Hello and welcome to another episode of the Family Business with the Alessis. I'm Steve Alesi, and today I'm joined by some great people. One being my son Christopher Alesi, and the other being a newbie in the podcast booth, David Roman. Good to have you both, Jens.
SPEAKER_02It's great to be here. Good to be here.
SPEAKER_00We're going to have
fun. Well, we're at least going to tackle a subject that I think is endearing. I know it's close to your heart, David. And uh because of the way you have responded and handled this, uh, it's close to our heart because we've been able to come alongside of you in the journey. Now, before we get into the weeds of it all, you are the brother of John Roman, who happens to be handling all of our sound here with our recording. And uh, so family is what we do around this place in Metro.
SPEAKER_02Most definitely. And uh I always like to ask people who they think is the youngest because his beard is much bigger than mine. It makes him look older, but I think I look wiser.
SPEAKER_00Did you say wider or wiser? I'm sorry. No, and of course, Christopher is here, my son, and Chris. Glad to have you in the podcast booth as well. Always glad to be here. Now, here's what we believe happens with our podcast. We say the tagline is family is everybody's business. And we have a nice uh family feel to what we do in our line of work, which is our church. And part of it is because um our staff, we try to stay connected in one way or the other to long-term relationships. And you have been around here for 20 plus years, David.
SPEAKER_02Yes. Actually, I my wife and I started coming to the church before she was my wife. We were we were dating and engaged.
SPEAKER_00And uh you were a part of not only our staff for a little bit, um, but at one point you were leading our college ministry. And that's when you and Christopher, I guess Christopher was about 13 or 14 when you first met him. And um 20 years later, he's yeah, it's been a long-term relationship.
SPEAKER_01Long time. He had he uh you led at first it was Sigma Gamma Pi, which was like what we did for just our college age. Yeah, but then we also added like a service element, which I think at first we just called 18 to 35. Yeah, we were not that creative, and then we tried to be really but it fit the time. It did. It was a weird time. 2010 was a weird, it was a weird time, but then it was relate. And I remember we would get young adults to come out from that age group, and it was uh uh it really was before its time because I mean when you when you think about what young adults like doing now, that's what we were doing in relate back in the day. It was just getting together, having deep convos and and going at it and connecting. So it was great. It was very Miami. Very Miami.
SPEAKER_02It was very much a byproduct of the the feel of this church, all about being relationships, because it was people who didn't know if I liked you, but I wanted to get to know you. So let's go grab something to eat and talk about the Bible. It was it was a fun time. Yeah, it set me up well for Bible college, too.
SPEAKER_00It did. Well, I remember you going to him and him because he would help others, you and Charlie would help others get scholarships or get any kind of loans or anything, you'd set them up for college. And I remember Chris and so many others coming to you, and especially Chris, trying to help him get established to make that transition from high school to college.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, there are waves uh in any church, I think. And there was a wave that we were a part of where all the adults had kids and their kids were going to college. And so we needed to help them. So I remember organizing like Saturday uh lectures where we would help kids write resumes and letters and how do I apply for scholarships and college and what are deadlines? And I think we might be hitting that wave again pretty soon.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, uh they go and get it on their computer, that's the problem. No personal relationship, they'll watch it on uh whatever. But here we are, um thankful that you've hung with us for this long. And this is why I love long-term relationships, because we can go back and we can talk about those shared experiences. And quite frankly, there's there's people today
that are now married with children of their own that were part of that college group all those years above ago. So it's really cool to see that thing, keep them connected over the years. Um, now here's where I'd like to go today because of um we talk about family, uh, family being everybody's business. Uh, your family is unique and precious because you and Paola embraced first foster care, but then adoption. And the Lord has uh opened the door for great two beautiful little girls, Karis and Dawn. And so I'd like us to talk about adoption and how it benefits the individual that says, you know, I've been given so much in my life, I'd like to share it with children who either I can birth, of course, but maybe I can't. And so therefore, let me still use what I have to be a real blessing to them. And so um, first I'm thankful that we've had a part of you and Paolo's journey, seeing it firsthand, and you've really embraced it. Uh so to start this off, what tell me what adoption means to you?
