Pritchards thankful for adoption
By Patti Smith | .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
From the time she was a little girl, Lindsey Pritchard knew she wanted to adopt children.
“It bothered me that so many kids didn’t have moms and dads,” she said. “I knew I didn’t want to have kids. I wanted to take some that were already here.”
Lindsey believes that God put that desire in her heart, but she did not know why until she was diagnosed with stage 2 uterine cancer at age 23. She had a
hysterectomy three days later. At the time, she was single and a student at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, where she met Jason Pritchard, who
shared her heart for adoption.
In their wildest imaginations, the Pritchards never dreamed that would mean adopting five children at once. But that is what happened on Aug. 24, when they
became Mom and Dad to Derek, 8, Nathaniel, 5, Alex, 4, Hallie, 4, and Chloe, 23 months.
“God is funny. He really does have a sense of humor,” Lindsey said. “‘He who sits in the heavens laughs’ (Psalm 2:4) has become our theme verse at home.”
Jason and Lindsey married in 2005. About three years later, they started planning for their first adoption.
“We wanted to start with a baby because we didn’t know what we were doing,” Lindsey said.
So the couple bought some baby furniture. They also bought a twin bed because they knew they wanted to adopt again in the future.
They went to the Adoption Seminar at Southeast Christian Church in May 2008 and started foster-to-adopt classes in July.
By December, they were approved as foster parents. Around February 2009, they received a call asking if they were willing and able to foster two brothers:
Nathaniel, who was 2 at time, and Alex, who was 1.
“When we went to pick them up, Nathaniel asked Jason, ‘Are you my new Daddy?’” Lindsey said.
From time to time, the couple would take the boys to visit their birth mother, who eventually signed over her parental rights, which made them eligible for
adoption.
During one of the visits with a social worker, the Pritchards learned about three siblings—Derek, Hallie and Chloe—who also needed foster care.
Looking around at their 900-square-foot rental home, with three small bedrooms, one bathroom and a kitchen table for four, they knew it would be tight. The social worker advised the Pritchards against taking in three more children, especially since they had only fostered Alex and Nathaniel for a little more than a year.
“I told her that God was telling me these are our kids. I was madly in love with them before I met them, and we prayed for them,” Lindsey said.
It saddened them that there was a 6-year-old boy out there who was old enough to understand what was happening in his family’s life and know that he was
facing yet another relocation.
Today, Derek is happy to be the big brother to not only his baby sisters, Hallie and Chloe, but to Nathaniel and Alex as well. And the family now lives in a larger
home with more room for the children.
Adopting them has given Lindsey and Jason new insight into what it means to be adopted into God’s family.
“We are all adopted as children of God,” Lindsey said. “Our kids thought that was amazing.”
After the judge finalized the paperwork and announced that the Pritchards were officially the parents of five children, the celebration started.
While still in the courtroom, each member of the Pritchard family, including Lindsey and Jason, took off their outer shirts to reveal T-shirts they had hidden
underneath.
Printed across the front of the shirt was one word: “Adopted.”