Diary of a Soon-to-be Daddy

Since the beginning of our adoption journey, my beloved wife Mel has done virtually all the writing (and a great deal of the hands-on leg-work) for our adoption, leaving me to worry about the GoFundMe website (http://www.gofundme.com/euemo) and email blasts. She has done an excellent job of telling the world about our journey, our hopes and dreams, and our passion for this endeavour. However, we both thought it was about bloody time for me to step in and say a few words. So here goes!

Firstly, I want to apologize for the title of this blog perhaps being a little too “feminine.” A “diary”, many of you might think, is something in which you put down upcoming dinner dates, or is something to which little girls tell all their secrets, which boys they like, and so on – that sacred book with a decorative lock whose key must be kept from any and all nosey parkers. However, I was going for the alliterative, so “diary” it stays…and anyway, what’s the harm in a straight, happily married guy like me being in touch with his feminine side, hah hah!

Now, on to the “soon-to-be-daddy” bit. Yes, I am a soon-to-be daddy, and yes, that is a little scary even as I write it. But oh, what a wonderful little journey it was in getting to that point – the point at which I could refer to myself as being a father, if only in the future tense for now.

When Mel and I first discussed Adoption, we both knew it was right and wonderful, and a fulfilment of God’s mission for Humanity as we have discussed before in our blog. But to me at the start, I in my heart really thought of it more as a “purchase.” I figured that Adoption was basically “legal human trafficking.” I was happy about doing it, but I was cynical about the nature of the “buying and selling” of children. But then one day when I wasn’t very busy doing what I was supposed to be doing, I got chatting to my little sister-in-law. My little sister-in-law is a wonderful, beautiful little person whom I love dearly – truly, as if she were my own little sister. “Hey sis!” I said online. “Hey Daddy-To-Be!” she said. I was shocked! The gravity and beauty of that statement hit me like a ton of bricks – but brick of joy (if such a thing can exist!). It suddenly occurred to me – I am going to be a father! This isn’t a “purchase” at all! My future son or daughter is not a television or car that I’m just going to buy and maintain. And this person is not going to be a human that I’ve trafficked legally and who’s now in my care. This is going to be my son or daughter, and I am going to be his or her father! I am a daddy-to-be with our adopted child, just as if Mel were pregnant in the flesh with a natural-born child!

So, the great and joyful sea change started with me after an unassuming chat with my awesome little sister-n-law, and so thus begins my portion of our adoption blog – the Diary of a Soon-to-be Daddy!

Invitation to Joy!

I would like to share a video with you - a very moving one.

I share this not to condemn, but to highlight the condition of our human hearts. We don't care... but God does – not only for the little suffering ones, but for us too. He sees our hearts of stone and wants to change them to flesh – so that we may experience His joy! But that joy is the end result... our hearts are made alive through Christ and we feel others' pain and suffering. We are then made willing to act upon His command to reach out to the fatherless, to the widow, to those in need. It is when we are part of the salvation of these that the joy comes!

Our hearts were changed, we were made willing! We have a son or daughter....

Impending Victory!

Do not fear, for I am with you

Have you ever felt that fear that creeps up on you as you walk forward in faith? That slows your pace as you glance hesitantly side to side? That can paralyze you if you let it? I fear (no pun intended) that we have recently been slowed by it. We have come to the difficult part of the paperwork where we face our insecurities. Our fear says, “Who would give a child to you?” Our dread says, “You really can’t afford to do this.” Honestly, a thousand evil darts of fear and panic have been fired at us during this adoption… and we haven’t even gotten to the hard part yet!

We are keeping one thing in mind… or rather One Someone! Our God is with us! Not only is He with us as our Father and Redeemer in an every day, every way sense, but He is with us in this adoption! He has called us to this fight, this battle, this VICTORY!

So we have been girding up our metaphorical loins and pressing onward!

Isaiah 43:5 promises that our fear is inconsequential in that God Himself is with us… that we will be led to triumph by the Lord of Hosts. We can hide behind His shield, be enlivened by His strength, encouraged by His mighty will! It makes me want to burst out in song – “O victory, in Jesus…”

So we declare, “We are going to be granted the glorious privilege of parenting a special-needs orphan!” and “God has set apart a child for us, one who is fit for our family specifically, who will be a loving son or daughter, the delight of our hearts!”

The harder declaration for us to make is “We can afford this adoption, because our ‘we’ includes God! He will provide for this miracle to happen!” We have seen Him provide miraculously so far – we have all the funds for our home study and for our CIS application! This is monumental! And we praise God and thank all of you who have helped to get us this far. But it is only a token of what God is about to do, for very soon we will have to discover $27,000 more of God’s provision to complete this adoption.

I will bring your offspring from the east

Another promise from Isaiah 43:5! He says not to fear – that He is bringing our offspring from the east! How delightful that He has this in His Word, just for us! Well, for everyone really, but the promise is particularly specific to us. The Lord is bringing our offspring from the east… from Bulgaria. We can’t wait to visit this beautiful land and meet the child that he is bringing forth from there for us.

 

Our sweet child, whom we love so much already. I have been reading some other blogs written by other adoptive parents of special-needs children from Bulgaria. What precious, wonderful creatures! Each one a miracle, an over comer, a victory! Each journey has had its battles, but they end in triumph – with most of the parents giving glory to God.

