In many ways, Rocky Coyle's life has all the elements of a traditional American story: He's a former professional baseball player, a devoted husband, father and grandfather, a community volunteer, a role model to many boys.
But these days, Coyle, 50, part-time pastor of a small Durham church, and his wife, Debbie, are writing a new chapter in that story, following the lead of others who are changing the face of the American family. Next month, they will fly to India to adopt a 5-year-old girl named Swati.
Mixed-race families are one of the nation's fastest-growing demographics, up an estimated 35 percent since 2000, driven largely by immigration and intermarriage. But in recent years, evangelical Christians have contributed to the trend by reaching across the oceans and adopting orphaned children from abroad.
Coyle's church, Journey Fellowship, is a traditional Southern Baptist congregation. Yet even this tiny group of about 25 members is growing more cosmopolitan by the day. Among its members is a woman from Panama and a man from Kenya.
The Coyles, a hardworking couple of limited means - Rocky teaches baseball, Debbie works at a Hallmark store - believe they are called to help others, wherever they are.
"Our life here is not about us," Coyle said. "It's about other people."
For Coyle, serving others has become a way of life.
A native of Phoenix, Coyle said he started playing baseball when he was still in diapers. In 1978, he was Arizona's high school baseball player of the year. At the University of Arizona, he was the captain of the Wildcats baseball team. Later he was drafted to play professionally, first for the Oakland A's, then for the Toronto Blue Jays.
Then, five years into his career, he quit. The life of a pro athlete is a life on the road, and Coyle, who by then had met and married Debbie and fathered a son, wanted to put family first.
It's a decision he never regretted. In the years that followed he dedicated himself to teaching kids to play ball, eventually becoming a Southern Baptist youth minister and pastor. In 1995, the Coyles, along with son, Joshua, and daughter, Rachel, settled in Hillsborough.
Coyle founded 4Life Inc., a nonprofit dedicated to coaching kids not only in baseball, but in life skills such as confidence, leadership and character.
At a pitching camp at Durham's Northern High School last Saturday, Coyle delivered one of his trademark motivational talks to a group of 10- to 16-year-old boys. He peppered them with stories about his dad who loved him unconditionally but demanded he give 100 percent of his ability. He told them the thing he hated most was a selfish player. And he encouraged them to take people, not things, seriously.
"Don't ever take for granted the people who love you," he said.
The kids, who saw Coyle tear up at the end, nodded appreciatively.
When he was done, he did what he does every Saturday; he took his wife out on a "date."
'What can I do?'
Debbie Coyle said the idea of adoption came to her one day two years ago when a woman she knew walked into the card store where she worked accompanied by a Hispanic child who called her "mommy."
Debbie Coyle's own children were already grown. In fact, she had two grandchildren. Yet she didn't feel she was finished giving.
"I thought, 'What can I do?' I want to make a difference in life,'" she said. "There has to be something else."
The next day she approached Rocky, who was thinking along much the same lines.
It was their daughter, Rachel, 22, who had just seen the movie "Slumdog Millionaire," about a teen in the Mumbai slums, who suggested looking in India.
The Coyles soon found an agency that could match them up with a child from Hyderabad. They learned they could save on adoption fees by taking in a child with a medical condition.
Swati, the black-eyed girl the Coyles are adopting, suffered burns on one of her hands that required the removal of her pinky.
Ready to go get her
The Coyles have yet to meet her, but Rocky has already affixed a photo of Swati to a chain hanging from his car's rearview mirror. Debbie slipped her picture into an album she carries in her purse.
"I've never felt more at peace about anything in my life," Rocky said.
The couple plan to call the girl Swati-Leah, because they already have a daughter named Rachel, and Leah was her biblical sister. They're certain they are stepping out in faith, and their church is supporting them, emotionally as well as financially.
"I see how Rocky is with children, and I think how lucky this girl will be," said Frances Sykes, a member of his church.
If everything works out as they expect, Swati may not be the only child they take in. The couple is already thinking of adoption No. 2.
"I try to make choices for people instead of things," Rocky said. "What better thing than to invest in a life?"
