A Better Plan

Well, I wanted to share a little about what has been going on recently in our adoption adventure. Firstly, we're happy to say that our garage and lower level are steadily decreasing in size as loving friends and family bring by all their stuff for our Adoption Garage Sale Extravaganza on Saturday, May 16th. Basically, it's going to be a big party. We're going to sell 'garage sale gold,' brownies, drawings by Sylvia and Maren (and possibly a few poems by Sylvi), and whatever else comes our way. I might mention we've NEVER done anything like this before, and quite possibly may never again, which is why we're happy to make it a big deal this time around and make a mess of our house in the process. I find that pricing stuff will be the big headache for me, but I'm getting good help from a few garage sale queens that happen to also be friends. Yeah!



So, other than continuing to assemble myriad documents for our dossier, one big thing we've been spending time on lately is an 8-hour online course on international adoption. It was required for us and has been excellent.

There was so much to learn about the whole process, but more importantly, about children who have been, and who are right now, living in orphanages. In the medical research, each was called 'the institutionalized child.' And it's everything we don't want to think about. In pregnancy and baby books, we always read about the critical importance of those first days and weeks, those first months and years, and how the decisions we make during those times with our children have a lasting effect which cannot be calculated. And all of this was just brought into the flourescent light for us. In Korea, there's a foster system, so children aren't institutionalized. In Ethiopia, they are. Even in the best run facilties, where there are staff who truly care, there simply is not the time for one-on-one attention that children need. When a little baby cries and cries and no one comes to meet his needs, he learns things. He learns that his needs aren't important to anyone in particular and eventually stops crying. She learns that she isn't wanted, that to be neglected is going to be the norm. The connections in their brains are made differently. Fear and anxiety can set in that will make an indelible print on his or her little heart. Amazingly, God made these little ones to be unbelievably resilient, and often learn to love and be loved once they enter a home where those things are possible. But it can take time, sometimes lots of it, to trust. All of this is so hard for us to think about, so often we protect ourselves and just don't. But this isn't how God responds. He's there in the orphanages. He's not ignoring the pain of it all. And He will intercede, Ibelieve, when His people call on Him.

So I'm going to pray more. I'm not going to pray about a bunch of detached process things until I've spent time praying for the kids and for those caring for them. I'm going to pray that today someone will pick up our boy and make him laugh and love on him. I'm going to let myself be heartbroken and weep from time to time- as I did last week- enough to remember the harsh realities, because the harsh realities are what Christ came to redeem and eventually save us from. He's got a better plan. A plan for warm, secure, happy babies and kids wrapped up in love by parents who are gaga over them. He's got a plan for a hope and future for all who have been abandoned and have hungered in body and spirit. His plan is for a beautiful reality, not a harsh one. And when it comes down to it, it's love that makes the difference. So people, let's be part of the plan and remember to love people genuinely and from our hearts today. And to pray for those who we want to love but won't see- so our Father can do it for us.