Orphan Care Alliance equips Christians and connects them to opportunities to care for the fatherless. Through our pre-adoption classes and seminars, financial support through grants and loans, and post-adoption conferences and connect groups, we’ve come to know and love many adoptive families. Being that November is National Adoption Month, we wanted to introduce you to these beautiful families. Not only do they share their hearts, insights and redemption stories, but they offer prospective adoptive families wise counsel and words of encouragement.
Burris Family
When I (Katrina) was in high school, I began feeling the nudge in my heart that I would one day adopt. I have always been very curious and concerned about the orphan crisis around the world. Once Chris and I were married, we struggled with a mild form of infertility and began to think adoption might be the way we would grow our family. I think this time helped to soften and open our hearts even more to the concept of adoption–not as a backup plan to growing a family, but as an important part of God’s plan and purpose for family since the time of Creation.
After a miscarriage, we were blessed with our first child. Following that, we had twins. We had one additional miscarriage after the birth of our twins, and at that point, we began to seek the Lord’s leading in earnest if we should adopt. We are also involved in a church with a strong focus on adoption, and I think this helped to further cement in our hearts our call to adopt. We knew the Lord was calling us, and barriers that had existed in the past were no longer there. We saw the Lord throwing the doors wide open for us to bring our daughter home through international adoption. We stepped out in faith and submitted our first application in July 2013 and brought our daughter home in February 2015. We are nine months home from China with our little girl, Hannah Ruth Zhen.
The adoption journey grew (and continues to grow) our faith in a myriad of ways. We were stretched to trust God with the finances for our international adoption. We did not begin our adoption with the money to cover the necessary costs and fees, but we knew the Lord had called us, so we trusted Him to provide, which He did beyond our expectations. OCA provided our family with a significant matching grant that enabled Hannah’s homecoming to occur. We are forever grateful for their tremendous generosity to help our family make a small dent in the orphan crisis.

Adopting has taught us more about the gospel than anything we’ve ever experienced. We understand the hefty cost, the painful sacrifice, the unmerited grace, and the abundant love of Christ now more than we ever have before.