Recent Foothills Family member Erik Anspach gave his testimony at the December 8th Advent service.

My wife, Christy and I moved to this area from Montana about six month ago. We were high school sweethearts. We got married, went off to college, graduated, and then the child spigot turned on and we had three boys in a 5 year time span. That was really good, but we turned that spigot off. We were content as a family of five.

We became aware of a local adoption and family support organization

Fast forward eight years. We became aware of a local adoption and family support organization called Intermountain, an organization that works to place abused and displaced children in permanent homes. We began financially supporting this organization, but soon felt we should do more.

We started asking ourselves what exactly that would look like. We contacted a person who worked at Intermountain and asked how we could get more involved. That began the whole process of taking adoption classes, getting registered and certified to qualify for adopting a child.

This caused us to consider what type of child we would want to adopt.

This caused us to consider what type of child we would want to adopt. Unfortunately, there are many options available. So I encourage all of you to consider adopting. I considered the fact that Anspach men, produce Anspach men who produce Ansapach men. And you have to go back three generations to get an Anspach girl, and she looked like a dude, and never got married. So maybe we should adopt a girl. That became the first and foremost thing on our list. We wanted a girl. We also decided we didn’t want an infant. We didn’t want to do bottles, diapers, late nights again.

We also gave a good amount of consideration towards the financial aspects of adopting a child. We were currently operating with an extreme budget to pay off our home quickly and expedite our goals of retirement and financial security. We didn’t think a girl would cost that much, since you don’t have to buy them real jewelry until they’re much older. The fake bling would do.

After completing the classes and receiving the proper certification, we were ready to adopt. The only issue was, Intermountain didn’t have a child that was available for us. So we waited.

They saved the baby’s life, but her life was in danger.

During that time, there was a young lady at our church who was making very bad life decisions. She had starting taking drugs, drinking heavily, and eventually got pregnant. Because of a three month premature labor, she was rushed the emergency room. The doctors at the hospital made the decision to deliver the child through a c-section. During the operation, the young lady died of a pulmonary embolism. The medical team made every effort to resuscitate her but were unsuccessful. They saved the baby’s life, but her life was in danger. She wasn’t breathing; she barely had a pulse, and she was having seizures as a result of being oxygen deprived for at least ten minutes.

They gave baby Ember a chemical cocktail to jumpstart her system and ended up life flighting her to Seattle to safe her life. She did survive, but her prognosis was not good. She had brain damage, and was diagnosed as most probably having cerebral palsy. This would mean advanced personal care in order for her to survive. To complicate matters, the birth father was in no position to provide care, and neither were the parents of the baby’s deceased mother. So the baby Ember was put up for adoption.

I’m a very blunt person and simply said, “No.”

Our pastor’s wife, who knew we were considering adoption, asked us if we thought Ember would be a good candidate for our adoption. I’m a very blunt person and simply said, “No.” That was an emphatic no, because baby Ember didn’t meet our criteria. We didn’t want an infant, and we didn’t want a child with huge medical needs and expenses that would totally mess up our retirement plan.

This set in motion a long argument with God. God was working in our hearts, but we were not prepared to say yes to His leading. My wife and I agreed that we would pray about it, but we didn’t. We knew what would happen if we prayed, and didn’t want that to happen. A few days later, I had to make a five hour trip to one of our satellite offices. I decided this would be a good time to hash this thing out with God. I thought I would take about fifteen minutes and make a final decision. Three hours later, I was crying and arguing with God about this decision to adopt baby Ember. I told God I could not handle this kind of adoption.

I’ve only heard God clearly speak to me a few times in my life. It wasn’t an audible voice, it was more like a text message to my soul. The message I received from God was, “I am bigger. I can handle this. Trust me.”

“I am bigger. Trust me.”

I continued to protest, but God just kept giving me the same message. “I am bigger. Trust me.” Finally I shouted defiantly, “FINE!” Not a humble, “Yes I will obey,” but a defiant, “Fine. I give up. I surrender.” At that very moment, my cell phone rang, and It was my wife telling me that she had come to the same conclusion to adopt baby Ember. It was a difficult decision to make for both my wife and me, but we experienced an incredible peace, knowing that we were in God’s will. We had peace, knowing we could trust God. Having that peace didn’t mean that God fixed everything or made everything easy because we had lots of struggles, but God in His grace decided to heal our baby Ember. Today she is a fully functional eight year old girl.