Full of Personality

They're My Children

Most of the craziest conversations I have with strangers happen at grocery stores.  Yesterday was no exception.  The kids and I dropped by Walmart to grab a couple of things we'd run out of.  Since it was a quick trip, I was letting them help me push the cart.  Near the back of the store, an older black man passed by us and said, with a hint of sarcasm in his voice, "well they look just like you."  I smiled at him and kept walking (remember that I have two three year olds helping me push the cart!).  Though he was behind us now, he called back out to me, "what are you, a day care?"  I looked back at him and politely said "no, sir" in a way that I hoped would end the conversation.  As we were walking, he called out a final time, "what, CPS?"  I looked back at him again and said politely but with more firmness, "no sir, they're my children," and kept walking.

I am amazed sometimes at the boldness and rudeness of strangers.  As our kids grow up, I'm sure they'll be asked questions at times too, and we're trying to equip them with knowledge so they will be able to answer them graciously and well, and not be shaken by them.

We recently bought a children's adoption book called On the Far Side of Poplar Pond, and the kids and I have been reading it just about every day (mostly because my son likes the part where the duck and turtle splash in the water).  I love it because it portrays the birth mother in a positive light at the beginning and end of the book, it doesn't view questions as threatening, it talks about how looking like one another isn't what makes a family, it emphasizes that when a child is adopted the new family is forever, and most importantly, it talks about how adoption is God's idea - He adopts us as His children when we trust in His Son Jesus.  I hope to also eventually buy Chosen by Love, which Noel Piper recommends, though it seems to be a book that would be better for when the kids are a little older.

I've seen a few articles floating around on the internet written by black individuals that had been adopted as children by white parents.  Some of them speak of identity struggles.  But I've noticed a trend.  Those articles are never written by Christians.  And that's why those articles don't scare me.  Because Jesus is where our hope lies, and it's in Him that our true identity is found.  For every article I've seen where an adult that doesn't trust in Jesus struggles with identity, I can think of another case where a follower of Jesus has a close, loving relationship with their parents and peers.  I blogged about one example here, and am inspired by another example here.    

We live in a world where our identity in Christ will be constantly challenged by those who do not know what the Bible says or believe it to be true.  But praise God, He has told us the truth in His Word about who He is and who we are.  If we trust in Jesus's death on the cross in our place, if we look to Him as Lord and as the greatest treasure of our life, we are God's true children.

So I'm not surprised that when God has made our family a picture of the adoption that takes place when He makes us His children, the world would attack it at times.  But the reality is that God has made them our true children.  What a joy!  And what motivation to respond to others with grace and truth, just as God has shown to us.

Three Favorite People

Feeling thankful today for these three.  I love living life with them!

The Horror of Gosnell’s Crimes

Please, I beg you to read this article by our friend Denny Burk and watch the documentary.  I feel overwhelmed and at a loss for words, but be assured that even without my ability to try to persuade you that it's worth your time, it is.  There is a holocaust happening among us.  

As Denny says in a previous post about it:

This documentary is very difficult to watch. But I believe it is one of those things that you need to watch. We dare not turn our eyes away from the evil of abortion. We need to face head-on just how much the culture of death has debased us. One of the witnesses describes a nurse playing with a baby for several minutes before severing its spine. It’s hard to imagine that such things could happen among us, but they do. 

Next Tuesday marks the 40th anniversary of Roe v. Wade. Since that decision came down on January 22, 1973, over 50 million unborn human beings have been killed legally in the United States. That is more than eight times the people who died in the Holocaust. Without question, abortion-on-demand is the greatest human rights crisis of our time. How can we possibly ignore this? 

Take time to watch this documentary. Weep. Pray.

Waiting Again

The waiting stage of adoption is not new to us.  In fact, I was talking with a friend last night about how often all of us have to wait for various things in life.  It's interesting for me to consider God's purpose in creating a world where so much waiting exists.  He could have designed it another way, but He didn't.  We wait nine months before a baby is born, we wait for exciting holidays or occasions to come around, we wait for the results of an exam or application, we wait while someone is in surgery, we wait for a spouses's military deployment to conclude, we wait for a change in our circumstances, we wait for a loved one in hospice to pass away, and most significantly, we wait for the return of our Savior, Jesus.

Not only is waiting such a common occurrence, it's also a frequently mentioned topic in the Bible. I did a search at esvbible.org for the word "wait," and there were 87 results.  So as I think about how to wait well, I've been praying and looking to God's word, which is "breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work." (2 Timothy 3:16-17)

Here is one of my initial thoughts: waiting has a lot to do with contentment.  If God has designed a world in which we experience times of waiting, and He has orchestrated our specific circumstances so that the thing we desire is not yet ours, we have two options.  We can wait patiently, trusting that God will do what is right, or we can be anxious and discontent.

