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It Is Written

John Bradshaw

Conversations with Vernon and Debbie Newman

When Vernon and Debbie Newman were younger, they had a life-changing experience.

Some years later, they had another life-changing experience.

Vern and Debbie, thank you very much for being here.

I know we're going to have a fun time talking about some experiences in your lives that I think many people can relate to and maybe everybody needs to relate to.

So Why don't we start right at the beginning of this story.

Take me back to where you think this start is.

Okay, well, I guess I can say it started when Vern and I first met each other.

We were in elementary school and he was the new boy in school.

Moved to the area and we, A group of us that were growing up in our area just became really good friends.

So we started a small relationship, and that relationship grew into 1 that was not a healthy relationship.

Okay, so you weren't as young as young could be.

Yeah, just turned 20 and just really beginning life.

And Vernon had just started, finished college and was working and we weren't ready to be parents.

And we knew we had to tell our parents, so we chose to tell my parents.

See, my parents, my father was a minister.

And for some reason we felt that it would be easier sharing the story with her parents rather than broaching my parents with the story.

So we told them and their response was...

And I thought for sure they were going to say, well, you're going to have an abortion.

And so I quickly said, I'm not having an abortion.

And then my father said, then we're putting the baby up for adoption.

What did that feel like to hear those words?

I felt really, I felt that they didn't take the time to see how it was affecting me.

I knew that becoming pregnant was not the smart thing.

Vernon was working at the time for Pine Forge Academy.

So you know the whole situation wasn't a good 1 but I did not think my parents were going to tell me that that I had to give my baby up and I've had people say well you were 20 you could have made your own decision but when you're still living at home yeah yeah and I had yet begun to work I had just started and I knew we needed more than just me if I was gonna keep this baby.

There's a lot of interesting things going on here.

So you both were from good Christian families, right?

Your dad was a minister, so there was some added pressure there.

You'd just begun working at a Christian high school, a church-run high school, so there's a little added pressure there.

So we're seeing kind of 2 sides of the same coin.

You're saying, I wasn't ready, yet your parents were the 1 who sort of made that decision for you.

You mentioned that you were young, you were living at home, but as your friends have said, you said, you were 20.

So how did you wrestle through this when the decision seemed to have been taken out of your hands.

Well, I guess we had to look at each other and see how serious we were with each other.

Were we ready to possibly marry and raise a family?

Were we even at that stage in our relationship?

And I think after Verna and I sat and kind of talked about it, we realized as far as a relationship for the 2 of us, we couldn't really say that we were in love with each other, so we really wanted to be together as a family.

So I think it was the easy way out by just going along with what my parents wanted.

Was it the right decision to put your baby up for adoption?

Well, at the time, because of social and religious pressures, and the shame of it, and so forth, I thought that was an option, and probably the more viable option for us.

But looking back at it, it was definitely not the right decision.

Because at the time, I felt I was not prepared.

Although I was doing mature things, obviously it led to this, but I wasn't mature enough to support a family and be a husband and a father.

I grew up in an environment without a father.

Having been adopted at the age of 8 from an orphanage in South Korea, I had no father figure to help me in those formative years to see how a father conducted himself.

Although later, you know, I had my father that adopted me.

He was very loving, but I think the formative years set the stage for me.

And that plays into later when we talk about our ministry.

But I just wasn't ready and so we went with the easier course at the time.

So Debbie's parents were pretty certain, pretty settled, this is the road you've got to take.

You've had a child out of marriage, we don't see a future for the 2 of you raising this child, we think...

And I don't know that they ever found out.

No, not until Corey came into our life again.

Yeah, yeah, because I guess I need to let the cat out of the bag a little bit here, we're going to get to the place where the son you adopted out ended up coming back into your lives.

You also said adopting Corey out wasn't the right decision for you.

How do you, I'm getting into crystal ball gazing here, but you've been asked this before I'm certain.

How do you see things going had you made the decision at 20 years old to keep your baby?

Well, you know, after he was born, the doctor asked me, are you planning on seeing the baby at all?

And I also asked to have 4 days with him.

And I think I needed to have a closure of it.

And, but when they brought him to me, I knew then that I couldn't put him up for adoption.

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Conversations with Vernon and Debbie Newman

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