“One thing I am perfectly sure, is God’s story never ends with ashes.” -Elisabeth Elliot.
No truer words were spoken to reflect what my adoptive mother has gone through. From a life of pain and turmoil to beauty and redemption. When my mother (Luana Stoltenberg) was at the young age of fifteen, she became pregnant with her then boyfriend. Being raised catholic, they were soon married. Shortly after they were married, my mother ended up having a miscarriage. The miscarriage and their immaturity led to divorce. After the divorce she ended up getting pregnant again. She chose to terminate the pregnancy which caused her to drink more heavily, abuse drugs, and live a promiscuous lifestyle. These decisions led to two more abortions and several suicide attempts. As we know abortion is not a “quick fix to a problem,” in fact it causes more problems, physically, emotionally and spiritually.
My mom gave her life to the Lord and truly changed the lifestyle she was living after talking with her mother who had recently become a Christian. During that conversation, her mother was telling her how much she loved her and how much more God loved her. Without even knowing my mom’s past, she said “I love you so much that there’s nothing you could do to cause me not to love you. You could have even killed someone and I would still love you…can you imagine how much more God must love you?” My mother met my father (Stephen) shortly thereafter. They were married and began trying to start a family, but due to the trauma the abortions had caused on my mom’s body, she was not able to have any more biological children. Through a lot of prayer and spiritual healing, my parents began the process of adoption. This is where my story begins.
Through the help of The Love Basket Adoption Agency, Hillsboro, Missouri and The Concord House of India orphanage in Madras; the Indian government released me to what would become my forever home with my forever family after two long years. November 8, 1990 at the age of two, I landed in St. Louis, Missouri to begin living the life God had planned. The prayers of His beloved were answered.
Being raised in a Christian home where prayer and worship was the bedrock, it seemed only natural that worship would be a huge part of my life and really the way I communicate with God. When I was at the age of 12-13, I believe the Lord birthed in me a vision of starting an adoption agency. A place where the unwanted became wanted. A place where love could choose to heal the hurts of abandonments and restore the broken.
This became a destiny for my life. I have been currently serving in the United States Air Force the last eight years and have not been able to pursue this dream as fast as I would like to. I recently came back from my second deployment to Afghanistan and felt the Lord nudging me, to run after the dream faster and harder than ever before. I have prayed over the past couple of years for the opportunity to share my story of adoption with those who I truly believe you care for the outcasts, the least of these, the unwanted, and the unborn.
My mother has dedicated her life for the past 30 years speaking on behalf of those who cannot speak for themselves. She has been a trailblazer in the pro-life movement. Speaking at large venues, such as Washington for Jesus (DC), Lou Engle’s The Call events and to many political leaders. She has traveled to the nations sharing her story in hopes that women would choose life. In 2015, she had the opportunity to speak before a congressional judiciary committee to defund Planned Parenthood during a senate hearing for the Life at Conception bill that was being presented in Iowa. My mom was one of the pro-life leaders that was sharing her story to get that bill passed. She has recently finished her first book; Singing in the Wilderness, which is to be released December 2017.
Having a front row seat to the pro-life movement my whole life, it is no surprise that I want to help overturn Roe vs. Wade by reducing the amount of abortions that are performed through the alternative options such as adoption. The Lord has called me to build an adoption placement agency called Love’s Chosen. I want to focus on infants that have been abandoned at a fire/police station through the Safe Haven law. I would love to defy odds, by encouraging families to adopt children over the age of five, as according to statistics they are much harder to adopt and end up getting shuffled around the foster care system. My work with the Tim Tebow Foundation’s Night to Shine has drawn me into the special needs community and I would love to find those amazing families who are willing to help mend hearts, develop lives and create forever families.
To some they may look at my story and see someone who was destined for nothing more than the orphanage had to offer. I look at my story and see God. I see the heart of our Father. A heart that pursues His beloved. I see passion. I see love. Most of all I see forgiveness. I have often been asked if I want to meet my birth parents. Have I ever wondered who they are… I will say this. Yes. Yes, I want to meet them and say thank you. Thank you for being selfless and letting me go so that God could use my life to heal someone’s past. To show them what grace and forgiveness really looks like. I would say thank you for loving me enough, to give me an opportunity at life and more importantly a relationship with Jesus. I guess what I am saying is, I would say thank you for giving me LIFE.
Zac Stoltenberg
loveschosen@gmail.com
Mending Hearts, Developing Lives, Creating Forever Families