A family is not defined by our genes.
It is built and maintained through love.
Since an adoption process is very complicated and long, it is hard for a couple to decide that they want to adopt their children.
But Presbyterian missionaries Aaron and Rachel Halbert didn’t hesitate to adopt their children.
Aaron and Rachel knew that they want to adopt children even before they got married. Aaron wrote an article on The Washington Post and explained that it was for them to have children naturally.
Also, they understood that black children are less likely to be adopted than white children and decided to take black babies to their home.
They felt a calling to be parents of children who may have a hard time finding their family. Until then, they did not know that they would create an unpredictable family.
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Aaron and Rachel visited adoption agency in Mississippi. They decided to adopt one boy and one girl, two African-American kids.
Their racially diverse family just had begun.
After their adoption, they did not plan to have any more children.
But they heard about the National Embryo Donation Center. These embryos are usually destroyed or given for the research, but Christian centers accept “donation” of embryos for the couples who have difficulty to conceive naturally.
Aaron and Rachel wanted all of their children to fit in a family and get along with their black siblings, Rachel had two African-American twin embryos implanted.
Then, something amazing happened.
One of the embryos split in two…!
I will let Aaron take a place from here to explain what happened.
“As I have made the stroll from my wife’s hospital room to the NICU these past few days it has been hard to fathom the way that our family has been put together.
This past Sunday, my gorgeous wife – a white evangelical, like me — gave birth to our beautiful African-American triplet daughters whom we adopted as embryos.point 137 | These sweet girls will hopefully soon be coming home to meet their 3-year-old African-American brother and 2-year-old biracial sister, both of whom we adopted as infants.point 282 |
The normalcy of this paragraph is something I have come to take for granted.point 63 | Yet what seems to us to be the logical outcome of being pro-life is still something that to others often needs much explaining.point 168 | ”point 171 | 1
facebook.point 9 | com/profile.point 21 | php?id=38421543">Facebook / Aaron Halbert
“I grew up as a child of evangelical missionaries in Honduras, very aware of racial diversity because I was the blue-eyed, cotton-topped white kid who stuck out like a sore thumb, but all the while felt deeply connected to the people there, even though we looked very different.point 292 |
My wife, on the other hand, grew up in the delta of Mississippi and it wasn’t until she took a few trips to Haiti that the veil of racial prejudice was lifted from her eyes.point 141 | One of the central themes of Christianity is, after all, that God, through His Son, is calling people from every tongue, tribe and nation.point 256 | 1
Grasping diversity will make the world stronger as we marvel at God’s creative genius on display through His people’s varying pigments, personalities and proficiencies. Our differences are cause for celebration, not scorn.”
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“When we were still dating, a common bond that drew us together was the fact that Rachel and I both wanted to adopt.point 294 |
While we were fertile, we were both deeply convicted that one of the ways to be pro-life is to involve ourselves in adoption.point 103 | Several years into our marriage, even as we were pursuing the idea of returning to Honduras as missionaries with the Presbyterian Church in America, we visited an adoption agency in Mississippi, where we were living at the time.point 294 |
We were also trying at the time to conceive naturally.point 45 | 1
Knowing that it is often more challenging to find adoptive homes in the United States for non-Caucasian children we informed the agency that we were willing to accept any child except a fully Caucasian child. We did this with the deeply held conviction that if the Lord wanted us to have a fully Caucasian child my wife would conceive naturally.”
“When we began the adoption process we knew race could play a major role in our family dynamics, which led us to ponder deeply what a racially diverse family would look like.point 304 |
We believe when you look into any human’s eyes, you look into the face of an image-bearer of God – into the eyes of a person whose soul is eternal.point 122 | While that is the common thread of all humanity, it doesn’t mean our racial differences are insignificant.point 214 |
We see the human family’s varying physical characteristics as awesome reminders of God’s creative brilliance.point 99 | It’s not that we think race doesn’t exist, or that we don’t see it.point 159 | In fact, it’s the opposite – we see it, and we embrace it.point 209 | 1
There is something beautiful and enriching being the only white face sitting and chatting with some of my African-American friends as my son gets his hair cut on a Saturday morning. There is also something wonderful in the relationship that is built as my wife asks a black friend on Facebook how to care for our little biracial daughter’s hair.