I was talking with my son this morning about contentment.  I reminded him about all the marvels God has done in his life, and that he has so much to be grateful for!  I encouraged him that he can be content even when he has to wait to play with his trucks until his sister is done playing with them.  In fact, he should be more than content, he has reason to rejoice greatly!  I'm convicted that I should know better than my three year old.

I know that I am a dreadful sinner and deserve God's punishment eternally.  I know that He sent His own Son, Jesus, to pay the penalty for my sins so that I could be forgiven and spend eternity worshipping God.  I know that my life is full to overflowing with good gifts from my heavenly Father.

So I am resolved to wait more patiently, and to be content and joyful with exactly where God has me.  My hope should not be set on finally receiving the thing I've been waiting for.  The reality is that even if God does not add a single other child to our family, we have much to rejoice in and be grateful for.  My hope should be set on Jesus.  He is where my joy and peace are found.

Psalm 39:7  And now, O Lord, for what do I wait?  My hope is in You.

Ethiopia Waiting List Number

At the beginning of each month we'll receive our waiting list number for a referral from Ethiopia.  Today we got our first one:

109

That's a big number.  It looks like the people that are receiving referrals now waited about 14-15 months total, and we'll have to wait at least that long or longer.  We've talked about increasing the age on our home study to approve us for two children from Ethiopia ages 0-3 instead of ages 0-2, just so that our options are open.  We have to update our home study anyway, because we've been in process so long that our immigration paperwork will expire in September.  We'll see what the Lord has in store!

Our Profile Added to the Pool

We got a letter from Life Choices letting us know that as of March 21, we've been approved as an adoptive home and our profile is now available to be viewed by adoption-minded women that come to their agency. It's surreal to think that at any time my phone could ring with a call that will dramatically and suddenly change our lives. I would love for it to happen soon, but I'm asking the Lord for patience and trust in His good, perfect timing.

Gotcha Day #3

In honor of the three year anniversary of meeting our children for the first time...



What a happy three years it has been!  What a delight and blessing they are to us!  God has been so very, very good!

Another Double Update

It's been very exciting that both our adoptions have been making progress lately!

Ethiopian Adoption:  The immigration approval that our agency told us usually takes 5-6 weeks to receive only took us 2 weeks!  We we were so thrilled to find it in our mailbox on Saturday.  We sent it to our agency, and we should be placed on the referral waiting list soon.  They estimate that it'll take about 14 months until we're matched with a child, and we'll receive monthly updates with our new number in line.  We're excited to be at this stage of the process!

Domestic Adoption:  We had our final joint interview on the phone with our agency today, and will both have an individual interview on Monday of next week.  Things are moving along well, and I'll start to put together our family profile this week.  I think after our individual interviews we'll be able to send in our family profile and then wait for a birth family to select us.

One thing I forgot to mention in my previous post (but have added now) about domestic adoption is that our agency lets us decide when we'd like to be informed that a birth mom has chosen our family.  We'd like to find out as soon as we're selected so that we can make plans.  But we could opt to wait to be told until after the 2 weeks that a birth mom has to change her mind.  So if that's a factor holding you back from domestic adoption, their very thoughtful option essentially eliminates you from experiencing a birth mom changing her mind.

Fears Related to Domestic Adoption

A friend emailed to ask some questions about domestic adoption, and I can almost guarantee that they're the same questions any of us have had if we've thought about domestic adoption.  In fact, they're probably the two main reasons that people shy away from adopting domestically.   

1. Waiting potentially for a very long time to be selected by the biological family  

2. Potentially losing the baby at the last minute because the birth mom changes her mind and decides to parent the baby

Of course, we know there are countless stories where #2 is not what happens. But both of these things can be concerning enough to make us pause before considering domestic adoption.

When I think of domestic adoption, at least at this point in our family, I think of #2 in particular.  It's the main reason we went with international adoption the first time around, though many of you know God worked in our hearts to stir up a love for international adoption as we went through the process.  

