What started it all...

by Bucky Rogers

​Founder of Benjamin House Ministries

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Xan Rogers, Bucky and Julie Rogers son

I sat in an airplane on the way home from Birmingham, Alabama with one thing running through my mind…”How in the world am I going to tell Julie?”  I hadn’t done anything wrong.  My conscience was clear.  But we had determined in our pre-marital counselling that we weren’t having any kids.  Both of us had incredibly rebellious siblings that made our parents’ lives like hell for years, and selfishly we didn’t want anything to do with that.  But that was all changing for me.
I had very suddenly gotten a desire to pursue international adoption that I tried for days to ignore.  Quickly, though, it dominated my thoughts.  Everywhere I looked I saw reminders that I needed to pursue this.  I was miserable.  I knew what Julie was going to say.  We didn’t have any money and international adoption ranges from $25,000-$35,000 to complete.  We didn’t have space in our little seminary house.  We didn’t have a support network of grandparents who lived nearby.  We were 24 years old.  Nothing in this made sense.  But I knew we had to do it.
So as I arrived home, I simply said, “Julie, we need to talk.”  I spilled my guts about all that I thought God was calling us to do, and she started crying.  I thought, “Man, you’ve messed up this time!”  She then said that she had been praying that God would bend my heart toward adoption for many months.  She quietly prayed, and waited, and He did just that.  With no money in the bank, and no reason for any government to say we were ready to be parents, we started the process.  About a year later, we got off the airplane with our little Xan.  We were met with a huge crowd of cheers and well-wishers, many of which had sacrificed greatly to help us fund the adoption.  God had provided every single dime we needed.
Rewind a few days to when we were sitting in the hotel in Guatamala after having met Xan (a 6 month old FAT baby boy!).  He was getting to know us, we were getting to know him, and no one was sleeping.  I walked through the halls of the hotel with him at 3am and something struck me.  I expected to feel a tinge of anger…maybe asking myself how a woman could just abandon such a tiny and precious little boy.  I expected to hold his birth mother in some fault.  But, I confess, I had a much different reaction.  Xan’s birth mother had been raped.  She had a choice at that moment to terminate the pregnancy, or to give our beautiful Xan-man life.  I thank God every day that she chose to shelve her own emotional turmoil and put his life first.  She is one of my heroes and Xan will always know his birth mother is a giant in our eyes.
The truth is, there are hundreds of thousands of young girls around the world who are just like Xan’s birth mom.  They’re being faced with horrible circumstances and huge decisions.  For many of them there are few options.  That’s not the way it has to be.  Through Benjamin House we will provide a place of hope and healing for young women who are being faced with similar circumstances.  They won’t have to choose between eating or providing for their baby.  The gut wrenching decision of whether or not to keep their baby will become increasingly lighter.  Maybe you have some of those circumstances in your past.  Maybe you’ve questioned God as to why He would allow something like that in your life.  Maybe this moment is the answer to your question.  Maybe He wants you to stand with these many many other girls, holding their hands and telling them there is hope and a future.  Regardless of whether you can board a plane and physically sit beside them or not, you can stand with us at Benjamin House and hold their hand through your prayers and your giving.  Every dollar gives life to children, hope to mothers, restoration to families, and healing to a nation.  Hop on and let’s #BuildBenjaminHouse.

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