Category: Eric-odellhein

Celebrate Lit Blog Tour - Finding My Son by Eric Odell-Hein + Interview & Guest Post & Giveaway

11/13/2019

Eric was perfectly happy being one half of a dual income, no kids family. Having the freedom to travel the world with his wife Christine, while indulging his hobbies and furthering his education and career, was a pretty sweet life.

Christine wanted to be a mom.

Though he was scared he didn’t have what it took to be a good dad, Eric wanted to fulfill his wife’s dream. After years of trying to conceive, however, the couple received a devastating diagnosis: infertility.

For Christine, adoption was the obvious answer. Eric wasn’t so sure.

In Finding My Son: A Father’s Adoption Journey, author Eric Odell-Hein offers an unfiltered view into the heart and mind of a man who has experienced the sometimes messy and often awkward process of becoming a father through adoption. Encouraging men to acknowledge the fears they don’t want to admit

while advocating a thoughtful, deliberate transparency as the best approach to even the most unnatural, uncomfortable aspects of the adoption process. Eric shares his misgivings and mistakes with an honesty that does not deny his insecurities.

A valuable resource for any man considering growing his family through adoption—or anyone seeking to understand the process—this engaging memoir is a testament to the beautiful gift of adoption and a touching account of a father’s love.

Genre: Christian Memoir, Adoption
Release Date: February 21, 2018

Click here to get your copy!

Interview with Eric

#1. What did you find the most difficult while writing this book? The most difficult part of writing this book was trying to find a balance between being transparent and authentic about such a personal experience without sharing to a point of distraction. In order to communicate effectively about my feelings and approach to adoption—both the good and the bad I brought with me—I had to share some amount of personal background, experiences, and feelings. While it was very important to me that this book be as genuine as possible, and identifying and dealing with my own flaws was an intrinsic, valuable part of the adoption experience, it was tough for me to identify necessary information versus extraneous data. In the end, I decided to start by oversharing, and my editor, Sanda Byrd, was incredible in helping me dial in the successive drafts and strike the right balance. Editors are not your enemy—they are your best friend!

#2. What do you hope your readers will take away with them when they read this book?
When making a major life decision, I think many people subconsciously start their decision-making process by launching off from of an idea of their ideal self: who they think they ought to be or aspire to be as opposed to how they actually are at that moment in time. This is something I became cognizant of as we went through the adoption process. There are so many deliberations and decisions that people are forced to make when adopting that aren’t choices they have to make through natural conception and childbirth. What medical backgrounds in the adoptive child’s family was I willing to accept?

What past history of drugs or alcohol in the father or mother? What about ethnicity—is there prejudice in my immediate or extended family? What age of child was I willing to adopt? The list of issues prospective adoptive families are forced to think about is quite long. I decided to carefully examine the reality of where I was actually at as opposed to where I ideally would be. I didn’t think making decisions based on social expectations or self-imposed pressure was best for any child we would adopt. This led to many difficult conversations and lots of self-analysis. Some people may disapprove of the choices we made, but I’m okay with that. You can’t improve your life or effectively help others improve theirs without first being grounded in the reality of how you actually are. I hope readers realize the importance of an intentional, authentic effort to identify how you actually are and what you bring to the table—both positive and negative—when starting to make significant life choices.

#3. How has writing about this particular topic changed your own life? The process of writing this book forced me to look back at the series of events and choices that shaped my life—both my own decisions and the impact of decisions that other people made—and find a coherent string of connectedness. In turn, this has helped me structure my own thoughts and shape my story, which I in turn get to share with other people who are considering adoption. A few months ago I was on a business trip where I delivered privacy training to key members of a video game studio on down in Newport Beach. During one of the private meetings, an employee mentioned that adoption was something he or she was considering. Because I had gone through the process of organizing my thoughts and writing this book, I was able to share valuable insights in a concise and effective fashion, as opposed to what would have otherwise been loosely connected personal rambling.

#4. What demographic do you think this book will appeal to the most?
I think there is value for anyone who has adopted or is considering adoption as well as for people who were themselves adopted. Really anyone with an interest in families or parenthood will find the material appealing. My own son has read the book and loves it, and my extended family has been surprised by the amount they were able take away from reading it even though they were there for the actual events described in the book. From outside my family, I’ve received a lot notes describing how accurately this book represented their own adoptive parent experience and helped them process their own feelings.