But God has changed our hearts about being fearful of a birth mom changing her mind.  I'm sure it's partly because this would not be our first child.  I think the grief would be different then.  Aside from that, our agency is just so excellent.  We know that they are counseling biological families with the gospel.  They seem very wise and compassionate.  They told us last week that 90% of the ladies they see are at risk for abortion.  90%!  Here are some of the notes I took while we were on the phone with them:

70-75% of the moms are African American and the majority of them are on Medicaid and struggle financially.   There is a counselor that each birth mom meets with regularly when she decides to make a birth plan for her child.  They don't coerce her or make her feel pressure, they want her to be educated about her options and feel good about her plan.  They have parenting classes and resources if the birth mom decides to raise her baby, and counseling whether she decides to keep her baby or make an adoption plan for her baby.  The counselor is experienced, and if our family is selected by a birth mom they would give our family an indication about how committed they think the birth mom is to her adoption plan.  This makes a big difference to us!  In Tennessee (where the agency is), birth moms cannot surrender their rights until 4 days after the birth, and then they have 10 days to change their mind.  The counselor would make a recommendation to us about when/whether to come to Memphis depending on their estimation of where the birth mom is at.  There are foster families they call Cradle Care that could take care of the baby until we arrive, if we and the counselor think it's best for us to wait to come until after that 2 week window.  We'll wait and see how it all works out depending on the circumstances.  If possible, we'd love to be there for the birth and stay for a couple of weeks to get to know the birth family and the city.  It's a risk, for sure, but we're just deciding to trust the Lord and not be fearful because it seems clear that He has directed us in this way.  

Families could also opt to wait to be informed by the agency that a birth mom has selected them until after the 2 week window has passed, so that would essentially remove the risk of your experience of a birth mom changing her mind.

As far as #1 (waiting a long time to be picked) there could always be factors that might decrease the length of time a family waits to be selected by a birth family.  Our agency has emphasized the family profile (pictures in particular) and the list of questions we answer, since those are the two things a birth mom will look at to make a decision about which family to choose.  Putting together a thoughtful family profile could make a big difference in how long a family waits.  For example, they mentioned once that birth moms tend to feel some amount of confidence that a family will love their child and welcome them readily if the family has already adopted before.  I'd think that expressing some positive things about friends that have adopted or our adoption in Christ would provide some amount of confidence for a birth mom too.  Our agency has also expressed that it's often important to birth moms that a family has diversity in their lives.  They've encouraged us to share details about the diversity among our friends, church, neighborhood, etc, and ways we might incorporate diversity in our family in the future.  But of course, we know it comes down to the fact that God builds a family.  He will place the right family on the right birth mother's heart if it is His will to do so.  

So if you're thinking about adopting domestically, depending on your situation, I'd say don't necessarily make a decision based on those two factors.  If God leads your family to adopt and to adopt domestically, He will work out what is right... and He even has a purpose in the loss of a potential baby if a birth mom decides to parent.  

Domestic Adoption and Dossier

Today was another exciting day of adoption progress!  Here are the updates:

Domestic Adoption:  We had an orientation conversation with our adoption agency on Monday, and we are more impressed with them and thankful for their ministry after every interaction.  Even though I thought it would take me a month or two to get the paperwork done... it only took 10 days!  God is gracious.  We mailed it off to Life Choices today, and we have our next phone conversation with them scheduled for this coming Monday.  After that, we'll put together a family profile, which is kind of like a scrapbook about our family.  Once we put it in the mail, our profile will begin to be shown to birth mothers.  It's surreal to think this is even possible, but our profile could begin being shown in 3-4 weeks!

Ethiopian Adoption: We had a few tweaks to make to our dossier after I emailed it to the agency for review.  Today I put it in the mail.  What a relief to have it behind us!  We probably have another month to go before we get our immigration approval about the change of country from Congo to Ethiopia.  Once we receive it, we'll email it to Lifeline and then our names can be added to the waiting list for a referral.  We hear that the referral wait time is about 14 months, so we're eager to begin that wait.

We're so thankful to the Lord for two excellent Christian agencies and the opportunity to grow our family through adoption!

Opportunity to Help Bring an Orphan into Her New Family!

Some of our dearest friends, our next door neighbors during seminary, are just days away from being able to fly to Congo to finish a long adoption process and bring their daughter home.  This precious couple has been working for the past year as church planters in Montana.  As you can imagine, funds do not typically abound when you're a church planter.  They are a few thousand dollars short of the money that they need in order to be able to travel... and that's where we come in!

Maybe you don't think that God is leading your family to adopt a child but you would still like to care for orphans, as the Bible instructs us to do.  Or maybe you have adopted and know the great need.  Either way, we would love for you to consider giving to our friends Noah and Brandy to help them complete the process of making a sweet little girl from Africa their daughter.  You can donate to them through a fundraising site they've set up via facebook HERE.  I know they would praise the Lord for His provision through us!