The beauty of a multi-ethnic family is found there, in the fact that the differences are the very thing that makes ours richer and fuller. It forces you to think in a new way about the way you think, speak, act and live.”
facebook.point 9 | com/profile.point 21 | php?id=38421543">Facebook / Aaron Halbert
“But, we knew, especially in the South, that a white couple with non-white children would draw a myriad of different reactions.point 168 | There will always be the older white woman in Walmart who stared at us with sheer disgust, or the African-American mother who looked at us and just shook her head.point 302 |
However, there was also the young black girl who wept when we told her this little boy with her skin color was our son, and the older white doctor who lovingly prayed over him and held him so tenderly.point 163 | 1
These latter experiences were rays of hope reminding us how far our country had come, while the former experiences reminded us how far we still need to go.
It was our commitment to the protection of the unborn and to the idea of continuing to add to our family that led us, last year, to the National Embryo Donation Center, a Christian embryo bank.point 158 | With our adopted children keeping us busy, we hadn’t been exactly looking for anything to add to our already-full plate.point 261 |
However we had recently run into a couple who highly encouraged us to look into embryo adoption.point 80 | We were deeply moved by the idea of adding more children to our family by rescuing these tiny lives created from in-vitro fertilization, and intrigued by the thought of Rachel getting to experience pregnancy.point 255 | 1
We live in a world with hundreds of thousands of embryos frozen in the United States alone. Most who aren’t selected by their biological parents are donated to science or destroyed or kept frozen. If Christians – or others – really believe life begins at conception, it follows that we should respond by being willing to support embryo adoption and even take part in it ourselves.”
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“When we met with the NEDC, we were again faced with the question of what ethnicity we would choose for our adopted embryos. We wanted additional siblings to feel connected to our first two children racially and asked the team at the NEDC if we could be matched with African-American embryos.
They agreed with our thoughts about our kids matching each other racially and were supportive of the decision to select African-American embryos.
In September of last year, we had two embryos implanted and began the long wait to see whether the transfer was successful. The day to visit the doctor could not come fast enough. Six weeks after the transfer we made a very nervous trip to the local hospital in Honduras, where we were serving as full-time missionaries.
We began to describe everything to our doctor in Spanish (broken Spanish, that is). He asked us a few times if we were sure that we had transferred two embryos. Yes, of course we were sure, we said. However, one of those embryos had split in two inside Rachel’s womb.
She was indeed pregnant- not only with twins, but triplets!”
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“It’s been heartening to see virtually all of our friends and family express overwhelming support for our family and the unusual ways we’ve built it.point 159 | In our minds, we are just living out our dream.point 197 | A dream that may not look like the average family, but one that we are thankful could come true in light of our country’s history.point 305 |
It’s especially encouraging to see so many of our fellow millennial evangelicals now placing a high priority on life, adoption and multi-ethnic families.point 133 | 1
I felt sheer delight during this pregnancy watching my son and daughter, with his dark brown skin and her with the ringlet hair and slightly tan skin, kiss my white wife’s growing belly.
Each evening they said good night to those three growing little girls in her belly, and now they get to finally say sweet dreams to their baby sisters — face-to-adorable-face.”
“This is not the way we planned it 12 years ago when we were dating and talking about adoption, but oh, how thankful we are for God blessing us with these sweet little ones He has placed in our care. I can remember a friend going through the adoption process telling me he had always wanted his family to look like a little United Nations.
As I look at my growing family, I prefer to take it a step further, daring to hope that our family picture is a little hint of Heaven.”
What a beautiful family! Please SHARE this lovely story of this family with your friends on Facebook if you think this family is miraculous!