Adoptive Parents Six Times Over, Now This Family Remakes Adoption From the Inside Out
Randy and Kelsey Bohlender are doing more with their lives than most people would even consider. They’re parents of ten children, six through adoption—including their youngest, Scout, born on February 3. Only last month, the Bohlenders opened Zoe’s House Adoption Agency, named after their first adopted daughter.
It is not a cause or people’s applause that drives them; rather, this Kansas City couple say they want, “To make a prophetic statement in our world, in our day, that lives have value.”
With the voices of children heard in the background, we caught up with Randy Bohlender to talk about his family’s adoption story, the questions he hears from adoptive parents and how they’re integrating compassionate care into every step of the adoption process.
Bound4LIFE: Since the adoption of your youngest in February, how has your family adjusted to having a newborn again?
Randy Bohlender: For us, it has not been too big of a change—a little more chaos, a little less sleep. But growing from nine to 10 children is not like going from one to two. We are absolutely tickled to have our boy, Scout.
We’ve had a child under two years old for the last nine years. About the time somebody turns two, we’ve had another one or adopted another child.
The challenge sometimes is in numbers. There’s just the two of us parents. How do we get everyone where they need to go? Life is a constant logistics battle.
Bound4LIFE: Could you share about the support system around your family?
Randy Bohlender: We have several friends who feel it is part of their mission in life to come around us and help. There’s a young woman who is often with us in the afternoons, and it’s certainly a labor of love.
She sees it as a missional job, and a few others did before her. These are precious friends who never really leave; they keep refrigerator privileges, and show up often to help.
Today, one of them phoned Kelsey and said, “Hey, I have two hours; what can I do for you?” Kelsey was going to go to Costco and asked about riding along with her. They talked more and this girl ended up going to Costco for us. When you have 10 kids and somebody is willing to take a Costco trip for you? That’s gold.
In addition to these young women, there’s a couple whose older children come by when things get a little hectic. It takes those kinds of people to help us do what we do. The best thing you can do for most adoptive families is give them a little time, by running an errand. It’s not complex.
Bound4LIFE: As busy parents, how do you and Kelsey integrate seeking God into your kids’ daily routine?
Randy Bohlender: We talk about what’s on our hearts when we’re together. The best captive audience we have is when we’re in the car going to school.
We try to pray with our kids on the way; we debrief with them on Sunday, asking what they learned; Kelsey and I talk back and forth about what we’re hearing from God.
The idea of sitting them in a big circle and having a discussion about the goodness of God? That’s a little idealistic. If we got them in a circle, one of them would be coloring on the wall, one would be pulling his brother’s hair… so we seek God and find teachable moments at the speed of life, usually on the fly.
Bound4LIFE: Now you’ve been a pastor, an author and a church planter—why invest your life in overseeing an adoption agency?
Randy Bohlender: The adoption agency is a means to an end: to make a prophetic statement in our world, in our day, that lives have value.
When we save children targeted for abortion, as many pro-life groups do, it’s worth it to ensure they have a good home. The idea that children are unwanted is a farce. We can find homes for these kids.
The agency is a way to get that message out. I didn’t wake up one day and say, I’d really like to run a non-profit, I can’t find anything more complicated to do. It started with a question asked over years: “How can we get the most kids possible into good homes, and what’s the most cost-effective way of doing that?”
For a long time, we offered small grants to families who were adopting. We raised money and gave it to each family; in that scenario, we were taking two or three grand off of a bill that might be thirty or forty thousand dollars.
Eventually, we started to experiment with the idea: what if we ran the mechanism, rather than fund the mechanism? Instead of giving a couple thousand dollars to each family, what if we pooled those funds and hired a social worker ourselves? There’s an economy of streamlining there that you can’t beat.
We launched Zoe’s House Adoption Agency on October 1, and it’s going really well.