SPEAKER_02Well, I I think uh so many people don't understand the gift that adoption is, not to the child, but to them, to the to the to the parents, yeah, the people that become parents. And so for me, adoption really is this gift that I had no idea I needed. And it became the means by which my family, and literally my family was was formed. And I could not imagine having a family any other way at this point.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Wow, that's beautiful. And the girls, charmers. Amazing that they carry your name. They they look like you. Even little Dawn, she has looks, when I look at her, I can see your wife sometimes in her features. And it's like a gift that that that you've been given with these children because you have made a way for them that they didn't have a way before.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, we've been very open with them about um how they were not in mama's belly, but they were always in mommy and daddy's heart. And they're they're seven and six right now. So the conversations about adoption are very superficial. They kind of understand it, but they they still don't. And part of it is because uh our youngest daughter is uh is is multiracial. So uh her skin's a little darker than ours. And we know that if anyone's ever going to be like, oh yeah, you adopted a kid, they're gonna think it's her and not both of them.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02So we've had to have these conversations. And and for them, they understand mom and dad on a very amazing level. Like they just look at us and you are the guys and the gal that loves us unconditionally. And that's what it is. I mean, that's what family really is when it's all boiled down.
SPEAKER_00Some of the challenges.
SPEAKER_02Oh man, I took a deep breath when you said two girls. And I think the challenge is, you know, we all understand family based on where we are in our lives. So right now, Pastor, you are a father and you're about to become a grandfather and you have adult kids.
SPEAKER_00Right.
SPEAKER_02And Chris here, he just got married, but he's transitioning from family as a son to family as a husband. And I didn't understand what family as a dad meant. And for us, I think naturally you get nine months to prepare. Sure. For us, we got a phone call. Wow. And it's like there's a baby at the hospital, um, come get her. And one of the challenges has been kind of, I've always felt like I'm kind of catching up. Yeah. And I've never caught up. Never.
SPEAKER_00Well, as much as you think, even as uh when you birth them, you think that you're up to speed and ready for them. Oh gosh, you're not. It's like um somebody says, Well, I'll have a kid when we can afford them. Good luck with that, because I never remember being able to afford Christopher, Stephanie, Lauren, or Gabby.
SPEAKER_01Especially Lauren and Gabby.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. They're more expensive later on in life. But um never, never felt prepared enough, which um that's the fun of parenthood. And I wish parents would understand that. Uh, you're never going to be really ready for what kids bring to the table, adopted or birthed. They're they're going to be unique.
SPEAKER_02I think the other aspect of adoption is not that there's a stigma in our world, but because it's not openly discussed, um, and it's usually discussed like I adopted a kid from a faraway land and their world was so horrible and I rescued them. And it's a weird way to think about family. Um, really, I've had to come to terms with how am I going to let my daughters know that yes, they are blessed because they're in my family, but more than that, they are prepared for life in a way that if I hadn't stepped in, they wouldn't have been. And how does that then turn into their responsibility to pay it forward in many ways?
SPEAKER_00Um about that right there. This goes in with all raising all kids. Um there's gotta be conversation constantly taking place in the
home, whether it's a marriage, it's a new, newly married couple, uh, whether it's a newly adopted child. Uh there's always challenges that you're you're facing in every situation. Life is filled with challenges, things that hit you. Without the conversation ongoing, I think we leave people to try to form their own mindset, their own opinions about things, and they're not always the best because the mind does not naturally go towards positive. Naturally, it goes towards a worst-case scenario. That's where fear comes from. So, with children, even with a new marriage, when they start to feel something, like trying to describe, Dawn, you're darker than your sister, you're darker than your parents, having the conversation, not just one time, but ongoing, helps the person formulate the right kind of opinions. You think that's true?
