A Whisper That Turned Into a Calling

I was twelve years old when my parents came back from their first trip to China — a trip my father had been planning for years as he studied Mandarin in college and became fluent. I still remember sitting on the living room floor while my parents projected slide after slide onto the wall: the Yangzi River, Tiananmen Square, grasshoppers my father ate on sticks from street vendors. It all felt fascinating, new, and mesmerizing to me.

But then I started noticing something else in the background of many photos — children standing alone on the streets. They looked tired, quiet, and forgotten. I asked my father who they were, and he said, “Those are orphans.”

It was a word I had never heard before.

I asked what it meant, and he told me, “Children without mommies and daddies to care for them.”

I will never forget the feeling that rushed through me. It felt like a punch in my gut — the idea that children could live without the safety of a mother and father felt unbearable to me. I ran to my room in tears, sat on my bed, and for the first time in my life, I felt the Lord whisper to me, “One day you will adopt a little girl from China.”

That whisper felt like a punch in the gut too — but not in a devastating way. It felt like a promise. Something too big to fully understand at twelve years old. Sometimes, and more often than not, God’s promises don’t come with a plan… only a whisper.

That whisper followed me into adulthood. At twenty years old, I boarded a plane and flew halfway across the world to serve with a missions organization focused on at-risk children. Over the next seventeen years, I traveled to more than forty nations across Asia, Africa, and Eastern Europe.

During those years, I saw children living in heartbreaking situations. I witnessed the deep, complicated realities behind poverty, disability, displacement, and family separation. I learned that the needs of vulnerable children don’t exist in isolation — they are often tied to systems, policies, and history far bigger than any one family.

And through it all, I felt God gently asking me again and again: “Will you help me?”

Many families feel this question in different ways. For some, it comes suddenly. For others, it grows slowly — through prayer, stories, friendships, or a quiet stirring they can’t explain. You don’t have to know everything to begin listening for it.

Over the years, my teams and I served in many areas of child advocacy: family preservation, reunification, foster care, children’s homes, special needs advocacy, and community development. Piece by piece, child by child, country by country, I began to understand that caring for vulnerable children is not simple — and it isn’t meant to be done alone.

I held babies in overcrowded hospital wards. I sat with children who had lost everything familiar to them. I played music with children who had been overlooked for most of their lives. And often, I wondered how I had ended up there.

But I always came back to that whisper from when I was twelve.

And again, He would ask, “Will you help me?”

When my husband, Uli, and I began talking about marriage and our future, I panicked — not because I didn’t want to marry him, but because I knew I had to tell him about the little girl God had whispered to me about years earlier.

One night, I dragged him into the basement where we worked and said very seriously, “What do you think about adoption?”

He looked confused. “Yeah… I’m for it. Why?”

“What do you think about us adopting?” I asked.

He laughed and said, “Shouldn’t we get married first?”

I wasn’t laughing. “Yes — of course. But after that.”

He smiled and said, “Liz… what’s this really about?”

So I told him the story — all of it. And he simply said, “If God spoke to you, He’ll speak to me too.”

It wasn’t the answer I expected — but it was the right one.

And eventually, God did speak to him. Not only confirming adoption, but giving him a vision for our family that was even bigger than mine.

Years later, after we were married, we felt it was time to grow our family. When we first explored adoption through China, we learned we were too young to apply. Because we were living overseas at the time, our options were limited, and we ultimately pursued an expat adoption through a U.S.-based agency, which limited our country program availability even more.

During that season, I asked God to help us see we were on the right path that would lead to our child. I had a vivid dream of a child with dark skin and soft, curly hair. It was the first time I had ever pictured a child who wasn’t my “China promise,” — but the feeling was the same: this is your child.

We began the process to adopt from Madagascar. We completed our home study, paperwork, and were told we were next to be matched. Our hearts were ready.

And then the call came — the one no family ever wants to receive. The program had shut down due to government policy changes.

We were devastated.

Our agency gently asked if we wanted to consider another country. Because of our age and living situation, a new door had opened: China.

It felt like grief and joy colliding in the same heartbeat.

Within months, an email arrived late one night with a photo. And six months later, we held our daughter in our arms in China. The whisper had become flesh and bone and laughter and tears.

We knew she wouldn’t be our only adoption story. After seasons of yeses and nos, doors opening and closing, we were eventually called to adopt from India, a country we had worked in and out of for years.

Eventually, we were matched with our youngest daughter. Like many families, we had only seen a few photographs of our daughter before we met her. But when she walked into the room, she looked nothing like we thought, but something in my heart recognized her immediately — as though God had been whispering her story to me long before I understood it. There, placed in our arms, was a little girl with rich dark skin and the most beautiful, wild curls.

And I laughed — because God had been preparing my heart with that whisper for years before I even understood.

Today, our home looks different than I ever imagined as a twelve-year-old girl on a living room floor.

Our shelves are filled with books and artwork from our daughters’ cultures. Mandarin and Hindi are woven into our everyday conversations. Chinese New Year and Indian festivals are celebrated alongside Christmas and Easter. Meals from their cultures aren’t saved for special days — they live on our table on ordinary Tuesdays and quiet Saturdays.

Their cultures have given us language, friendships, churches, and communities that now feel like family.

Adoption hasn’t just grown our family — it has shaped who we are.

Even now, as I hold my children close, my heart still aches for children around the world who are waiting to be seen, known, and loved. That same ache I felt at twelve years old still lives inside me — but now, it’s paired with hope.

Maybe your story doesn’t begin with a whisper at twelve years old.

Maybe it begins today, quietly, as you read this.

You don’t need to know all the answers. You don’t have to be fearless. You don’t have to feel “ready.” You just have to be willing to listen.

Because if there is one thing I know for certain, it’s that God has a plan for every child — and sometimes, that plan begins with a simple question:

“Will you help me?”

And a faithful, gentle, ordinary “yes.”