And I'm very excited about this guest that's going to be talking with me during the next segment. It is Susan Tebows, who is the author of, we've Been There, true Stories, surprising Insights, and Aha Moments for Adopted Teens. Susan is a writer, speaker, bible study leader and adoptive mom. And she's got such a heart for adoptees.
I was so taken by that. So fellow adoptees, I know you're gonna really like her insights in this book and in this podcast, she and her husband Mike have three adopted children from Siberia and they live in Grand Rapids, Michigan. She is the co-author of Before You Were Mine, discovering Your Adopted Child's Life Story and now the wonderful book We've been there.
I just think Susan has, after you interview people, and she interviewed 20 adoptees, and I know that God gave her such a heart for understanding them, and so I'm just gonna read a little bit of the letter on the back of her book that she wrote to fellow adoptees. So fellow adoptees, this is for us. Here we go.
If you're a teen with adoption in your story, there are probably a lot of things your friends and family just don't understand, no matter how much they love you. Do you ever wish you had someone to talk to about the good, the bad, and the completely confusing parts of being adopted? Someone who would really get it?
You're not alone In this book, over 30 adopted teens and young adults talk about their feelings, thoughts, and experiences, and unanswered questions. They're secrets. They reveal 'em. You guys. So we've been there. Not only shares what they've learned, but also what they wish someone would've known. So welcome Susan.
Thank you, Sherry. It's so good to be here. And hello from Pier, Michigan. Yeah. So what's the weather like today in Michigan? I'm looking outside and it is, Attempting to get sunny. We went through a long six month winter, so any inch of sun that peaks out, we all run to it. We have a lot of benefits in Michigan, but we have long winters too.
Yeah, ours aren't quite as bad in Indiana and because we had such a light winter, the allergies are horrible this year. So anyway, welcome. Thank you. And how about sharing your story of your family and how you became an adoptive mom? Love to hear that. You know, I get to look back, it was 25 years ago, which seems like yesterday, and you gotta look at my husband and I back then.
And we were such an unlikely couple to even be thinking about this and we, we were professionals. Kind of comfortable. And we were in our early thirties, and I just remember being at my office and saying, I know God has something more for us. And I remember praying about that specifically, and who knew what we were stepping into.
You know, we were growing in our faith. And faith means trust, right? We were learning to trust God. And so at one point there was this, Article in the newspaper in Grand Rapids. It was about Russian adoption and somebody had adopted, and I was like, what? It struck me huge. And then, um, I shared it with my husband.
He goes, I don't know anything about that. Well, long story short, we got on the same page, got opened a lot of doors, and we ended up not adopting just one child, but three children over a period of five years. From Russia. So we went to Russia five times in five years, and that's kinda how we became a family.
That's an amazing story, and it's quite complicated, isn't it, to get a child back from there to bring them home, like you have to travel twice. Yeah, in the first round or so, we only had to travel once. Then Russia continued to change the rules and then as we know today, no one can adapt from a Russia, at least not Americans.
There's a whole list we don't even wanna go into because it's complicated. But yeah, it seemed t
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