One Life, One Chance

Well, here goes... and so it begins. I've almost been afraid to commit it to - well i'd say paper, but this day and age I must say - keypad (although the grace of that phrase seems to get lost in the correct terminology) as its time to come out with our journey.

Yes, as you can see from the title on this blog, we've actually decided to pursue adopting two little ones from Ethiopia. As we've shared this with a few friends, its been rather humorous to gauge the reactions. They've ranged from, "Wow, really?" to looking really shocked (my favorite is when the eyes tend to bulge as they realize that we are indeed serious) to, "How wonderful. We're so excited for you."

We truly understand why some shock is involved. We are, after all, on the back nine of raising kids, as our youngest is now finishing up his two-year stint in middle school. Hah! It makes me laugh that for the last year I've been telling everyone how very glad I'll be to finally get out of Jr. High (I've decided that its definitely an entire family event when one child is in the pubescent world of middle school) when I'm now going to have the opportunity to do it again. Not just once, but twice!

In a sense, I've been celebrating and grieving as our youngest has been crossing milestones this last year into very young adulthood. His voice has dropped a couple of octaves in the last 2 months alone. I called the house the other day when he answered and I initially had to wonder who on earth had invaded our home! Alas, he doesn't sound like his sister anymore.

So, you might ask, how did it begin for us anyway? For the last couple of years, I've been overwhelmed with how very blessed our family is as I've watched all of the kids transition into such wonderful people to be around. We truly enjoy just hanging out together - laughing, making music and watching them make good decisions 93.5% of the time.

Some people have suggested that by bringing new children into our home we'll be changing the dynamic and potentially "messing things up." We tend to think of it like a dam. If you don't ever let the water flow out of the dam to feed the waters below, the dammed water will eventually stagnate and become unattractive and filled with algae. Ugh! Its only when the dam opens and the water is allowed to flow that it stays clear and healthy for all who may need it. We're ready to let the dam open up a bit further and let the blessings we've received flow further than we could have ever previously imagined.

A couple of months ago, our senior pastor at Grace Church, was teaching out of the first book in Isaiah and one passage in particular seemed to shout at me. It begins by God speaking to the Israelites about how their burnt sacrifices and assembling together gave Him no pleasure and, in fact, were detestable. He goes on to say that He would not listen to their prayers and that He would hide His eyes from them. You see, the Israelites at this time were only putting on a pretense of serving God - their actions said something else entirely. He goes on to say that they should stop doing wrong, learn to do right, seek justice, encourage the oppressed, defend the cause of the fatherless and plead the case of the widow. Although I had heard it before - many times - it especially struck me this time realizing that all of our church services and crying out to God mean absolutely nothing if we're not caring about the things that He cares about. It somehow became more personal for me at that moment and I recognized that unless I acted on it personally it was just talk and good intentions. We all know what the road to hell is paved with :}!

We began to pray about what this would mean for us, our family and our church. I'm grateful to be part of a church that doesn't take this mandate lightly. Grace is committed to meeting the needs of our community and loving people and we're continually looking for practical ways to do this. Watch out though, when you being to pray to have a heart after God's heart...

We have watched our pastors take in two little boys, aged 1 and 2 years old, from an extended family member who couldn't care for them. This drastically changed their life overnight as their older two were 12 & 14 at the time. I can remember thinking, "Do they really know what they're doing?" In hindsight, I don't think they really did fully know what they were getting into, nor did they need to because they were following after what God was calling them to. We've watched those boys change from a state of near comatose to vibrant, playful, healthy and loving toddlers now, a year later. What a transformation! They are now pursuing adoption and can use all your prayers in what is sure to be a challenging process.

Throughout the next several months I continually encountered people and situations where adoption was being discussed at some level. God didn't seem to be allowing it to leave my mind. At the same time, our younger two children have been fairly relentless as they thought we should pursue adoption as well. C.J.("blog names" have been given to each of us instead of our real ones throughout) has always wanted to be an older brother and Sissy has always wanted a sister. After having such a great relationship with my own sister, I have always been a little sad for her to not experience that.

Truly the turning point, however, seemed to be early in November on my way to an appointment. I was driving in the car and there was absolutely nothing good on the radio and I just happened to turn on the Christian talk radio station - which, quite honestly, I don't ever really tune into. They were discussing the problem of the vast numbers of orphans worldwide - there are an estimated 143 million - and what were some of the things the church could do about it. At that moment, I burst into tears. Okay, those of you who know me might say, "What's new?" But, honestly, I was sobbing the entire 30 minutes I was in the car. I was overwhelmed that we, as the greater church, and personally, weren't doing anything more significant about this issue and knew that that had to change. I felt very clearly at that moment that God was calling the True family to make it personal.

