Last Updated on June 10, 2024
Get to know the heart of Alex and Stephen Kendrick just a bit more… and hear the incredible story of Stephen and Jill’s adoption of their beautiful Mia.
Hey Tracy here with MomLife Today and I’m so excited because I have Steven and Alex Kendrick here with me.
Tracey: We’ve been buddies sort of for a while cuz I met you all when you were at Family Life awhile back.
Alex: I think we crashed one of your videos a year or so ago with Priscilla!
Tracey: Yes! Well there’s a lot of things I want to talk to you about but I want to start with you Steven because around here at MomLife Today, November has always been a special month to us – because November is National Adoption Awareness Month.
And I know that you and Jill just adopted a beautiful baby girl. So tell us your adoption story in four minutes or less.
Steven: Okay we just adopted a baby girl from China this summer and we’re very excited about it. Her name is MIA and looking back, we have four biological children and God started working on our hearts. One day I was on an airplane, and He used a passage of scripture in John 10 to say “I want you to adopt.” So I dated it wrote it down into my Bible.
Two years later after we filled out all the paperwork and everything, we started getting referrals. And we turned down the first four referrals because there was just, there was no peace about it, it’s like something’s not right. And on the fifth one, this little girl was born in China with a heart condition and it said on her on her form that she was born on 2/142011 on Valentine’s Day in 2011.
The Lord gave us a total peace about it she was the one we’ve been praying about. We said yes, let’s move forward with that. And we were very excited about it. And then we found out my wife said, “When was it that God told us we needed to adopt?” We went back and looked at my Bible and it was 2/14, the day that she was born, was the day that God told me you need to go adopt.
Tracey: Okay, so can I break this down for one minute? Prayer is so important absolutely. So you had all these other opportunities, but God just didn’t give you a peace about it. That’s right, okay well tell us more well.
Steven: This is the big thing – we’ve heard stories about adoption that have not been positive. And so we knew it had to be from the Lord. So I told my wife, I said first, we need to have confirmation that God is in this.
So I tell people, you’ve got to get in the Word. You get unified, you get praying and you wait for the Lord to give you that peace and that direction. And so He did that with us.
And then pray about the specific one. It may not be the first referral that you get you know, if He’s telling you to adopt. And so He gave us a total peace about that whole circumstance. The name that He gave us to name her was the same name her Chinese mom had named her.
The day he prompted us to pray was the day that she was having her heart surgery in China. So we got her home and she’s just bloomed. I mean and He gave us a bunch of scriptures about adoption his heart for the orphan.
So I tell people go to Psalm 68:5, “God is a father to the fatherless and he places the lonely into families.”
Tracey: Well, I know that for family life hope for orphans has always been a part of our ministry and a part of what we do as moms. If you’re not familiar with Family Life or Hope for Orphans, I would ask that you just go check out Hope for Orphans.
Steven, I just can’t wait to meet Mia. Could give us a peek into what is happening in Jill’s mom’s heart right now? Just a little peek, tell us a story or something?
Steve: Well she is blooming. My wife is actually expecting now after we went through the whole adoption process we found it! So we’re having her sixth child in December.
But Jill is thrilled, you know, she is so grateful and God has confirmed that He’s in this and that has brought so much joy in the midst of all the transitions.
But we’re seeing answers to prayer we’re seeing right now. She’s blooming in our home the other kids love her and we’re seeing the radiance on her countenance. She was so fearful and panicked the first day that we got her – no smiling no eating anything.
And now she knows that she’s loved and when she cries out there’s a mom and a dad that pick her up and hold her.
Tracey: Well I always loved when friends of mine that have adopted they talk about when their child finally found their forever family. So god bless you that Mia has found you and you have found me and I’m sure we’ll hear more about Mia in the future. Thanks for joining us on mom life today and we’ll see you next week mom!