So are we crazy?

Go grab a cup of coffee… this is a long one. I've been meaning to write it for a while, and just now got around to it...

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At one point during our adoption class, the instructor reviewed a list of misconceptions people have about adoption. One was that people think “Oh, it’s easy. You just fill out a form or two and pick up a kid.”

Uhhhh, yeah. Sure.


The above is only a small part of the paperwork. Some of those are multiple sheet documents. These are the documents in our dossier that will eventually go to Ethiopia in order for us to get the final approval for adoption. And we already sent off a similar set of documents to our home study agency. At this point we are just waiting for our “golden ticket” from the US government, our I-171H. Once we get that, the whole package goes to our agency, then to Ethiopia, and we go on a waiting list for our daughter.

Easy? That is a lot of sheets of paper.

For our other kids, we only had to deal with one sheet…


So easy isn’t exactly a term I would use to describe the process. And we haven’t even gotten to the 4-6 month wait on the list, a week of travel in Ethiopia, figuring out exactly how to attach to a child that may already be suffering from abandonment issues.

The process of deciding to adopt wasn’t easy either.

Well, let me re-state that. It was easy for one of us. The other needed a little, ummm, persuasion.

Paige has wanted to adopt since, well, forever. She says that she has wanted to adopt since she was a little girl, specifically from Ethiopia. How a five year old girl decides that one day she will adopt a kid from Ethiopia, I am not sure. She may have informed me of this before we got married, but I don't really recall. If she did, it was too much of a distant possibility for me to take seriously.

I do know that we had a discussion or two after Levi and Noah about adopting. We decided on one more home grown child. It may have been my subconscious hope that one more would satisfy Paige, and the adoption thing would fade away.

Not the case. But I still wasn’t on board.

Paige read a blog post by Kristie Braselton, who used to go to EVBC and is a great singer/songwriter (seriously... really good.) They are also adopting, and she was describing how they came to the decision:

"I did know, however, that if we did have kids I wanted to adopt… God placed the passion for the outcast inside me years earlier and it only grew stronger as I saw our marriage growing. I was frustrated that Matthew didn't share that passion and for a time it was a source of dissension for us."

Hmmmm, sounds familiar. So her approach for dealing with this disagreement? An excellent one…

"He taught me to let go, trust Him, and trust Matthew's leadership. I also started praying about it. My prayer was that God would change one of our hearts. Either He would give Matthew the desire to adopt or take mine away."

Paige started doing the same. That post was from September.

Let’s just say that God was on her side.

Six months later, we were pretty seriously discussing adoption. And by “seriously discussing,” I mean that Paige was just waiting for me to run out excuses. And God was fairly rapidly smacking me upside the head every time I thought I had a really logical reason that it was an unwise idea for us to adopt. I don’t recall nearly every event, and there were many, but luckily I left an email trail so that I could recall a few.

For instance, as we were starting to seriously discuss the idea, Pastor Tom at EVBC preached a sermon. I have no idea what the actual sermon was about. I do know that prior to the sermon, he made some announcements. EVBC was in the middle of starting a church plant, Second Mile. And Tom was encouraging people to either “step up or step out.” In other words, either go join the new church and help there, or fill in the holes left at EVBC from the people who did leave. Then he listed several concrete examples of areas to serve… in children’s ministry, as a greeter, audio/video department, etc. Makes perfect sense.

Oh yeah, one more thing. You could, you know… adopt a child.

What that has to do with planting a new church, to this day I have no idea.

But I heard the distinct whistle of God wielding an “adoption” 2x4 just before it smacked me upside the head.

In April, Brian Loritts came to do a men’s conference at EVBC. One of his points, and the only one that seems to really have stuck with me?

“You can’t get strong if you don’t lift something heavy.”

But surely he wasn’t talking to me, right? We’ve already got four kids, and that seems heavy enough. That is probably the heavy thing God wants me to lift. Not adoption. That's just crazy talk.

The men’s conference was Saturday. On Sunday, Brian also preached (you should listen to the sermon.)

His main point? Engaging the less fortunate.

He went through his Bible and marked all the verses where God instructs his people to care for the alien, the widow… the orphan. He quoted Wayne Grudem who said “The Bible is the transcript of God’s heart.” Then Brian said “If that be the case… I cannot claim to have the heart of God and at the same time not engage the less fortunate.”

Whistlllllllle… SMACK!!!

When we got home I asked Paige, somewhat sarcastically “So when are we adopting triplets?” Truth is, I felt the sting of the smack, but still felt like the whole concept was totally overwhelming.