SPEAKER_02I think that's very true.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And I think one of the things I've learned just by being around you and even you, Chris, is that it's important to kind of speak what's on your heart honestly and openly. And I I think back to just some of the conversations we had when you were growing up. And and you know, I remember the first time I met you was, I think a 12 or 13-year-old kids' ministry. And uh at the time, I didn't know you were the pastor's kid. And I was on the floor, you know, acting out some sort of Bible thingy on a Sunday morning. And what I really appreciate is that after it was done, you came up to me and you were just like, Thank you, that was fun. And I didn't know I was doing it right. And I as we talk about kids, it's like, it makes me look at my daughters, and I'm like, I hope I can put them in a situation in an environment where there'll be a grown-up that they will they will see something happen that that grown-up does, and they'll just want to go up to them and say, Thank you.
SPEAKER_01That was fun. Well, I keep getting the image now of being grafted in. I was just talking to Armando about, you know, how you can literally take a branch from a different tree, and as long as you set everything up right, it will continue to live on a different tree. You could take a branch off, and it, I mean, that's the that's the image used in scripture to describe Gentiles. It's you are a part of the family of God just as much as the Jews were because you've been grafted in. Not, hey, we decided to include you, but you've been grafted in. And the truth is in adoption, I mean, your daughters are your family as much as they're anybody else's because they've been grafted in to the Roman legacy. And so, yeah, they might not look like our tree, your tree. They they may come from a different tree, but that doesn't make them any less a part of yours. And that's such a powerful, powerful image. And so, you know, my dad says that they even look like you. Well, the truth is, psychology will tell you that if you adopt a baby before they're six months old, they will take on physical characteristics of you. And that's the whole nature and nurture conversation. It just shows how powerful the nurture is. When you graft these children into your family, put this branch on your tree, they do take on characteristics of your tree. And we see that in your kids all the time. So sweet. And so there's no reason to believe they wouldn't at the end of the whole time say, Man, I like being a part of this tree. Yeah. There's no reason to think that at all.
SPEAKER_00And David, you mentioned the stigma that goes with this. Um communication, talking about it. Uh, if we keep something in the dark, we're afraid of it. But if we bring it to the light, it becomes normal. Yeah. And having the conversation with children um that are adopted, can it help them see that this is really normal? This is good.
SPEAKER_02You know, I'm glad you talk about stigma because it it happens on two sides. So, yeah, my my daughters have a potential of being stigmatized. And the more we talk about it, the more we normalize it because it is normal. Like there are so many people in South Florida, let's not just say the world, but just Miami that for them, they would have wished to have been adopted. They went through the foster care system and and and no one ever came and adopted them. So they're missing out on something that is so consequential on creating individuals, like humanity, like having a mom, a dad, a safe space in a home. I talk to adults now that were fostered, that were never adopted, and they have this emptiness inside of them because they don't know what it's like to be called
son or daughter. And so there's that stigma. But the other stigma happens as an adult. So, you know, usually um when I talk about adoption, everyone assumes it's my wife that was the reason or the issue, had the issue with uh fertility. And it wasn't, it was me.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And so I know for me, one of my biggest hesitations to wanting to adopt is because I felt like a failure. Yeah. And there is this thing in my brain, this defeated thinking that I don't know where it came from because my father never told me I was a failure for not being able to have children naturally. My mother never said, My brothers, they were all like, all right, what are you gonna do? But there is something inside of every man, I think, and maybe it's changing. I don't know, but inside of me, let's just talk about me. Inside of me, there was this voice that I had to contend with that said, you can't do something that hundreds of thousands of other men can't do. So you suck, you're a failure.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02So the stigma in my heart had to be like, and I and I and I fight this every now and again when I feel less than a good dad. Like, oh, that's because they're not yours. And I'm like, I gotta like check that thought right away. Like, no, they're mine. Yep. You know, they're misbehaving is my fault.
unknownOh my God.
SPEAKER_00I'm glad you bring that up. I appreciate your transparency on that right there, because it's um it brings me to this. Because as you're talking about adoption, the blessing of it is so much bigger than you, first and foremost, because you're giving something, as Chris mentioned, you're you're passing a legacy to children that would not have had it if you didn't step into their world. So the the hero status is there. Uh, but the the personal mental battles that you would fight kind of pulls you out of that role of hero to almost a zero because now you don't feel like you're that. So you're very transparent by bringing that to the table right now, which I so appreciate. But here's the question. And I learned this from another family in our church. And uh, when they were told that they were having a son and he had a chromosoidal disorder, they were
overwhelmed and they ran to somebody that was helping counsel him through it, and they said, We will not have uh a normal son, and it breaks our heart. And the counselor looked at him and says, What's normal? What's normal? Who defined normal? Who made normal what normal is? Yeah. And if we look at it in light of this, especially today, uh, where we're so aware of different people who have adopted and their lives and their challenges, um what is normal?