#5. What drew you to write non-fiction versus fiction? As a child, I wanted to be a storyteller and world-builder in the vein of J.R.R. Tolkien. But in my late twenties and early thirties, I discovered a love of non-fiction and instructive writing while working through my various degree programs. As a result, I discovered some level of aptitude in writing non-fiction with an emphasis on academic analysis. I started out by authoring two books based on my master’s thesis and doctoral dissertation (Recovering Lost Treasure, Systems of Evil). The first was an attempt to bring academic analysis of ancient religious patterns down to a semi-popular level. The second was strictly academic and targeted for serious researchers and academics. Finding My Son is my first book that is truly meant for a general audience. I still harbor a desire to write a work of fiction, but my true love is to write things from which people can derive practical value. If anyone in any location is able to find something in one of my books that impacts their life, then my journey as an author has been worthwhile.

Bonus. Share with us a thought, Bible verse, whatever is on your mind/heart. John 1:51 has become my favorite verse: “And He [Jesus] said to him, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, you will see the heavens opened and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.’" To get an idea of the significance of this passage, read the story of Jacob’s dream back in Genesis 28:10-22. Jesus explicitly points to himself as the ultimate hierophany and axis mundi: the point of connection between heaven and humankind. I just love this.

More from Eric

Adoption was a scary prospect for me. My mother and all her siblings are adopted, and the family dynamic for them was challenging. So when my wife decided we should adopt, I initially responded with a flat-out “no.” But my heart changed, and I am strongly convinced that our son, who joined us via adoption back in 2008 when he was just two days old, is the greatest child in the entire world. If you knew where I was emotionally prior to adoption compared with where I am now, you would marvel at the change. My adoption book is for people like me, particularly men, who struggle with the enormity of the choice to adopt and the constant challenges of the process.

On a lighter and more personal side, when people learn about all the various aspects of my life, they often have to stop and process the seemingly incongruous pieces. Some people know me as a guy who has spent more than two decades in software and entertainment, primarily in various aspects of behind-the-scenes video game technology and management. My entire family plays games, and more often than not, when I get back home in the evening, I find my wife and son online with other members of the extended family playing Minecraft. Sometimes we’ll all get in an online session together, each one of us at our own TV on our own Xbox, and take on bad guys together in one game or another.

Other people know my intellectual side, where I have earned several degrees in areas of theology and religion, including a Ph.D., as well as serving as president of Columbia Evangelical Seminary. I previously published two books on academic topics (evil among world religions, religious symbology) and have more in various stages of development, the next one being a focus on the ancient Near Eastern (ANE) cosmogonic/chaos-order symbolism in baptism. As a teaching pastor, I have a reputation for sermons with an intense ANE contextual emphasis that are part sermon and part seminary course. Check out my most recent four-part series on the Odell-Hein Books Facebook page here.

I was born in Germany to an American family, and while my German-language skills have deteriorated, I love German music. I’m very excited that my favorite group, Juli, has a new album coming out later this year. It’s mild stuff compared to most of the rock or industrial music I listen to, but they’re good. Check out the first single from their upcoming album here. I’ll be one of the small handful of Americans who purchase the album on the day it first releases in the US.

When not working or playing games with the family, I read primarily academic ANE books. When we’re in the car, I love to subject the family to my go-to podcast, the Naked Bible Podcast. No, it’s not what it sounds like. If you want to hear a serious scholar tackle the ANE context for the Bible, start with Dr. Michael Heiser’s Exodus series (it begins with episode 255).

Eric Odell-Hein

Eric Odell-Hein (PhD, MDiv, MRS, ThB) is the president of Columbia Evangelical Seminary. The teaching pastor at Summit Evangelical Free Church, he is also the author of Recovering Lost Treasure: Finding Christ in Ancient Myth, Symbol, and Ritual and Systems of Evil: A Study in Comparative Theodicy. Eric lives in the beautiful Pacific Northwest with his wife Christine and their son Ephraim. All three are passionate travelers.