Landry Family

We are an Army family who knew nothing about the world of adoption before God opened our eyes in 2013. Our adoption journey physically began then, the year we moved to Okinawa, Japan, but God had been preparing the way much before. We had two biological girls, ages 1 and 2 at the time. We knew we wanted more kids, and God had put adoption on our hearts, but it felt unreachable, too expensive, not for the “average” family, and we had no idea where to start. After being planted in a new church and meeting families who had adopted, we began to hear God saying, “delayed obedience is disobedience.” Because of a connection through our church, we originally planned to adopt from the Philippines, and then quickly realized I was too young for that program. Our social worker informed us about another program that needed expat families in the Marshall Islands, so we moved forward with that. After a 2 year wait, in 2015, we traveled to bring home our daughter at 3 months old. We were required to live overseas for at least 3 more years to wait out her citizenship requirements, so we moved to Germany shortly after bringing her home. In that time, we found out about a 4-year-old boy in the Marshall Islands who needed a family quickly. We had no money, not enough time between adoptions, did not have a house established in Germany yet, and were in no way prepared for another kid so quickly. But God new better, thankfully. In January of 2016 we received this 4-year-old boy’s file, got an agreement from the agency that they would cover the costs of his adoption due to his circumstances and in April of that same year, just after his 5th birthday, we were traveling to bring him home. God moved every mountain during that 4-month whirlwind, and it was certainly nothing short of a miracle. He came home thriving and our family of 6 was as complete as we could imagine at the time. In 2019, we moved from Germany to Hawaii and began settling into life there when COVID hit. Shortly after, I reached out to an orphanage we were connected with in the Philippines to inquire how we could help them during the COVID pandemic. I was informed about the older kids aging out, despite the world being shut down. Their birthdays kept coming, yet no one could travel, paperwork was stalled, and their files were closing. God prompted us to pursue an older child from the Philippines and with much prayer and hesitation, we started the paperwork to request the file of a 15-year-old girl. Despite many obstacles, including her coming in as our oldest child, financial constraints, our inexperience with this sort of case, and the very short time limit before she aged out at age 16, God made it all happen…more miracles. One year from the initial paperwork, we were traveling to the Philippines to bring her home. During that trip, we met several waiting sibling groups with older children that we began advocating for. Many found families willing to take a chance on them, some did not. One particular sibling group I had been advocating for kept sitting on my heart. The oldest would be aging out within the year, so we started brainstorming with friends about how we could keep them together. One night, as I was working, I heard God in my heart say, “why not you?” How could it be though, it would never be allowed. We would have opposite genders “twinning”, we had a tight time frame before the oldest aged out, we were moving from Hawaii to Texas that very month, we had absolutely no money for it, and we had not yet completed the required 2 year waiting period from the last adoption. But God said try, so we did. A house big enough fell into place in TX, wait limits were waved, the approval from immigration and the Philippines came timely and people like Oath stepped up to help us fund this. We were granted money from non-profits like Oath Fund for our entire adoption process. There is absolutely no way we could have done it otherwise. Again, one year from the initial paperwork, we traveled to bring home this sibling group of 4 teenagers. God continues to sustain our family of 11 with all the twists and turns, and we are so grateful for the miracles he has allowed. Organizations like Oath make these stories become realities, we are so grateful for the work God is doing through them.