The Story of the Detweiler Family

It is unusual to see such a large family in today’s American culture. You may be asking, “Did you plan on having such a large family when you got married?” The answer would be “NO!” In fact after having our oldest biological daughter, Rachel, Sue wasn’t sure she wanted to have any more children.

She felt overwhelmed by raising a toddler.  In fact, Rachel had a habit of biting other children. When she was one years old she was kicked out of “Mother’s Day Out” for biting another baby and drawing blood. In Sue’s distress, she prayed with a pastor leading a retreat. He kindly said, “Open your heart, God wants to give you more children.”

So, Wayne and Sue began the endeavor of following God for His will for their family.  They do not believe it is God’s call for every family to be so large. The main thing is to open your heart to God and to allow Him to lead you in planning your family. Wayne and Sue, had another girl every two years. After Rachel, came Angela, then Hannah, and later Sarah. At that point they felt like their family was complete, until God surprised them.

On three different occasions, Wayne heard about God’s heart for adoption in group settings. Each speaker communicated with passion how the early church was known for adoption. During these evil days, the Roman society was known to throw unwanted babies into the trash heap or throw them into the river. Members of the early church would watch and wait for babies to be thrown away, then they would nurse them to health, and adopt them into families.  Wayne was quietly moved by these stories, but did not share what he began to feel as a prompting until the third time he heard this call of adoption. On the third time, Sue was in the same room. When she heard this passionate plea, her face went white and she wept. She pictured being before the throne of God and hearing Him say “Well done, but I had more children for you.” When there was a break in the meeting, Sue whispered to Wayne, “We need to talk.” He knew what the conversation was going to be about.

Wayne was having his own conversations with God about the potential of adopting. One day he was mowing the lawn, arguing with God in his mind. “God, is it fair to bring children into a home, when I am getting older in life?”  Wayne had an impression of God saying “Isn’t it better for sons to have an old dad, than no dad?” Wayne and Sue sought counsel of their senior pastor who encouraged them to ask God the big question of whether they were called to adopt and then also to ask the specific questions of who they were to adopt.

Wayne and Sue went away alone to pray. As they began to pray they saw a picture of two brothers. Rachel, Angela, Hannah, and Sarah joined Wayne and Sue at the Lake House where they had been praying. Sue’s mom, Donna, also came with the girls.

As Wayne and Sue shared what they had been praying about, they invited the girls into the process. It would not only effect Wayne and Sue as parents, but it would also effect everyone. The girls wept and responded with their own sense of a call to adopt potentially two new brothers.

When Wayne and Sue mentioned that they had been researching adopting from the nation of Brazil, Donna began to cry as well. “Sue, do you realize that this is a fulfillment of my prayers?” Over forty years earlier, Donna and her husband Allen were planning to go to Brazil as missionaries, until Donna became pregnant with Sue. Fearing, that it would be too difficult to take children on the mission field, Allen chose not to go. Donna, feeling a sense of unfulfilled calling began to pray over the child in her womb from Jeremiah 1, believing that her call to the nation of Brazil would be fulfilled one day. As Donna recalled this story, everyone around the table began to weep with a sense of God’s destiny.

As Wayne and Sue began the process of seeking counsel from others as well as the tedious paperwork required for a foreign adoption, they didn’t know that Alexandre Joel and Ezequiel Paul would be added to their family 9 months later. (You can read about their adoption on JourneyToMe.com).

If you have been keeping count of how many children mentioned, you may notice that that is only six.  Where did the seventh child come from? Wayne and Sue’s oldest daughter Lisa is not legally adopted. Lisa, a young adult in her twenties had been living in Wayne and Sue’s home for a number of years when they began the process of adopting Dre and Zeke. They had helped to pour into Lisa as spiritual parents along with a number of leaders in their local church. Lisa was at an important place in her development, graduating from school, going to work, and becoming of a marriageable age. Wayne and Sue felt prompted to establish an even closer commitment and connection with Lisa and invited her to be a part of the Detweiler family. In fact, it became important to Lisa and everyone in the family to be counted as one of the five daughters. Lisa has since married Kyle and so the Detweiler family has grown up to this point! So, the journey continues...