Its one thing to believe that you're supposed to do something, its another thing to actually take the steps to make it happen. I knew that if God was truly calling us to do this, then He would be leading the rest of the family the same way and it had to be from Him, not me! I briefly mentioned it to them, almost offhandedly and their reactions were priceless. It first came out when we talked about the car...

Several months earlier, we had sold our SUV to save on gas and allow TrueDad to drive around a fun, little convertible. He had always wanted me to drive the big car, which I was never really excited about. Have you ever tried to park one of those? Do you know just how hard it is to zip around town in an SUV? At any rate, we were realizing that even with only one of our kids without wheels (Seriously, our garage is like musical cars every night. With four drivers, we have 4 cars and only a 3-car tandem garage, and our HOA doesn't allow cars on the street LOL) we sorely missed the flexibility of a 7-seater. We'd pick up several of C.J.'s friends for youth group and run out of seats quickly... I knew that this was a hurdle that would have to be overcome if more children were going to be added to our family. Imagine my surprise when I found Eric looking at really big SUV's on the web. I told him that I would actually drive it if we could adopt - the whole family laughed until they realized that I was serious, and then had a variety of reactions. I was not in the least surprised when we purchased that really big SUV for an amazing price (larger than our previous one and much cheaper :)) as I knew in my heart that God was preparing our family step by step.

Over the next few weeks Sissy and C.J. began to watch for opportunities to "prime the pump" with their dad. I had already asked TrueDad to seriously pray about it and didn't dare bring it up in the meantime as I didn't ever want to push it. One night on Thanksgiving vacation, the four of us were at a mall and the subject of adopting came up again rather seriously (I didn't bring it up :)) and we were discussing the pros/cons. Simultaneously, we had decided to take in a movie and had decided on "Australia" when the fam asked me to read the description, which none of us were very familiar with. As I began to read aloud, I paused and got teary-eyed (surprise, surpise) and said, "Oh, this is a little funny - I'm sorry honey, I didn't plan this" as I went on to read about a boy who was orphaned and subsequently adopted by Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman. It was somewhere in there when TrueDad asked me, "How many orphans did you say there are worldwide?" "143 million," I replied, to which C.J. announced, "Come on, Dad. Let's make it 143 million minus two!" These type of family discussions happened frequently.

As TrueDad and I continued to have heartfelt discussions about the possibility he told me that he thought I better research more about it. That was all the permission I needed. In my research, we discovered all the countries that are open to international adoption as well as within our own country and continually, we felt pulled to Ethiopia. TrueDad spent a year in Africa in high school, with wonderful memories. During our engagement, we had planned on teaching at the mission school over there after we were married. In the end, we chose not to, in the effort of being practical and I'm not sure that we've ever completely let it go.

The culture in Ethiopia is incredibly rich. They had the longest reigning dynasty ever, beginning with Queen Sheba, during the time of Solomon (yes, the same one described in the Bible as bringing gifts to Solomon and being vastly impressed with his wealth and wisdom), and ending in 1974, when civil war began. Christianity was first brought there in the 3rd century and they claim to have the ark of the covenant in their country. The people, while extremely poor seem to have a tenacious hope and a loving culture.

Ethiopia's economy was decimated by their decades of civil war. I can remember watching the TV shows long ago where it seemed like endless streams of hungry people had no means of feeding themselves. It has remained a struggle for their society to thrive although recently, its become much worse, yet again. There has been another famine and in the last six months the price of food has tripled. In a society where there is not an abundance of money to begin with, many are at a loss to get ahold of the mere basics. For example, a pound of formula is equivalent to 24 dollars in U.S. currency in the city stores. Disease is widespread and many are falling prey to such diseases as HIV and Malaria.

As a result, many are desperate and unable to care for their children or their relative's children, which they are often left with if the parents succumb to disease. As a result the orphanages are overflowing and not able to take in other children who have no place else to go. Often in villages, children, sometimes as young as 8 or 9 are themselves taking care of their younger siblings as they struggle to survive. There is an estimated 4.5 - 6 million orphans in Ethiopia alone. How can we not reach out as a church and individuals, regardless of our geographical particulars and help meet this need?

K, Guy's girlfriend summed it up this way. We only have one life and one chance. That's it. That's all the time we have to make a difference on this earth. Regardless of our economic difficulties, we are still the richest nation on earth and have been given a responsibility to match that blessing. What are we going to do about it?