Choosing to SEE: Emily's Letter

Our daughter Emily has always been a very compassionate person.

“Before you make your final decision about adoption
please remember that there are children being born as
you read this letter that have no hope for the future. All
they will know is a crib or one small room with work
that comes along with it. Not everyone in this world
can help these children but not to brag, we are financially
equipped & I know deep down in your heart you
would love a baby but you say you’re scared of the challenge.
Look you have 4 people under the same roof as
you that would be a help to you. I know we’re gone
for 7 hrs. in the day but we are home for 6 hrs. Before
we have to go to bed. Please pray about adopting.”
Note written by Emily Chapman, age eleven, 1997


For his part, Steven didn’t need much convincing. He loved the idea of us adopting. He thought it was a beautiful theological picture of how God adopts us as His children. He also thought that since we had been so blessed, it was a way to share our blessings. And since
we were in the public eye, it might also inspire other families to open their homes to adopt orphans.

Meanwhile, Miss Persistent had bought a book on international adoption with her birthday money, and while I drove our minivan to soccer practice and errands, Emily would sit in the back and read out loud to me.

“Mom!” she’d say. “Did you know it only costs this or that to adopt a child from here or there?” She was relentless.

So we prayed regularly—but guaranteed, not as regularly as Emily Chapman—for God’s leading about the adoption decision.

I was beginning to believe that God was nudging us down the road toward adoption, building my faith as He did so.

But I was also full of fear. “What if I can’t do this?” I wondered.

Book details and sample chapters
UK paperback edition just published!
Price: £7.99
ISBN: 9780800719920
Available via all good bookshops, or on-line.

Mary Beth's blog

Information on 'Show Hope', the charity established by the Chapmans.