SPEAKER_02You know, when you say that, it makes me think that you're right. Like normal is this thing that we throw out there, we say to be safe.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02But the truth is, uh when we think of families, when I think of families, I think of my brothers and their families, and there's nothing normal about any of them. There really isn't. And I and it's it's it's funny, but I think about like one, all of my brothers married up. Yeah. I'm like, how did you get that girl? And I think the same thing about myself. But I look at their families and the things they're dealing with with their their sons and their daughters, and it reminds me that man, they're they're dealing with the same thing I'm dealing with.
SPEAKER_01Wow. Well, we're both, you know, intellectuals. We both like to read uh a lot. And we have a lot of these discussions before. In fact, a lot of our conversations are like drive-bys, but they're like, hey, I happen to read, you know, C.S. Lewis or insert, whatever. So we know that in the in the psychology world, in the philosophy world, they will always ask you when you make a claim, okay, relative to what? So when you say there is no or there's a lot, they'll say, great, relative to what? Uh, even the word something like central. If I put that water bottle in the middle of this table, it's central, but relative to what? So you have to ask, what are you comparing it to? Well, I remember meeting with a family in our church. They had adopted children, and they bought into the stigma so much at a personal level that I think they actually created an extra level of stigma where they almost created self-fulfilling prophecies where they kept saying, I know when he turns 18, I know when this happened, that they're gonna really, really, really struggle, and I'm afraid of that. And I remember at a young age, just I don't know where this level of confidence, maybe it was arrogance, came on me, but I was like, you don't know what it's like to raise a normal child. So you genuinely can't compare it. But if you could compare it, you would see they are really nervous about their 18-year-old too. That's so good, Chris. And they're absolutely fearful of what's gonna happen the day they turn 18. Your fear is, you know, what are they gonna think? Well, their fear is what are they gonna think? What are they gonna do when they leave? Because you can't compare it, you feel like it's something that is completely isolated, and therefore you feel like you're drowning. But most families feel like they're drowning when it comes to their kids. And when you really do compare it and you say, Oh, okay, I feel like there's a stigma, but there's a lot of families right now that are very broken, and they had all their kids, but their families are way more broken than the Roman family is. Yeah. And you just start to see, you know, maybe I should recognize my situation's better than I think. I mean, yeah, I'm not gonna struggle as any more than they will in their context.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Can't give in to that stigmatism on either side, because like you said, Chris, I like that idea or that thought. If if we feed into it too much, then we create even another layer of it. And I'll I see this with people that are raising multiracial uh children or that are raising children that may be special needs, that we we're almost to the place of as a parent, we're offended if somebody makes any statement or looks at our kids a certain way. And because we're offended, we go to the defense of our kid, and they're not offended. They don't understand that it's anything about their skin color or the way they process with their their words or whatever that is. They don't understand it. They just know they're being they're in a kid's world, and quite frankly, kids' worlds are cruel sometimes because it's way more cruel than the adult world. But it prepares you for the cruel world of adults. But a parent will run in and they will make the issue now an issue, yeah. Instead of being able to step back and say, Hey, this is life. We have our challenges, everybody has their challenges. This is something, and and we we help them prepare for life on the bigger stage, not. The life that they're gonna live with certain limitations that are being stigmatized because of their specific situation. We all have it. Yeah. In one way or the other.
