CommonCall: Strange family, assembled by God

TEMPLE—Chad and Cheri Strange of Temple didn’t set out to have a large family. They just were determined to follow God’s will for their lives.

But God’s will turned out to be a large family for them and their children—Taylor, 17; Jolee, 16; Addison, 14; Sophia, 12; Zoe, 10; Chloe, 10; and twins Zack and Tate, 8.

Outdoor games are one of many ways Chad and Cheri Strange and their eight children enjoy life, recognizing God brought them together. (Photo / Nan Dickson)Chad and Cheri—now members of First Baptist Church in Belton—met at Hardin-Simmons University. During one of her classes, she learned about China’s one-child policy and, at age 19, decided she eventually wanted to adopt a child from China.

Since Cheri thought Chad might be a good prospect for marriage, she told him she wanted adoption to be part of her married life.

He was not quite as concerned about the Chinese policy, but since he was attracted to her, he didn’t discourage the idea.

After the couple married, six years passed before they had their first daughter, Taylor, followed by Addison.

Then a magazine article about how Christian recording artist Steven Curtis Chapman and his wife, Mary Beth, adopted their daughter, Maria, rekindled Cheri’s interest in adoption.

“We had no infertility issues, but just seeing a need and wanting to meet it,” she said. “This article answered all the questions and fears that I had just boom, boom, boom.”

After additional research, they made a trip from Sweetwater to Lubbock for an informational meeting about adoption. At the time, Chad still had reservations.

“I wasn’t against it, but we were really busy,” he acknowledged. “I was opening my medical practice, she was completing work on her Ph.D., and we had two little kids—3 and 5. So, I wasn’t against, but I wasn’t on board, either.

“I also had a lot of issues I think are common with men. I had two little girls who I loved like crazy, and I really worried, ‘What if I don’t love her like I love my girls?’ So, I was real hesistant.”

Cheri had her own concerns.

“You have to sign a list that says, ‘I will take (a child with) hepatitis; I will take AIDS,’ and on and on, and you have to sign it,” she said. “And then they call and say the child is not going to be as young as we had hoped, and as the mom, I didn’t want to miss anything.”

Family mealtimes can be challenging logistically in a home with eight children, but they never are dull in the Strange household. (Photo / Nan Dickson)But the meeting the couple attended in Lubbock changed everything.

“I was sitting in the back, which is where I generally sit for everything,” he recalled. “They start talking about the needs of these kids who have been abandoned, and I’m just boohooing. It was like: ‘All right. I’m in.’”

A little more than a year later, in 2006, they brought Chloe home from China.

“And that was all we intended to do,” Cheri said.

Her husband agreed.

“My intention was we had two kids, we are going to save the world, we are going to do our good deed and adopt a kid, and we’re done,” he said.

They spent two weeks in China finishing the process to bring Chloe home. They were in the company of other adoptive parents, most of whom were bringing home special-needs children.

“Before we ever left, we knew we would be back,” Cheri said.

Chloe’s infancy was not an easy one, however.

“Our little precious screamed for two solid years,” her mother said.

In 2008, they brought Jolee home from China. She had a heart defect, among other difficulties.

“Now we’re up to four kids, and I was done. That’s plenty of kids,” Chad said.

The next four years were difficult for the family. They went to a variety of doctors, counselors and therapists trying to get a handle on things, without much relief.

“In the midst of things not going very well at all, we just really felt like God was saying, ‘I want you to do this again,” he said. “And at this point, I was like, ‘You’ve got to be kidding.’ We’re not winning this battle.”

At first, Cheri shared his doubts about adopting another child.

“We were both willing not to do this again,” she said. “And this was over time. It wasn’t like we sat down on a weekend and said: ‘I’ve got a great idea. Let’s do something crazy.’ It came over time. God would speak to us independently in our quiet times, and then we would talk and shake our heads and say, ‘I can’t imagine, but OK.’”

In a family with eight children, organization is essential. (Photo / Nan Dickson)Despite their reservations, they began to investigate. Initially, they wanted to return to China to adopt an infant, but they learned the process was stretching to four or five years. Deciding that wasn’t feasible because of their ages and the ages of their children, they began to look other places where an infant could be adopted more quickly.

They enrolled in a program to adopt an infant from Ethiopia, and suddenly, infants no longer were available. Their adoption counselor suggested a sibling group, but they were not interested.

Finally, they told the counselor they would consider siblings, but they still secretly were holding out for a single child.

Friends and family often asked them what they would name the fifth child, and Cheri habitually told them, “I don’t know, but it will be something with a ‘Z,’ because we already have an ‘A,’ and we’ve gone from ‘A to Z.’”

Chad began looking at the children available on the agency website.

“I was just looking around, and I came across these four,” he said, telling his wife, “You really have to see these kids.”

“I said: ‘No, I really don’t. I’m not doing that,’” she recalled.

They also had no interest in adopting boys, and the sibling group included twin boys.

“I had no idea what to do with boys,” Cheri said.

“But he turned that screen around, and there were these two girls and these boys, and the girls’ (African) names started with A and Z. That was enough for me to realize that God was saying, ‘You need to stop and think about this.’”

Circumstances made it plain God meant the four siblings to be their children. And since 2012, the Strange family has numbered 10.

“Something about adding those four brought a sense of healing to our family,” she said. “I don’t know why, but we both feel the same way. We hadn’t laughed a whole lot for a few years, and when we brought them home, we laughed and laughed and laughed. It was fun, and it gave the issues some space.

“Sometimes when God calls you to do silly, crazy stuff that doesn’t make any sense, and you can’t see how it’s going to turn out, there’s a huge blessing that comes from the obedience in it.”

Her husband agrees. “I think God’s routine is that he will ask you to do crazy things that make no sense. If everything that God asks you to do makes sense, you’re not hearing something,” he said. “If you can’t even conceive of how that would work, listen close, because that’s probably God.”

The Strange Family: Photo Slideshow

For all the challenges international adoption has presented, the couple wouldn’t change their lives.

“I wouldn’t have wanted to miss this for the world,” Chad said. “It hasn’t all been easy. It hasn’t all been fun, but God has grown my heart, he has convicted me, he has pointed out weaknesses in me—this is crystal clear that this is what he has done in my life and the life of my family.

“It has given unbelievable meaning to me of the passage in Romans where it says he adopted us. You start thinking about it: I knew these kids before they knew me. I loved them before they knew who I was. I was spending something that cost me dearly. This cost a lot of money, and they didn’t even know who I was. I had to go and get them, and I made them mine. I gave them my name. This is irrevocable.

“That’s just what God has done for us. He loved us before we knew him. He spent what cost him the most. He had to come and get us; we couldn’t go and find him. He takes us, he makes us his own, he gives us his name, and it’s irrevocable. Now when I read that in Romans, I’m like, ‘That’s rich.’”

Read more articles like this in CommonCall magazine. CommonCall features inspiring stories about Christians living out their faith. An annual subscription is only $24 and comes with two complementary subscriptions to the Baptist Standard. To subscribe to CommonCall, click here.