Forward Progress

The Lord gave us a little bit of progress with both our adoptions this past week.  Here's the latest:

Ethiopian adoption -- On Friday we finally collected the last piece of paperwork we needed for our Ethiopian dossier.  I can't tell you how excited I was to send the whole thing to our agency for review!  Our updated home study came in the mail this past week too, and we sent it to the US immigration office to switch our approval to adopt from Congo to Ethiopia.  It will take a number of weeks for them to send us an approval notice, and once they do we'll be able to start the 14 month wait for the referral of a child.  After that we'll go through the court process and then the embassy process.  Overall, we figure we're probably looking at about a two year wait before we can bring a son or daughter home from Ethiopia.  But I think we have the bulk of the paperwork behind us now, and that's definitely something I'm celebrating!

Domestic adoption --  Friday's mail also contained an orientation packet from our domestic agency.  And after looking it over, I'm glad we got the dossier done before jumping in to the paperwork for this adoption!  With the other things on my plate right now, I think realistically it'll take a month or two for me to be able to put together the things we'll need.  But that's okay with us.  Once they start showing our family profile to birth mothers, we could be chosen at any time.  And there's a possibility that the call could be for a baby already born, in which case we could have to take an immediate trip to Memphis to pick up our son or daughter.  So we're trusting the Lord's timing and excited to see what He has in store!

Ignorance Doesn't Automatically Equate to Racism

A thoughtful, grace-filled post by Trillia Newbell, called Close Encounters of the Unknowing Kind:

Yesterday I posted an encounter I had with a man in a local grocery store parking lot on the social site Facebook.  Here is what I wrote: 

Just got back from Kroger. In parking lot man asked: “Those your kids?” Me: Yep. Him: “I mean, you gave birth to ‘em?” Me: Yep Him: Perplexed, “Well, they sure are pretty.” Me: Thanks.  

There is one thing that is certain, if I ever found myself in a situation that required an army of women to fight for me, I’ve got those women. Many of my friends were appalled by the apparent ignorance of the man asking the questions. Other women replayed stories of their own strange encounters with people who asked personal and probing questions.  It is obvious that regardless of what the situation is, many women find themselves answering questions about their children and  their birthing habits.

My children are biracial. Their father is white, half British to be exact. From the moment our oldest was born I realized that I would be asked questions about my ownership, so to speak, of my son. He is fair-skinned (barely olive skinned, there are many white people darker than my boy), with bone-straight hair, and big beautiful brown eyes. He looks white and he identifies himself as such. Actually, he says he is peach and I am brown.

When my son was a toddler he would lick my face because to him, I resembled chocolate. He used to ask often why God made me brown. He was very curious about that. Now, 6 years old, he is beginning to understand that God created the world and everything in it and that we are all created in His image. But at first I was a bit of a mystery to him. I’m trying to teach him about ethnicity and differences in hopes that he would celebrate the diversity of God’s creation and grow to love others. But what I realize is that if he isn’t taught, he won’t know.What I am learning through having a son who is learning about race and ethnicity and discovering his own identity  is that ignorance doesn’t automatically equate to racism. As a matter of fact, I would say most people who may have questions or seem unknowing are simply unaware and do not harbor hate in their heart towards others.

Maybe I am being generous or naïve. I don’t know. But I’ve spoken and corresponded with enough loving and well-meaning people to know that there are people who genuinely don’t know much about other races. I don’t want to assume the heart of a person because of a question. I surely don’t want to assume that ignorance equals hate, how I would define racism. I want to assume that they don’t know and I want to be open to sharing parts of me so that they would understand.

My Response Matters

Another theme in my comments section was over my response to the man who unwittingly questioned my motherhood. I truly was not offended. It takes quite a bit to offend me but especially in relation to strangers and race.  I would argue that in the case of interacting with people of different cultures or ethnicities, ignorance is notbliss. Therefore, I want to be a catalyst for open and honest conversation. If I respond in such a way that is defensive and angry,  I imagine that person will not attempt to speak to another person about their questions. If I had time, I would sit down with every person who didn’t understand race. In the end they’d probably know more about what I  believe God’s Word has to say about it than they ever wanted to know.

This leads me to my final point. As a Christian, I want to be a light to the world, especially as it relates to race and racism. I would like nothing more than to sit with a racist and share the gospel with him or her. It is the gospel that reconciles all tribes and tongues with God through the blood of Jesus. The gospel reconciles men and women to each other, changing our names to sons and daughters of God and bringing us into a new family. It’s the gospel that motivates me to have peace with my fellow man who doesn’t understand or know when he speaks. Again, I don’t think the man was racist in the parking lot, but if he were, I would love him because Christ loved me and gave himself up for me.

My response is key to racial reconciliation and it is important to proclaiming the Good News. I don’t want to assume that ignorance equals hate. I want to be gracious and maybe even through my response they will think before they ask the next person questions . But all in all, I want to be thinking eternally. There’s more to think about than the here and now. I don’t want to become a stumbling block for open and honest conversation about race or the gospel.