{"id":1357,"date":"2017-02-27T02:09:08","date_gmt":"2017-02-27T02:09:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thecrimsonroad.wordpress.com\/?page_id=2"},"modified":"2018-11-12T07:02:35","modified_gmt":"2018-11-12T07:02:35","slug":"about","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/www.ourauthenticfamily.com\/index.php\/about\/","title":{"rendered":"About"},"content":{"rendered":"

Peter Thomas<\/strong> lives with his wife Vanita, and \u00a0adopted their two older children Sandeep and Sneha Ruth in 1998. Having completed a doctorate in Theoretical Physics in TIFR , India, He and his wife moved to\u00a0New York\/New Jersey, and lived there for almost 10 years. They made another major move across the country to Redmond, Washington in 2003, because his hectic work schedule prevented him from being able to spend the time he needed with his family. Their\u00a0youngest daughter Sarah Rachna was born a year after this move. \u00a0Looking back at the many ups and downs of life, Peter\u00a0can clearly trace the faithful, gracious, and relentlessly loving hand of God, leading and guiding him and his family, and also gently disciplining and restoring him every time he wandered.<\/strong>\u00a0His son Sandeep was recently married to Shirley, and they live nearby. Having experienced the thrill of knowing God first hand,\u00a0Peter enjoys sharing\u00a0about this amazing experience with others.\u00a0He and Vanita also passionately believe that adoption is very close to the heart of God<\/strong>,\u00a0because it\u00a0is a powerful reflection of how God Himself brings all\u00a0who put their trust in Jesus into His own\u00a0family, on the basis of Jesus’\u00a0death and glorious resurrection. \u00a0As the Bible says: …\u00a0to all who received Him, who believed in his Name, He gave the right to become children of God<\/em> (John 1:12).<\/p>\n

Vanita Thomas<\/strong> is the privileged, beloved, adopted daughter of the God of the universe who has been chosen\u00a0<\/strong>to inherit the riches of His glory one day<\/strong>! \u00a0She is Peter’s wife, mother of Sandeep, Sneha Ruth and Sarah Rachna and the\u00a0mother-in-love<\/em> of Shirley. She is an Engineer and Business Information Specialist who chose to step out of\u00a0her career in order to dedicate her life to the far harder task of loving and caring for her beloved children when they began their adoption journey 19 years ago. God’s call on her life to be\u00a0an adoptive mom has been amazingly beautiful but has also been an extremely hard marathon. She has the added privilege to be mom to a biological daughter who is her baby girl as well as to her daughter-in-love. She blogs about her joys and sorrows on this journey knowing that she stands only by the grace of God! Peter and Vanita hope to celebrate their 25th anniversary this year by God’s grace. \u00a0“To endure the cross is not tragedy; suffering is the fruit of an exclusive allegiance to Jesus Christ.”<\/strong> – Dietrich Bonhoeffer<\/p>\n

Sandeep Thomas<\/strong> is married to to his beautiful bride Shirley who is the love of his life. God brought them together from the ends of the earth in an amazing way. He was adopted by\u00a0Peter and Vanita Thomas. Years ago he faced horrible tragedy and trauma as a young child in India, and seemed destined for a life of poverty and despair. However, in the providence of God he was adopted at age 6. and this\u00a0dramatically changed the course of his life. By adopting him and relinquishing their hopes and dreams, his parents mirrored what Christ did for them in\u00a0coming down to save and adopt them into His own family<\/strong>. \u00a0He predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will…<\/em> (Ephesians 1:5).. The trauma he went through not only affected him, but his parents as well. \u00a0He was very rebellious, angry and felt that he was not loved by his own family. After 11 years of failure, hardship, and many struggles, Sandeep surrendered his life to Jesus and was transformed from the inside by the grace of God.<\/strong> Today a UW graduate, he is a national speaker who raises awareness of adoption and virtual education and works as a Service Manager in Wells Fargo. His passion is to help adoptees and adoptive or foster parents find their hope in Jesus through his life story.<\/p>\n

Shirley Thomas<\/strong> is married to Sandeep. She was born to parents-Stanley Ebenezer and Emily Stanley, and moved from Bangalore, India to the US after her marriage. She and Sandeep presently\u00a0reside in Redmond, WA. \u00a0Her life is a testimony to God’s abundant grace and faithfulness. When Shirley was nine years old, her father suffered a massive stroke, which left him paralyzed. This left a deep impact on her life and God used this hard experience to show her the desperate need for the saving grace of Jesus. The pain her family went through taught her what it meant\u00a0to be broken, and through this she experienced God’s\u00a0power that was made perfect in her weakness. This is\u00a0described in her favorite verse:\u00a0He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness”. Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0(2 Cor 12:9-10). Jesus offers the same\u00a0gracious and loving relationship with anyone who believes, \u00a0and He is the One who\u00a0has\u00a0carried her through.<\/p>\n

Ruth Thomas<\/strong> is the an\u00a0adopted child of Peter and Vanita Thomas – now a young adult. Adopted from India, after her birth mother gave her up for adoption, Ruth struggled for many years, asking how God could allow her to be abandoned by her birth mother, if He was good. The ensuing confusion about her identity and associated insecurity, caused her to rebel and fight against her parents, and refusing to accept Jesus’ gift of forgiveness. However, God continued to pursue her heart, and\u00a0she finally realized her desperate need for a Savior. In October of 2016, she surrendered her life to Jesus Christ, and asked Him to transform her from the inside out.<\/strong> She is still a work-in-progress, just like the rest of us. Her desire is\u00a0to use her creative talents such as singing and painting, to let\u00a0other similarly confused adoptees know about the\u00a0life and hope that is available in Jesus. She is currently working towards a\u00a0Digital Marketing degree, and hopes to use her abilities to glorify Jesus.<\/span><\/div>\n

Rachna Sarah Thomas <\/strong>is the youngest daughter of Peter and Vanita, and also chosen by Jesus to be His precious daughter.\u00a0But God shows<\/i>\u00a0His\u00a0love for us in that while<\/i> we were still<\/i> sinners<\/i>, Christ died for us<\/i>. (Romans 5:8). She is a virtual public school and a home-school student, and her favorite subjects are Math and Biology. Apart from hanging out or chatting with her friends, she enjoys reading, knitting, leading worship at church, Indian dancing and solving Math\/logic puzzles.\u00a0However, she has also had to live under her siblings’ trauma her entire life, which has been very painful for her. \u00a0She thus has a love-hate relationship with adoption.\u00a0She hates adoption because it represents the suffering and losses her brother and sister have gone through, which poured out to the rest of her family. She also loves adoption, because that is a big part of how her\u00a0special family was formed, and because she knows that God used adoption to bring her into His family!<\/b>\u00a0Rachna desires to walk with Jesus all her life, and to love her family. She\u00a0blogs about the unique challenges of her life as a younger sibling of adoptees.\u00a0She<\/b> hopes<\/b> to challenge<\/b> other siblings of adoptive\/foster kids through<\/b> her<\/b> blog<\/b> to<\/b> keep their eyes on Jesus<\/b> during the <\/b>hard battle years<\/b>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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