Why Ethiopia? -Warning, Long Post Ahead

The short answer to the question is, because that's where God put us. But, the process that He has taken us through is much longer. So, if you wanted a short answer, there it was. If you want the longer answer, then grab a big cup of coffee and here goes.

It has been 23 months since Gareth and I began actively pursuing this adoption. About 2 months before that, I began researching adoption options and agencies. Domestic or international, open or closed, what agency, what country, there were lots of choices.

Initially, we chose an international adoption because we were not convinced that a domestic adoption was a good fit for our family. Adopting a child out of the state system was a process that we weren't really up for. As an openly active Christian family who was planning on homeschooling and does discipline their children, we weren't sure that we really wanted a social worker nosing around in our life. Our experience with social workers at the children's home we worked at was far from positive. (Since then we have met some fantastic social workers employed both by the state and by private agencies, and I no longer loathe all social workers!!!!!!). We had also had extensive experience dealing with children who were products of the state foster system during our time working at a children's home and were not prepared to take that risk again. Leaving our positions at the children's home was in the end an easy decision because when the girls we were caring for found they couldn't break us any other way, they used being horrible to our children as their weapon of choice. So, for the period of time that we have young children at home, that wasn't a risk we were open to. On the domestic front we could have also applied to an agency like a crisis pregnancy center to adopt an infant, and initially that was appealing. But, the more I looked at all of the families who were waiting for that perfect white baby, the less appealing that route was. I didn't want to be part of a beauty pageant where our family profile would be put out there with all of the other profiles while we tried to convince prospective birth moms that we were smarter, richer, more beautiful, and had a better house and better education than the other families who were waiting. We were also not open to the idea of an open adoption, as I felt that I would struggle not being the only Mom in the picture and wasn't convinced that having multiple influences was not necessarily in a child's best interest. (Disclaimer: I recognise that this is not the case for everyone who chooses to adopt from within the United States. I personally know a couple who has adopted through crisis pregnancy, and I have the utmost respect for them and the beautiful child they are raising. And, as the last couple of years have passed, I am growing more open to the possibilities of open adoption and the chance to show love not just to a child but to a birth mom who may need to be loved as well. But, at the time those were are thoughts, and I want to be honest with you about the choices we made and the thought processes that led us there at the time.)

Anyhoo, having ruled out domestic adoption, this confirmed that international adoption was the route we were interested in. At which point, I began shortlisting agencies. I felt that choosing the right agency was more important than selecting a country. I wanted an agency that was small, had a personal feel, was specifically Christian in it's outlook and approach and that had a reputation that was above reproach. There are lots of agencies out there, but in the end we chose America World Adoptions. For those of you who follow contemporary Christian music, you may recognise this as the agency that the Steven Curtis Chapman family has used for their adoptions. I love what AWAA has to say about adoption. If you have a chance, you really should visit their website: awaa.org and read what Brian Luwis (AWAA's founder) has written about the Spirit of Adoption.

So, when Gareth and I agreed that we both believed that God was saying it was time, we applied to AWAA to join their program. At which point, we needed to choose a country. AWAA is involved in facilitating adoptions from: China, El Salvador, Ethiopia, India, Kazakhstan, Russia, Rwanda, and the Ukraine. Kazakhstan, Russia, and the Ukraine were out of the question because they involved making multiple trips to the country during the process and Gareth did not have enough vacation time to be able to do this. China was out of the question because I wasn't yet 30, which is China's minimum age to begin adopting. India and Rwanda were not yet open when we began this process, so we were left with El Salvador and Ethiopia.

We rejected Ethiopia immediately. Our experience at the children's home was proof enough of the race issues that we didn't really want to deal with. Racism, we found, can run both ways. We didn't want to risk our daughter one day rejecting us "because we were white, therefore we couldn't possibly understand". We didn't want to risk the awkward stares and rude comments that might be forthcoming. We were afraid of how she might be welcomed (or not) in the backwoods area of MO that I call home and we still visit to see my parents.

El Salvador, on the other hand, was immensely appealing. I speak some Spanish and was confident that with some work I could have a good enough grip on it to happily converse when we travelled down to bring our daughter home. El Salvador is relatively close, and relatively inexpensive in terms of international flights, so the entire family could travel down together, and it appeared that the wait times were short and the program was relatively inexpensive. So, we prayed and applied for the El Salvador program. 6 months later, we had a dossier ready to submit. Quite literally the day before I was going to send it away, we got the e-mail from our agency that El Salvador was not processing children for adoption. The program wasn't closing, but they could not tell us when, or if, we would ever be able to complete an adoption. We could choose to stay in the El Salvador program, or America World would transfer all of the money we had invested so far into another program of our choosing.

We were heartbroken. Hadn't God been working? Weren't we walking in His will? We looked again at the countries that were available and arrived at the same conclusions. The countries available to us were El Salvador and Ethiopia. By this time, when I pictured my daughter she had beautiful big brown eyes, beautiful bronze skin, and long, dark, straight hair. She looked Salvadoran. She did not look Ethiopian or African in any way.

We began to pray, asking God what He wanted us to do. We asked friends to pray with us. We had 1 week to make a decision. And, as I remarked to my mentor, we couldn't make a decision in a week. Gareth has never made decisions easily and certainly not swiftly. I called my family in tears, and talked to my Dad. Now, my Dad isn't an openly emotional guy. We have almost never had "deep" conversations. But, as I explained the situation and began to talk about how afraid I was to adopt from Ethiopia and how our child might rebel because of difference in skin color and how I didn't want to risk exposing a child to the unkindness of others just because her skin looked different, my Dad and I had one of those rare conversations that I treasure. He told me that he didn't care if our daughter was purple with green polka dots, they would still love her. He reminded me that how our daughter felt about who she was and the value that she placed on herself would be made up in large part by hearing my responses and to our teaching her about the love of God for her and the value He places on her as something beautiful that He created. He reminded me that if a child is going to rebel, they will choose to find something to be rebellious about, and if it isn't about skin color it will be about something else. And, God began to move. You see, one of the things that I have learned is this adoption isn't just about an adoption. It's also about God continuing the process of growing me up. Or, for those who prefer a slightly more religious term, about sanctification.

