Hello! We are the Eckert family (Jeff and Rebecca, Samuel (age 8) and Titus (age 4)) from Michigan.  We live in rural Michigan and love spending time outdoors. My husband Jeff is an arborist and beekeeper, and I am a family nurse practitioner in a rural healthcare clinic. We are currently a family of four, soon to be a family of six through the help of I Support Adoptions.

We have always dreamed of growing our family through adoption. I (Becky) had the opportunity to work with Big Brothers/Big Sisters in college as well as travel to Kenya and Ukraine and spend time working in orphan care. I was so blessed, when I met Jeff, to know he shared my desire to bring children into our family who needed a home. We started to pursue foster care with the intent of fostering to adopt a child locally, but it just seemed like the doors were not opening and we kept getting “stuck.” We got quite frustrated for a time thinking that although we had a desire to adopt, that it just didn’t seem to be going anywhere despite our efforts!

While God had laid this desires on our hearts, He had much different plans for us then we imagined! We were very surprised to find Him suddenly opening the door for us to bring home two teen daughters, sisters, from Ethiopia! When we were initially approached with their need for a family we agreed to pray for them earnestly but did not feel that we would step forward to adopt children much older then our sons. However, over the coming weeks the Lord made it clear that it was His perfect plan for our family. We were matched officially with BK and MK in October of 2015 and are near the close of our process, waiting for the final documents to come forward so we may travel and go to court.

Adoption would not have been financially possible for our family if not for the help of I Support Adoptions.

God has performed so many miracles during the process of pursuing our daughters BK and MK. I would like to share one instance of this that involves this organization!

When we started the process of breaking down the cost of bringing the girls home, it was overwhelming! I thought to myself, “How on earth will this happen?!” After tallying everything up, we prayed over the cost and asked the Lord to provide, if we were to move forward. We also prayed that we would be able to adopt the girls free of debt, which seemed like an outlandish request at the time.

A few hours later after we prayed we got a call from our adoption agency that a family who had been interested in the girls (but could not adopt them) had been saving up for whoever would pursue bringing them home. This family lovingly donated what they had saved, which was the exact amount needed to move forward in our process. This same family shared with us about I Support Adoptions. This organization’s generosity was God’s final provision in allowing us to bring our daughters home debt free.

I hope that our testimony encourages you in your journey of adoption. Our family’s next chapter is just beginning, and I could not be more honored to be on this path with my husband and kids. Thank you, I Support Adoptions!