break to rest up before he laid out the big challenge.  As Jacob was heading back to China, we learned about his travel companion Wen.  He had spent a month in Connecticut with a family, but unfortunately, no forever family stepped forward for him.  We felt God tugging at us to be open to expanding our family.  It would have been easy to dismiss His guidance.  We already have four wonderful children.  We’ve adopted from Korea and never from China.  Our social worker retired.  We don’t speak Chinese.  He doesn’t speak English.  We’ve never adopted a non-infant.  This will mess up the birth order in our family and our kids will probably be in counseling.  We haven’t saved for the costs involved.  The list of reasons why we shouldn’t do it went on and on.  

Jacob (left) and Wen (right) at the airport returning to China

So God enlisted our children again.  The questions started again:  “What will happen to him?”  “Why can’t we adopt him?”  Cami was especially persistent, even trying to convince her brothers that they needed another brother.  She also tried to sell them on a trip to China.  After continued prayer and discussion, we talked with Ben, Cami, and Ian (Alex really didn’t have much to say other than “underpants” which makes him laugh hysterically) and asked them to pray about adding Wen to our family.  By Monday, August 24th, our family was on board.  We were going to adopt Wen.  

We immediately went to work on starting a homestudy, gathering paperwork, and all the associated steps with adoption.  We quickly learned that China is not Korea in terms of adoption.  The paperwork burden is more intense, but we’re on our way.  

Wen (left) and Jacob (right)

At this point, our homestudy has been approved and we’ll be sending the I-800A form into the USCIS (US Citizenship and Immigration Service).  Our best guess is that we’ll be traveling in late spring of 2016.  We ask for your prayers and support as we go through this journey.  

We have not yet had the opportunity to meet Wen, but from talking to his host family they describe him as smart, caring and easy going.  He enjoyed his three host siblings and they stated he would make a great brother.  He has four siblings and two parents waiting for him.  We pray the wait is short.