So I start looking for some of those verses Brian mentioned, and happen upon James 1:27 You know… “Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.”

At the time, I was thinking that although I could read the words above, and know they were true in a general sense, I was pretty sure James must have been talking to someone else. I was feeling like the idea of adoption was just a little too big. Feeling like four kids was already giving us a run for our money. Feeling that there was no way we could actually afford five kids. Five Christian school tuitions, bigger vehicles, etc, etc, etc. Just feeling totally overwhelmed by the idea, so surely James 1:27 must be meant for someone who didn’t feel like that? Right? Right?

I just happened (although we all know it wasn’t a coincidence) to be listening to a sermon by Tim Keller (excellent preacher) at around the same time. The sermon was on what to with your doubts about Christianity. More in the sense of doubts about whether Christianity as a whole is actually true, in a historical, "Did it really happen" sense. Not so much in a "Does James 1:27 really apply to me?” sense. But still, doubts…

And I quote Tim Keller… “Faith is not primarily a function of how you feel. Faith is living out and believing what truth is despite how you feel.”

Whistlllllllle… SMACK!!!

I think it was at this point that I came up with what is likely the worst analogy in the world in an attempt to describe to Paige what I was thinking. I told her I felt like Moses.


Ok, so I wasn’t suggesting I write five books of the Bible. Or that I defeat Pharaoh. Or meet God on a mountain. But you recall the outline of the famous burning bush story, right?

A bush bursts into flames in front of Moses while he is tending sheep, and God speaks out of the bush. Tells Moses that he will go and rescue the Israelites from the land of Egypt. And Moses’s response?

“Who am I that I should go?” In other words… “Me? Surely you mean some other guy?”

God basically says “You aren’t going alone. I will be with you.”

Moses then proceeds to think of every excuse he can. But who will I tell them sent me? What if they don’t believe You talked to me out of a burning bush? Surely you want someone who can speak better? And God proceeds to dismiss all of Moses’s excuses.

At the end, Moses still says “Oh, my Lord, please send someone else.”

“Then the anger of the Lord was kindled against Moses” I'm just reading that part right now as I write this post. Not something I especially want to kindle.

So yeah. Me. Moses. All my excuses were slowly being destroyed, and I was left thinking “Please Lord, surely you mean someone else.”

Literally within a few days of that conversation, I open my Google reader one morning and the very first post is a link to this book… Adopted for Life.


Seriously? I emailed Paige that this must be a conspiracy, or something.

Like, you know… God.

I am sitting there scanning my Reader, racing through all my excuses, how this is a huge risk, how I don’t know if we can even afford this, how this will so disrupt the fairly calm and secure life we have built. Thinking “but… but… but…” And a few posts later, I read this post on Stuff Christians Like... I don’t want a life that requires much faith

"Here’s the thing I’ve realized, though. My natural inclination to have a secure life that needs little faith ends up being a life that needs very little God, either. That’s the deadly part of security and safety, we get used to living without God. There’s no need for God to show up. “All set, Lord,” becomes our silent, unconscious prayer."

Whistllllllllllllllllle… SMACK!!!

Ok, so we are adopting. The message is sinking into my thick skull. Slowly. But surely we should plan for this. Slowly. Take our time. Make sure we know exactly what we are doing, have a clearly defined plan, and stick to it. Make sure we do everything possible to eliminate as much risk as possible. Right? Right?

In the space of a few days, I just happened (but we know at this point it wasn’t a “just happened” at all) to run across several reviews of this book, Just Do Something.


Uh oh. Given my current stalling tactic, that can’t possibly be a book I should read. Right? Right?

Wrong.

From the book, which you should read too…

"Trusting in God's will of decree is good. Following His will of desire is obedient. Waiting for God's will of direction is a mess. It is bad for your life, harmful to your sanctification, and allows too many Christians to be passive tinkerers who strangely feel more spiritual the less they actually do.

God is not a Magic 8-Ball we shake up and peer into whenever we have a decision to make. He is a good God who gives us brains, shows us the way of obedience, and invites us to take risks for Him.

Because we have confidence in God's will of decree, we can radically commit ourselves to His will of desire, without fretting over a hidden will of direction.

In other words, God doesn't take risks, so we can."

Whistllllllllllllllllle… SMACK!!!

At this point, I was on board. But He wasn’t done yet (and I am sure still isn’t.) Paige read a book called There Is No Me Without You.