For a long time, I couldn't understand why God allowed the experiences we had at the children's home. After all, we had gone there to serve. We wanted to love those kids and to be the parents they never had. What purpose had it served to allow such a bad experience? But now I see. He was growing me up. Although I didn't see them immediately, God had lessons that I needed to learn. Mostly about attitudes that I needed to change. And, I am grateful. I am not the same person I was 3 years ago. Still not perfect, but not the same either. And, the same goes for this adoption journey. It's about learning to trust God in a whole new way. About not limiting Him because of my fears or worries or preferences. Inviting Him to do what He wants to do through us and learning to wait patiently. And, gaining a whole new understanding of what it means to be adopted by Him.

I can't explain it, but as we talked and prayed over those couple of days, we were given such a peace about Ethiopia. A peace about opening ourselves up to some of the things we had feared. A realization that our daughter could look Salvadoran in my mind, but she could also look Ethiopian with beautiful bronze skin and slightly darker hair. Yes, I could be excited about learning to make cornrows and two-strand twists!

Couldn't God have taught us some of those lessons in an easier way? I suppose he could, but I'm not sure that we would have learned them as well or have such a vivid reminder of the things He wanted us to know and put into practice.

And now, here we sit, with a picture of the most beautiful little girl waiting in Ethiopia. When we see her, we see our daughter. And, I wonder, what else is God going to teach us through this process?

Adoption Questions

For those of you who visit our blog to keep track of what the boys are up to, please excuse my next couple of posts.

As our adoption completion draws nearer, I am getting more and more questions about our adoption: Why would you do something like that?, Why Ethiopia?, Why not adopt from here in the States?, Are you infertile?, Are the boys really yours?, Are you trying to be Angelina Jolie?, Won't it be weird having a black child with such blond boys?, How much does that cost?, and the list goes on and on.

We are very fortunate in that the majority of our family and friends have been supportive of our decision to adopt and are waiting excitedly with us. Unkind or rude responses have been the exception to the rule. And, sometimes those unkind responses have simply been out of ignorance or lack of thought as opposed to intentionally offensive. It has been a good growing experience. My normal inclination is to be a fairly private person, so personal questions from strangers or not close acquaintances aren't my favorite thing. But, I am learning to anticipate the questions and then to answer them kindly.

I think that having a ready response is important. It means that I am less likely to be caught off guard and say something I shouldn't or didn't intend to. And, it is important for Rosie and the boys. How Rosie feels about herself, her position in our family, and the fact that she will obviously look very different from the rest of our family will be in large part learned from us in the early years. How the boys learn to respond to those who may someday be unkind will be learned from us, too.

I want my responses to sometimes awkward questions to build Rosie up, to give her confidence in our love, to help her feel secure in her position as our daughter, and to re-enforce the fact that her skin color may be different from ours but that it is beautiful. Most importantly, I want my answers to re-enforce these truths: She is God's creation, created in His image. This gives her a beauty and a worth that is more important and longer-lasting than whatever current trends the world may view as desirable or beautiful. I want her to love her skin color, but more importantly, I want her to value her position as a child of God and to not get caught up on focusing on her self-esteem but rather to focus on God-esteem. So often these days it is easy to get caught in the trap of worrying about how we feel about ourselves and viewing ourselves through our own lenses or others' lenses instead of the using Gods' eyes to see how He sees us, the value He places on us, and recognizing that true beauty in His eyes comes from having a clean heart, pure hands, and a desire to wholly follow Him. Man looks on the outward appearance, but God looks on the heart (1 Samuel 16:7).

So, please bear with me as I work my way through these answers. I have always found writing things down helpful if I need to think or process information. This gives me a way to do that, and maybe it will answer questions you might have, too.

Adoption Update

It's late. Like, after 11:00 (which is late for us), and really, I should have just gone straight to bed. But, I decided to check e-mail to see if Dani had had her baby and to check on Abby Riggs. To my surprise, there was an e-mail titled "New Court Date" in our inbox.

Yes, we have a new court date! Unbeknown to us, our agency petitioned the Ethiopian court system for an earlier court date for several families who were given court dates quite a while after our actual referrals. And, those petitions were granted. We are now scheduled for court on March 27. Yeah!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We now have court in 3 weeks and 4 days. Should we pass, we will also have earlier travel dates. We should hear the end of this week or early next week about new travel dates.

Oh my goodness. I need to get busy. I have so much to do to get ready. I need to change the ticker on the top of my blog!!! I just put it up this morning.

But, seriously, all excitement aside, I am so grateful. God is obviously moving in the hearts of Ethiopian officials and in the court system. Several months ago when things began to slow down for families who were waiting for court dates and for thsoe who were not passing court, our little "yahoo group adoption family" began to pray together for God to intervene and to be faithful to His promise to "set the orphans in families" . Last month, a couple of the ladies divided up each day into 48 1/2-hour segments and many of us signed up to cover a half-hour slot on a daily basis so that we could quite literally pray without ceasing for our children, those working on our children's behalf, and for all of the officials whose paperwork, signatures, and blessing were needed for adoptions to be completed. And, we are now watching as God does amazing things in Ethiopia. Last month saw record numbers of children referred, and now we watch in awe as March begins with more great news. God is good!

And now, I really must go to bed. The next couple of weeks are going to be even busier than I thought!