SPEAKER_02And Pastor, what I what I think as you're speaking, it's the value of relationships. And it really is. We live in an amazing time in history where people can come together and have open conversations about. I mean, you did it to me. And there was like there was no hesitation. You took me out to a cup of coffee and said, Hey Joker, have you thought about starting a family? And I was like, Yeah. And it was like, well, have you thought about adoption? Because that's one way you can start a family. And I think we're not too far from a generation where that conversation would have never happened because it would have been seen as maybe disrespectful to the character of a man, or it would have been, it would have been somehow frowned upon. But we live in a great time where that conversation can happen and it's a powerful conversation and it was empowering to me. Like it was like a switch in my brain that allowed me to dream bigger about what my future would look like. But at the same time, we live in a world to what you were saying, where that freedom also has created like people to say weird things because they are free to say it. And you're like, what are you talking about? You know, you you talked about challenges, and and you know, one of my daughters, um she's half Haitian. I don't know her full history because I only know about the mom, I don't know about the dad. And you know, I remember going to pick her up from school and giving the you know the person, you know, had to pick up the name, and she comes walking out, and like the person at the school looked at me and looked at her and was like, didn't want to give me the kid. No way. Oh my god. No way. And I almost felt like I had to go on my phone and like, this is Christmas, this is me dressed up as Santa Claus. This is and I understand because she calls me dad. Again, because the world we live in has put that person with a preconception of what family looks like.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And it was, I could have been offended and taken it like, you jerk. You know, what's going on with your thinking, as opposed to saying, oh yeah, she looks like her mom, and diffusing the situation, you know, and just giving
them the out and just being gracious enough to give them the out, you know, to be like, yeah, she looks like her mom.
SPEAKER_01Well, to that point, with the divorce rate now and then the remarried rate, I mean, there are a lot of families where there is a kid in the home that does not quote unquote naturally belong to one of the parents. I mean, that that and that's sadly almost more normal than a home where both parents have been married their entire lives and have had all their kids naturally. So again, it goes back to the comparison thing. I mean, I I loved how you you said that at the end. Oh, yeah, she looks more like her mom because today that is normal. Yeah. The the multiracial couples is is more normal these days. I mean, and and families look different than they used to. And so I I appreciate that and the way you responded to that a lot. Um, but you know, back to what you were saying too about how we can make some things bigger issues than they actually are. They'll tell you when you're raising a kid um that there's firstborn uh syndrome, secondborn syndrome, only child syndrome and stuff. If you look at the majority of families, the first child is probably uh a crier. And the third or the lastborn is probably tougher. Like, and part of that is because the firstborn, when they fell, the parents would run to them and be like, oh no, no, no, you're okay, or at least the mom, no, no, no, no, no, you're okay. And by the third child, when that kid fell, you were like, Come on, get up. You're okay. But what we've now learned through psychology is when a kid falls, they have nothing to associate the pain to, but they associate it to the parent's response. So when the parent responds now, they go, When I feel this pain, you cry, which means I should cry too.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01By the time they get to the third kid, they just know it's just pain and I move on. So it's kind of like when our kids are experiencing things, when our next generation or new Christians, whatever it is, when they respond to things, we recognize, okay, the way I behave, you're gonna now associate with the feeling you have. I can't rush in and make this an issue because if I do, you will become a larger carrier of the flag of that issue than even I am. And so I have to recognize, okay, you fell for the first time, you're gonna be okay. Hey, weird interaction with the teacher. Hey, that's gonna happen. Who cares? But people call us the wrong things all the time. People call my my wife white all the time, and she is not. I mean, it's just it's a thing now. So it's important to recognize the power we have, especially when we're raising, whether it's raising children or or new new Christians, whatever it is, we got to be mindful of that association.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, but I love what you're saying because it's uh it goes back to the point on relationships. If it wasn't for me being connected to you and seeing how you've diffused situations and even how you've diffused situations, and just being gracious with other people and being like, because if I
would have made a thing of it, or if I would have taken offense at it, my daughter would have seen, yeah, see, yeah, and she would have caught that offense from me. Yeah. As opposed to just handling it the way it was. My daughter was completely oblivious and we went home and got Slurpees. It was great.
SPEAKER_00Tell me, uh, what do you think about your wife? Here she is, she's adopted these precious uh girls with you, and uh, what does that just make you do?
