When Vanita Thomas met her future husband, Peter, for the first time, she asked if he would be interested in adopting a child with her.
It wasn’t a premature question—their marriage was arranged, and their first meeting was meant to see if they were compatible. Potential future children were important to discuss. But it was a weird question, because adoption was uncommon in India, where both were born. (“People believe that God opens and shuts wombs, so if you adopt, it means you didn’t have enough faith,” Vanita said.)
But Vanita was determined. “Growing up, my school took us to one of Mother Teresa’s children’s homes in Bangalore to visit the orphans,” she explained. “I remember begging Mum and Dad to take one of those kids home. They said that they already had three kids, and anyway, it wasn’t something normally done in India.”
Vanita and Peter with their adopted children Sandeep and Ruth / Courtesy of Sandeep Thomas
But she didn’t forget about it. Years later at their first meeting, she asked her future husband what he thought about adopting. Peter, who had just finished reading about God spiritually adopting believers into his family in J. I. Packer’s Knowing God, agreed immediately. Five years later, Peter had finished graduate school, the couple had immigrated to New York, and Vanita had lost a pregnancy. It’s time, they thought.
