On April 20, 2013, Mackenzie Ellis wrote a blog post about the desire she and her husband, Pastor Cliff Ellis, had to adopt two foster children. At that point, these children had been part of the Ellis family for over a year and the desire of the Ellis’ heart was to be able to adopt them by the end of 2013. When 2013 ended, however, the adoption still hung in the balance.
When the bombs drop
Cliff and Mackenzie Ellis had plans. When those plans were thwarted over and over, they discovered that God’s plan was bigger, better, and right on track.
Five years ago, the couple sat in their doctor’s office and received the devastating news that they were infertile. Disappointed and intensely grieved, they turned their focus to the possibility of adoption—provided the adoption process met certain criteria. First of all, foster care was not an option. Mackenzie went on record staunchly stating that they would “never foster to adopt.”
They wanted a newborn. They wanted to adopt directly. They wanted to work specifically with the birth mother. After two and a half years, however, they still had no children. Cliff began to feel that God was, in fact, calling them to foster care. Knowing his wife’s strong feelings against the very idea, he prepared himself for some long conversations.
“I was anticipating having to encourage Mackenzie to consider that possibility. I was expecting to have to wait. I was expecting a lot of fear and pushing back and saying ‘no way, not a chance.’”
Coming home from work one day, Cliff dropped the bomb. He told Mackenzie that he felt they should pursue a foster care license.
“Yeah, I’ve been feeling that way too.” Mackenzie’s response wasn’t exactly what he was prepared for.
“God changed our hearts.”
“I was very surprised,” he said. “That wasn’t what I was expecting to hear her say, so it took me by surprise for sure. That was very confirming for me that this was something God was calling us to move forward in.”
The separate, unexpected, but united change in their own desires served as confirmation for both of them as they considered stepping into the scary and uncertain world of foster care.
“God changed our hearts,” Mackenzie summed up. “We’ve been pursuing adoption for about five years. Through a series of failed adoptions, we felt clearly called to foster care.”
That wasn’t the only desire that changed.
“We initially said we would only pursue an infant through a private birth parent adoption,” said Mackenzie. “So about five years ago we only wanted an infant, through a birth mother, directly. Then it went to, ‘Well, we’re open to a little bit older, maybe 6 months.’ Then when we started pursing foster care [we said], ‘Well, we’re open to a sibling group.’”
They applied for their foster license, were quickly approved, and within a month, two children were placed in their home. Logan’s age was six months. His sister, Zoe, was 3 years old, older than Cliff and Mackenzie were necessarily comfortable with. However, they were willing to push past their comfort zone. In fact, they were absolutely certain they wanted to adopt Logan and Zoe as their own.
That was March of 2012 and while the Ellises were ready, the law was not.
In the face of uncertainty
The goal of the state in the foster care system is, ultimately, to reunite children with their birth parents. To that aim, the state does what it can and foster parents like the Ellises are not guaranteed the right to adopt. So throughout every day of the nearly two years that followed, the possibility of Cliff and Mackenzie losing their children was very real. They learned that in the face of such insurmountable uncertainty, you do two things: you cry and you talk to God.
“In a lot of ways it’s taught us how to pray,” said Mackenzie. That included learning how to be specific and how to pray with others.
And while foster care starkly presents the very real and present threat of loss, Cliff pointed out that whether you birth your children naturally or adopt them through foster care, the possibility of losing a child is a practical reality for every parent.
“No parent is ever guaranteed any amount of time with their kids, biological or otherwise,” he said. “Our call is to be faithful with our kids, no matter how long that may be.”
The Ellises were challenged to teach and love their children like they wouldn’t be there the next day. That got Mackenzie thinking in terms of what she would want to teach her children about Jesus if tomorrow never came.
“That changes it,” she said.
“It’s taught us how to pray.”
The Ellises don’t face this reality as some distant philosophy—they know from experience that, sometimes, tomorrow does in fact not come. Malachi was placed with the Ellis family for five days.
“In a short amount of time we fell in love with him,” said Mackenzie. “We really desired to be his parents.”