SPEAKER_02Well, I already told you, we all the Roman men married up. Yeah, and so when I I think of my my wife, she was very patient. It was uh, I mean, we were married for 10 years. We thought we'd start family around year five, and there was a season of five years where you know we were trying to have kids, and I enjoyed trying. But you know, around that that that 10-year mark, it got like hard. Yep. And uh she said this story before, you know, my my my younger brothers have had children before me. And when my brother John had his child, I remember on his registry, he had this really expensive Eddie Bauer addition uh bassinet. And I remember one thinking, this Joker, he could buy that for himself. But then I also thought, you know, talking about faith, yeah. At the time, uh the you know, this this this church is all about faith. And one of the conversations was like, well, you sow a seed into where you want to be.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And my wife tells a story, and she reminded me about this because we are having a conversation with another family that's considering adoption, and she tells it much better with tears and everything. But I just want to say, when we saw that registry, we're like, you know what? We don't have kids right now, but we're gonna buy this.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And we're gonna sow this into my brother's family, and it's gonna be the top of the line, the best of the best, because I know one day we're gonna have a daughter, yeah, or a son, and this is kind of like a seed we're we're we're planting, you know, we're we're sowing faith.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Wow.
SPEAKER_02It hurts. Every time we'd go to a a baby shower, it would hurt. We would make up excuses not to go. All of our friends were having kids and we were the only ones not. And so when when it happens at year one and they're newborns, that's great. But when it's like year three, and they're on their second, not only do we have a three-year-old, but now they're about to have a second child, yeah, it'll break our hearts.
SPEAKER_00David, it's life. That's the crazy thing. It's life because we could say the very same thing about the young man or young woman who has all of their friends getting married and they still have not watched that parade. Yeah, it's that parade. It's part of life. Anytime we have one of these situations where we want to look at ourselves, and I don't mean this in a bad way, it's not towards you, but we can start to feel sorry for ourselves because we don't have what they have, we can very easily take away the alternatives to uh life that could bring another uh measure of joy that you're just as joyful, it's just as coming in a different different area. So the young girl who's who's not married yet, uh, she doesn't just sit home and and get down about not having a boyfriend. She goes and hex uh connects with some of her girlfriends and says, girls, we're gonna have a great time together and we're gonna have some travel together, make some memories. She doesn't just sit home and oh poor me, lick her wounds. She goes out and pushes herself to to get past what would be the obstacle that's keeping her from that joy that she's looking for, that fulfillment. And it's the same thing with a couple that has a that can't have a child and says, okay, I I can either sit here and feel sorry for myself, or I can turn around and say, Let me adopt, because the opportunities are there for adoption. And yours were pretty miraculous. The way yours came to you.
SPEAKER_02They were.
SPEAKER_00It was like, uh, you know, I try not to be preachy on this and not refer to the Bible too much, but it's like the heavens opened over you, and boom, two angels fell out of the sky and into your family, the way that both of those happened.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. And and our deal is we were ready to adopt through an adoption agency. Uh Mercy Ministries of America's. We're we we got connected uh through you. Yep. Um, I think your sister had the connection. Uh and and we were ready to go that route when we became foster parents. And we had no intentions of becoming foster parents. But can I tell you, you know, the way I thought my family would have happened and the way it happened, I wouldn't change it for anything.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02I would not change it for anything. And so when you say like heavens opened up, like I remember doing the the classes uh to become an adoptive parent. And the uh they asked you, do you want to be a foster parent or just an adoptive parent? And we're like, no, we're taking these classes just to be adoptive. And the woman's like, Are you sure? Because the need was so huge. And not that they were guilting us, but they're like, Listen, the need is so huge. Here in South Florida, there is so many children that are in need of families. And you guys, you talk about my wife. My wife, uh, she's a VP of a developing company, a not-for-profit. They they develop housing for for homeless, formerly homeless uh veterans and and folks with who are aging out of foster care. Um I don't call her Saint Paula, but I know other people do. But when we when we were thinking about you know fostering, we were like, nah, that's not for us. And then a situation happened where we were invited to be part of someone's miracle, and we did become foster parents. And then we said yes to fostering an 11-year-old boy who who needed foster parents, yeah. And just stepping in for him, and that opened us, put us on a list, put us in a situation where we got a phone call on a Wednesday morning and saying, Mr. and Mrs. Roman, you're foster parents. Uh, there's a newborn baby who who who is in the foster system but will need to be adopted. Do you want her? And we're like, Yeah. And we got in a car and went down to Jackson's. Didn't even have a car seat. Didn't have any car seat, had to borrow one.
