What is a Family? | Rachel Van Kluyve | Episode 375

The Speakeasy

The Girl Named Blake

Religion & Spirituality, Christianity

4.8 • 3.3K Ratings

🗓️ 8 October 2025

⏱️ 40 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In this episode, Rachel Van Kluyve joins the conversation to share how God built her family in ways she never expected. What began as a discussion about transracial adoption—how God brought her two beautiful daughters into her family and the challenges that came with it—became a powerful reflection on obedience, trust, and doing the next right thing when God calls you into the unknown.

Rachel opens up about how her journey from DIY influencer to advocate, mother, and author has reshaped her understanding of faith and surrender. From walking through backlash and uncertainty to experiencing God’s unmistakable hand in the details, she reminds us that His plans are always better than our own—and that His timing is perfect.

Whether you’re navigating adoption, stepping into a new calling, or learning to trust God in unexpected turns, this conversation will encourage you to take the next faithful step and watch Him write a story far greater than you imagined.

This episode is brought to you by Angel Studios, whose mission is to tell stories that amplify light. Their newest family movie, SKETCH, captures the magic of imagination and the power of love and courage as a family faces challenges together. When you become a Premium Angel Guild member, you’ll receive two free tickets to see SKETCH in theaters and gain full access to their streaming library of inspiring films and series.

Subscribe to The Speakeasy YouTube Channel for more inspiring conversations:
👉 https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtqJ8I4hmCH-w3Cw4XzFZoQ

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Transcript

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0:00.0	One of my favorite things that happens with podcast episodes is when I go into it kind of with
0:04.7	a steam, with an idea of the direction that the conversation is going to go, and God takes
0:09.4	it a completely different way. And that definitely happened in this week's episode. So my friend
0:14.7	Rachel is on the show to talk about, I thought, talk about largely transracial adoption,
0:23.8	how God knit her family together and brought her two beautiful African-American daughters into the unit, the backlash that they faced,
0:29.2	the good, the bad, the ugly, how God called them to that.
0:32.3	And we definitely talked about a majority of those things.
0:35.4	But what I found was we ended up spending a lot more time talking about
0:39.3	just doing the next right thing. How often we, when walking with God, we want the big picture.
0:46.3	We want to know where God is taking us and what he is doing, how he's going to do it. And over and over,
0:53.5	God just keeps asking his people, trust me, take the step that I'm going to do it. And over and over, God just keeps asking his people, trust me,
0:57.5	take the step that I have put in front of you in faithfulness and trust me. And that is so the
1:02.8	theme of Rachel's story. And let's be honest, it's the theme of my story as well. And so much of
1:08.0	this conversation ended up coming back to, God asked me to do this thing.
1:12.4	And I didn't expect it to go the way that it did. And he was still faithful. And look what he
1:17.2	has done and what he has taught me and how he can impact the world when we're obedient in that.
1:23.4	And so her wisdom is really encouraging. Her story is really beautiful.
1:28.1	She has a new children's book that she's written.
1:30.4	And we touched on that as well.
1:32.0	But all together, I just love when God leads in these conversations.
1:36.8	And this is definitely one of those where he did that.
1:48.3	Oh, Rachel, welcome to the show.
	...

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