It was a hard blow, to put it lightly, when Malachi was taken away. But for those five short days, Cliff and Mackenzie were Mom and Dad and the impact of their time with Malachi was no less potent for its brevity. They recognized that one short week could very well represent the only time in Malachi’s life when he will have someone praying with him and reading the Bible with him. Given the choice, Mackenzie said she would never rewind the tape and change her mind.
Through all of the ups and downs, the Ellises have developed a reliance on God and a deeper trust in who he is. And while they don’t know what’s going on in Malachi’s life and heart today, God does.
“We are still praying for him,” said Cliff. “He’s a part of our story and he’s a part of our story forever.”
High stakes; high risks
Suddenly parenting a toddler and a baby meant no ramping up to it for the new parents. They were instantly potty training and transitioning their daughter into a big girl bed. And Logan had some catching up to do. At six months, he wasn’t sitting up or rolling over.
“There was no easy start up,” they said. “It was amazing to see how in that, God equipped us.”
“No parent is ever guaranteed any amount of time with their kids.”
Part of that equipping came in the form of friends and family who surrounded the new family. Mackenzie had no idea what to do when Zoe disobeyed, so she called a friend and asked about discipline. She wasn’t looking for theories in disciplinary thought; Mackenzie wanted to know exactly what words her friend said to her own child. Conversations like those gave her the inside scoop on how to strive to show Zoe who Jesus is in such situations.
As the Ellises grew together as a family, loving Zoe and Logan like their own, knowing they could still be removed from their care at any point, the question on many minds was: how do you guard your heart?
Mackenzie’s answer is blunt: “God’s been teaching us that you don’t.”
God doesn’t guard his heart with his people, she pointed out. There will be pain and hurt and disappointment, but she said God is with them in that, meets them there, and is their comfort in that. The Ellises have seen it, they’ve walked it, and they believe it to be true.
Cliff explained that, basically, if they guard their hearts, they can’t love their children well. It was a learning curve—the Ellises had to learn to be vulnerable with the kids, and be willing to be hurt and disappointed to be able to love them well. The reality was, no matter how they looked at it, they were not in ultimate control.
“However they come to us, we steward our children,” said Mackenzie. “I can’t imagine loving anyone else as much as I love Zoe and Logan. I would always have chosen Zoe and Logan. God in his goodness knows that.”
While foster care wasn’t the Ellis’ plan, they have no doubt it was clearly God’s. Not his plan B, or second best, but rather exactly what he intended for them and for their kids. And for that, Cliff said, they are very thankful.
In uncertainty
Looking back, Cliff admitted their thinking was arrogant. They assumed they would have kids when they were good and ready. He had to step back and remember, “Oh that’s right, God’s in control of this,” even in the midst of uncertainty.
“It’s been encouraging to see how in that uncertainty God has given us a very clear call,” said Mackenzie.
The Ellises, who will have been married for 10 years as of this summer, get to have many conversations about adoption with other people considering taking a similar course of action. And they fully understand the fears and frustrations that come with it.
Mackenzie recognized that whatever a person’s desire is, when it doesn’t go the way they hope, it’s a hard thing, whether it’s concerning their spouse or where they’re going to live or another strong desire. When the Ellises encourage people in uncertain situations to cry out to God, they’re not giving trite answers to life’s brutal moments. Five years ago, hearing their infertility diagnosis, the devastated Mackenzie went and sat by herself and prayed. And God reminded her who he is.
“He’s big, way bigger than infertility and he loves me,” she said through tears. “He’s my dad and he’s a good dad. Even in pain, he’s there. In heartache, he’s there and he doesn’t leave me. So I would honestly encourage [people considering adoption] to talk to him and ask him for clarity and calling and direction and then step out in faith knowing he will equip you.”
“I’d encourage them to be honest about their fears,” added Cliff. “Some people are afraid to be honest about how fearful they are.”
“God is big, way bigger than infertility. And he loves me.”
Cliff and Mackenzie don’t have it figured out, but they do know God has worked in them and equipped them. And now, Cliff considers it a privilege to talk with couples in similar situations, to assure them that it’s normal and okay to have fears. Ultimately, they can be honest about that with God, said Cliff. Those fears present an opportunity to grow closer to God.