SPEAKER_00Because it just happened like that. David, we were there. I so I so appreciate the opportunity that me, Mary, our family, our staff had in witnessing all of this. And to see you and Paula's heart so big to say yes when the opportunity arose just showed us the selflessness that you have, which makes uh the world so much better. And I would just say to people that are struggling with this in their life, they're trying their best to have children, they can't, or they've already raised their kids and they they're looking at another alternative. Adoption is a blessing done in with the right heart and at the right season for you that will open up uh blessings in your life and fulfillment that you that you uh may not be able to get otherwise. And what I see in you the whole story, and the reason I wanted you on the podcast today was because this was so much bigger than just the Roman legacy. This was also the legacy of two young girls that didn't have a real healthy looking,
wholesome looking legacy. But when you stepped in, you rescued them off of that road they were on, and you gave them a gift of a legacy that you and Paula are able to provide to them. Uh, that it's it's a it's more of a gift to them. It's more of a gift, it's a blessing.
SPEAKER_02It's not only a blessing to them, but it's been a blessing to so many other people. And this is the thing I didn't anticipate. Um, so I'm on this podcast talking to you and Chris about this. And I know that this is gonna go out, and there's a there's a guy right now dealing with man, I'm a failure as a as a husband, I'm a failure as a man because I can't give my wife this natural thing. And there is we're not we're in a place in our world where there is no I can't have a family. It's how do you want to have a family now?
SPEAKER_00Good.
SPEAKER_02There's there's again a generation of people that wasn't an option. Yeah. We're not that far from people who really could not. But like to say we can't, no, you can. You can have a family. It's are you willing to do it? Like, you know, I I love people who are willing to do the hard thing because then it's not hard anymore. Yeah. And for us, fostering was hard, but then it wasn't. So we did it again, and that's how we got our second daughter. Jeez. Love it. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Well, I just I just want to say to that point, I saw something cool the other day. You said people are are have way too much freedom and they're saying weird stuff. Well, now, you know, the Christians are are very, we are pro-life, and there's an attack on that right now on social media and the world that no, you're not, you're just pro-birth, which doesn't make any sense. It's a change in semantics where they think it makes sense and it does not. But there was a post that went out recently of a pastor who's attacking that direct thing that you think were just pro-birth. Not only do Christians uh support uh orphanages at a rate of 80 to 90 percent uh across the globe, which means every other people group only makes up at most 20% compared to Christians. But Christians are the largest people group of adoptions across the board. We we represent 5% of them. Uh the next largest people group is like 1.8%. So that means if you if you pull together 25 Christian families, one of them has adopted somebody. And when you consider that that's absolutely, I mean, the next biggest one would be a group of almost 60 to get one. When you consider what that does and how abortion hurts the heart of God, when you consider that it's Christians who are putting their money where their mouth is to bless the heart of God in a way that no one really can. And then when you consider it's not just American Christians, it's worldwide, which means there are a lot of Christians who aren't even financially able to adopt. So the numbers, especially in America, are larger than just 5%. The Christians of America are blessing God's heart by doing what you and your wife have done. And for an issue that so matters to God to be on the front lines uh fighting against the world's accusations of us. I just honor you guys for that. And all the other families who have stepped into that role and will step into that role because of your story and already have because of your story, but will because of this today. They bless God's heart in a way that they don't recognize.
SPEAKER_00Very good. Well, we hope you have enjoyed the Family Business Podcast with the Alesssies and anything you may want to ask, any questions you may want to have, uh, contact us. And the information is below. I would be glad, and I know David and Paolo will be glad uh to connect with you and help you with some of those questions you may have about adoption. Thanks for joining us today.
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