An entire book on Ethiopia, the AIDS crisis, the orphans, their conditions, and adoption. She read it, and then asked me to read it.

I started reading it at Rubio’s at lunch one day. You really should read the book, but just to give you a sense of the first chapter. The author is in Ethiopia, visiting Haregewoin, who runs an orphanage in Addis Ababa, the capital. For the first time, she witnesses Haregewoin picking up an orphan. His name is Mintesinot. As they drive to pick up the boy, the author describes the streets:

"Adult beggars of every description tapped at the car windows. Nursing mothers did this, wordlessly indicating the babies within their dusty shawls; and a man with six fingers on each hand displayed his hands to idling motorists until they threw coins at him to make him go away. A man with leprosy displayed an arm that ended in a charcoal-like stump. Another turned a face disfigured by burns. A man lay on a sidewalk displaying a hugely swollen, gangrenous leg from which the foot had been amputated; it was huge as a fallen tree trunk, red and peeling. A woman at the car window showed a face swallowed by an eye tumor, and a young boy led his blind grandfather from car to car. It was a walking sideshow, a living testimony to the statistics: 81 percent of Ethiopia’s people live on less than two dollars a day, and 26 percent live on less than a dollar a day, the marker of absolute poverty in the world."

This is the street on which Mintesinot and his father Eskender live. His father who has AIDS. Without his mother who already died of it. And his father is giving him up, before he dies as well.

"Neither the child nor the father was at home, we discovered. We also discovered that “home” was a pile of dirty rags and plastic bags on the sidewalk, a few feet from a bus stop. Scraps of corrugated tin and wood had been tied together to make a low fence around the filthy bedding. “He was born here, his mother gave birth to him right here,”"

They eventually find Eskender and Mintesinot. Eskender tries to hand over his son, but Minty does not want to leave his father and the only home he has ever known. Eventually the taxi driver invents a reason: “Let’s go to the market and buy a package of biscuits for your dad, a present for your dad!” This convinces him and he hops into the taxi. The rest of the chapter is heart breaking. A boy pulled from his father. A father doing the only thing he can to save his son. People trying to help both of them, but what can you do to even touch that kind of hurt?

It seems lately that I can only take so much of that kind of story. The amount of suffering in this world is just... crushing. I sent Paige this email upon arriving back at the office after lunch:

"I just finished chapter one at lunch. The one where they basically trick this boy into leaving his dad, who is dying of AIDS, and the little patch of sidewalk (sidewalk!) they call home, by telling him they are going to buy biscuits at the market. Had to bail from my table and head for the car, cause my freakin’ leaky eye syndrome was acting up again. And I’ve got 55 more chapters to go? Not sure I can make it through this one…

Seriously, I just want Jesus to come back. Like… yesterday. Cause this world is an awfully brutal place sometimes…"

So with all my excuses totally crushed, I am on board. I’m obviously not trying to paint some rosy picture that I came to adoption full of joy and giddy anticipation. I didn't. I don’t want to say God dragged me kicking and screaming, because that isn’t right. But let’s just say I needed some persuasion. I’m not one who has typically been inclined toward the poor. I don’t like taking risks. I enjoy comfort and security. All of which God is challenging.

I do, however, love kids (even if I occasionally vent about the ones we already have.) And God has given us the financial ability to adopt a child (no matter how much I worry about it.) And best of all God gave me a wife who does have a heart for the poor, and always has. A wife who would challenge me to care for the ophan too. Who loves me enough to pray that God will break my heart for him and what he wants us to do.

I love the Jesus Story Book Bible. I love reading it to our kids before bedtime. Right now we are working our way through the whole thing (instead of just reading their favorite stories about giants, storms, and people-swallowing whales.) I love that every story in it ends with somehow pointing to Jesus. That he is coming one day to rescue us. That one day God would sacrifice His Son to save the rest of His children. That He loves us with a "Never Stopping, Never Giving Up, Unbreaking, Always and Forever Love." That some day, Jesus will "make everything sad come untrue."

Make everything sad come untrue...

So while we wait anxiously for Jesus to come back and make right everything that is wrong in this world and our hearts, we can hopefully find one child. One out of millions of orphans in the world. And while their world has likely been far more brutal than any child should have to experience, we can, in some small way, try to make right something wrong in this world. Push back just a little piece of the darkness, even if the darkness just seems so big sometimes...




So are we crazy?

Like a fox.

But it has nothing to do with the anxious anticipation of our newest addition.

We’ve been nutty for a long time already...