Ministry in dark places
Part of foster care means birth parent visitations. Cliff was sharply aware that this meant letting his son and daughter go, without him, to spend time with a person who had already been deemed unsafe as a parent. The first time he watched them go, he stood in the doorway and cried.
“You learn to trust,” he said, “and you learn to pray.”
And you learn to seize the opportunity to teach life lessons. Mackenzie used these frightening moments to teach Zoe that while Mommy couldn’t go with her, Jesus could. And when things are hard, she assured her uncertain daughter that she could always talk to Jesus.
Foster care has also presented opportunities for ministry to some overloaded social workers trying to navigate a broken system. Through what can be a slow and frustrating process, the Ellises strive to be a light. This means being patient and gracious, even when they don’t want to be, and endeavoring to encourage, love, and appreciate the heavily taxed social workers who come into the Ellis home on a regular basis.
As Cliff pointed out, children enter foster care through abuse and neglect. The people in the system see difficult things. The children see difficult things. The Ellises offer the best that they have: Jesus.
As for Zoe and Logan, the Ellises focus on loving them and loving them well. That’s been their philosophy from day one, and lavishing love on the kids has already had an observable impact. Both children were behind in their own way when they first entered the Ellis house, but now they’re caught up and gaining. When people meet them, Cliff said, they have no idea that they had a late start.
He remains realistic, though. Some kids have deeper wounds and, while Zoe and Logan don’t seem to have them, it’s possible things will manifest as time goes by. A lot depends on the kids, he pointed out. And he hears many stories about children who come out of foster care with horrific stories and needs, and God redeems and heals in ways that are “literally miraculous.”
The prize
The wild ride of adoption hit a sweet spot just over a month ago. After nearly two years of uncertainty, the Ellis’ adoption of Logan and Zoe was finalized.
It “brought back similar feelings to our wedding day for me,” said Cliff. They dressed up, went to the courthouse, surrounded by their family, and walked through the many formalities and promises entailed in making a legal commitment to their kids forever. Each commitment was acknowledged and affirmed by witnesses.
“You go to a courtroom and you stand there with your attorney and the kids were with us,” Mackenzie said. Then she described a moment she’ll never forget: “You have to state their new names—you’re in court and they now have a new name. And the judge said ‘What is Zoe’s legal name?’ And I started saying ‘Zoe Katherine—’ and she screamed ‘Zoe Katherine Ellis!’
“She’s proud of that, she loves that. She told her preschool class and wants Zoe Katherine Ellis written on every paper now. Her joy in that moment was a beautiful picture, too. Logan just thought it was fun to eat cake and run around, but Zoe gets it. She understands it.”
Both children were issued new birth certificates and social security numbers. In the eyes of the law, the Ellises have always been, are, and will ever be their parents.
The feeling that they’d finally made it mingled into great joy as they completed the five-year journey to have children.
“We get to tell that story to our kids forever,” said Cliff, a story he called rich with gospel implications. “It’s an exciting thing.”
Now Mackenzie prays for what she calls twice adoption—adoption into the Ellis family being the first, and adoption as a Christian being the second.
“That was a sweet, sweet day as somebody said, putting into law what we’ve known all along,” said Mackenzie. “What we’ve known all along of loving them and being a family has now been affirmed, sealed. It did have a lot harkening back to our wedding day. It was a wonderful day.”
Onward
At this point, Cliff and Mackenzie feel that God might just be calling them to be foster parents for good. They’re not entirely sure how many children they’ll adopt as their own, but they are still pursuing more children. Wanting to maintain the birth order already established, they were hoping for a child under the age of two. Since babies are easy to place, they never expected an infant. To their surprise, the next child to enter their home was Thomas, a whole two weeks old at the time of this interview. At this point in his tiny life, the state is in the very beginning stages of determining long term plans for him, but the Ellises focus on being his parents and adjusting to the whole new world of life with an infant.
“It is very overwhelming,” said Mackenzie. “There are times of peace and rest. Most of the time we’re just focused on being parents. We’re not really focused on being foster parents.”
