SELMA, Ala. (BP) – On a beach in Thailand in February 2011 as international students, Lauren Jones and Harrison Smith discovered their mutual hope of adopting a child from China. Lauren considered it a dealbreaker in accepting a husband.
Having married in the summer of 2012, the two were living and ministering in Selma, Ala., with five years invested in the process of making their dream of adopting from China a reality when the country ended its intercountry adoption program in August 2024.
Ever since Nov. 1, 2019, the two had prayed and planned to bring home He Hao Ran as their son Benaiah Stanley Smith, who would be a brother to the two daughters the Smiths already had.
“In September 2019 we saw the file for our son for the first time and were granted preapproval for adopting him,” Lauren told Baptist Press. “I still remember packaging our first package we mailed him at the orphanage from within China through the liaison. Our girls sent their favorite snacks, pictures they colored for him and some of their own toys plus a new truck for him.”
They prepared for an extended wait when China suspended intercountry adoptions during the COVID-19 pandemic, but were forced to enter a new era of hope and uncertainty after China announced its latest decision to end the program permanently.
“Throughout these five years of waiting we’ve remained hopeful that God would make a way for us to bring our son home. We’ve endured many challenges and hardships and the truth of Romans 8:28 has become that which we cling to, believing that He is working our adoption journey for His good,” Lauren Smith said. “We’ve lived in five different homes – one of which was in Turkey – and in each home we’ve furnished and decorated a room for Benaiah.
“Sadly that hope is slowly dying after China’s announcement this past September and the continued silence. But we have agreed to remain waiting for a little while longer with hopes if this is God’s plan, He will make a way.”
The Smiths are among nearly 300 families who were in the final stages of bringing their children home from China when the communist country ended the program. While former Secretary of State Antony Blinken advocated for China to allow the families to finalize the adoptions, some are placing new hope in the Trump administration.
Lifeline Children’s Services in Birmingham, Ala., the largest evangelical adoption agency in the U.S., is handling the adoptions for the Smiths and 47 other families impacted by China’s decision. Karla Thrasher, Lifeline’s senior director of international adoptions, never received an update on the program in the last months of the Biden administration after China ended the program, she told Baptist Press.
“We’re hoping maybe somebody new and fresh will take this on,” Thrasher said. “We all give credence to the new policy out of China. We understand there will be no new adoptions going forward. I don’t think that was unanticipated by the adoption community. But our hope is that the 300 families that were in process when suspension happened would be able to finalize their adoptions.”
Lifeline will urge high-level officials at the Chinese Embassy in Washington and at the U.S. State Department to encourage Trump to use appropriate communication channels to advocate for the 300 families before Chinese government officials, urging completion of the adoptions.
There is some indication that after China announced the end of its intercountry adoption program, a handful of adoptions in the final stages from Italy and Spain were allowed to be finalized, Lifeline said, based on its “resources on the ground in China.” But official finalizations of those adoptions from Italy and Spain were never announced, Lifeline said.
“Our ministry believes children belong in families,” Thrasher said. “We don’t have any plans to close this program until we have information directly from China that this door is closed. But we do keep options before these families” including possibly adopting from the 18 other countries with which Lifeline facilitates intercountry adoptions.
The Smiths have invested about $40,000 in the adoption of Benaiah, Lauren estimated without complaint. For her and Harrison, what causes them pain is the prospect of losing Benaiah, and the possibility of his growing up without the love of a Christian family or the hope of the Gospel.
As a father, Harrison felt uneasy comparing the stalled adoption to a miscarriage, but said a miscarriage is an apt presentation of his feelings.
“In some ways this feels like a miscarriage but maybe even worse it feels like we lived in the ninth month of a pregnancy for four and a half years and then we lost that baby,” Harrison said, “and then in my understanding of God’s providence a dead baby is with Jesus in heaven today.
“But our unfulfilled pregnancy or unfulfilled adoption is going to end with a little boy that has no home, has no parents, has no mom and dad, no brothers or sisters, has no immediate access to the Gospel from his mom and dad, or his siblings, or his church family, or his aunts or uncles, or grandma and grandpa.”
On their first date, while both Lauren and Harrison shared hopes of adopting from China, Harrison also shared his hope of adopting domestically.
Harrison’s dream of adopting domestically is being realized in Auggie, a Chinese orphan who came to the U.S. through an intercountry adoption in January 2024 that didn’t work out for the American family, Lauren told Baptist Press. Through Lifeline, the Smiths are in the process of adopting Auggie, 10, from the American family. Lauren was filing paperwork related to the adoption when she spoke with Baptist Press Jan. 24.
Auggie has been in the Smith home since November 2024. He spent his first Christmas in the U.S. there, and played a camel in the Nativity scene at Cornerstone Presbyterian Church where Harrison serves as family discipleship and outreach pastor.
“I look at our son Auggie and I’m just overwhelmed by the Lord’s goodness that He’d bring him to us,” Lauren said, but seeing how much Auggie has already been able to learn about Jesus also emphasizes Benaiah’s loss.
Whatever the outcome, the family will continue praying for Benaiah, Lauren said, and expresses appreciation for Lifeline.
“They’ve been a great support and rock for us,” Lauren said of Lifeline, describing Thrasher as a listening, godly counselor who has encouraged her at the toughest times.
Lifeline is studying ways to help orphans who remain in China without the prospect of adoption, Thrasher said, eyeing such aid as medical facilities, therapy or additional education for orphanage employees. Lifeline last provided services in China in 2019 training social workers, and in other countries has provided life skills training for orphans to equip them for life as adults.
“We’ve really just been trying to figure out how do we impact the lives of the children that will remain in China and not have the opportunity to be adopted,” Thrasher said. “We have several ideas, we’re just looking for ways back in, to be on the ground in China again.”
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