I’ve noticed a common occurrence in each of these blogs. After visiting their children in the orphanage in Bulgaria for the first time, they come home and beg and plead with the readers of their blog to join them in the salvation and redemption of the lost little ones they have seen over there. So many infinitely valuable children in need of someone to come and scoop them out of their misery into a loving family. These parents' hearts are broken, for they are doing all they can by adopting one, two, even three children, but are leaving thousands behind in the orphanages. So they come home and do their best to convince others to join in. “Something must be done!” they say…”whether humanitarian aid for the orphanages, adoptions, helping others adopt, something, anything!” These children need to be saved now!

It makes me want to cast all fear aside and march forward to stand and fight at the front of this battle! So beware rejection, abandonment, hunger, neglect, and woe! We will not let our child endure much longer in your grasp. We are coming for our child and the gates of hell WILL NOT prevail!

Chosen!

Thousands of children live in Bulgaria’s orphanage… left alone in the presence of strangers, given minimal care and enough food to keep them alive, but not always to completely nourish them.  No loving arms to hold them, no kisses to make their booboos better. There are no shouts of “LOOK, Mom” as they do summersaults; indeed, no summersaults are to be seen – fun is a waste of valuable energy. Every aspect of life in these institutions (for they cannot be called homes) is utilitarian – food is for nourishment, baths are for cleansing, and time is for existing. No yummy treats, no splashing, bath-time games, no entertainment or play to while away the hours between meals and sleep, and no love. The orphanages of Bulgaria are closer in nature to our prisons than to our childcare.

As brutal as these orphanages may seem to us, they are meeting a vital need. So many children would be on the streets, or worse, if not for their existence. So many children left alone with no one to care for them – and these orphanages are their only hope for survival. Why so many? Where are these children’s parents? Did they die in some massive war, some all-consuming plague?

The surprising answer is that vast majority of these children have at least one living parent. Bulgaria is a poor nation and poverty makes people desperate and sometimes inhumanly uncaring. Parents abandon their children, some thinking that they are better off in the orphanage, some just wanting to rid themselves of hungry, ever crying, mouths they never wanted in the first place. Some of these children are fortunate – they are able to be returned to their parents or other relatives once their financial conditions improve. Some are adopted into happy Bulgarian homes.

It’s the leftovers I’m interested in though! The ones that never find their way home, abandoned and forgotten, unwanted, unloved. The ones that have nothing to look forward to but the same monotonous routines of the orphanage all the days of their childhood. So hopeless that they don’t even know what it means to hope. It makes me want to shout out to them across the sea, “Here! With us you will find a true home! With us you will experience love as deep as any parent could have for their most precious child! With us you with have laughter, delight, and all things a child should treasure!” If we could afford it, we would take dozens and dozens of these children, as far as we could spread our love and time. Right now, however, we are starting with one… and only the Lord knows what the future holds. Right now, though, we will take our one child from grays of the institutional life and show to them a life filled with the million different colors of love!

This is our calling –to preach good tidings to the meek, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound! We are all called to this as ambassadors of Christ – but the expression of this varies from person to person and even from season to season in our lives. But for us, for now, this is our purpose, our calling – we are to take a little child and share him or her with the good news of love, family, and joy! We are to bind up his or her broken life, bring healing to his or her wounds – physically, emotionally, etc. We are to give to them the freedom of a life to be lived – yes, freed from the walls of their orphanage, but more importantly freed from the stigma and sting of abandonment, freed from the blight of hopelessness, and freed from a childhood without love! No longer will he or she be a “leftover”… he or she will be the first chosen, the cream of our crop!

The Faith of Friends

I am not a big Beatles fan. I probably could not name them all, nor have I ever tried to find out more about them – beyond the stories my mother told about screaming, fainting masses of girls and about the boots they wore.  But they were on to something with their song lyric “I get by with a little help from my friends”.

I am not a big Hillary fan either. Yes, I know a brief history of her life as First Lady, Senator, Democratic Presidential runner up and Secretary of State. But beyond that, don’t know, don’t care. I probably should, but Ian is the knowledgeable one about such things in our family.  But I know that she did say that it takes a village to raise a child. And while I believe that the majority of such responsibility falls to the parents, she was on to something as well.

When it comes to this adoption, I cannot express how blessed and encouraged we have been by our friends and family.  Ian’s parents gave us the first little shove we needed to turn our “Maybe now is the time to adopt” to action, encouraging us to start researching and to step out in faith. My parents gave us the thumbs up, the “we are proud of you” that meant so much! Our pastors, Niki and Kelly, were so excited for us that our tentative faith grew and we solidified our commitment to the long road ahead of us. The positive reaction of all our friends going “That’s great, we’re behind you 100%” has given us courage to keep going. People praying, asking our All Powerful God to change this earthly reality into a reality defined and empowered by His purposes – right now He is protecting and caring for our child, smoothing the way through all the difficulties of international adoption, changing injustice into justice, moving mountains – all because some faithful people are praying for us. The Aunties and Uncles-to-be cheering us onward. People we know and people we barely have met giving sacrificially and lovingly to our adoption fund, making our dream a reality. The curious questions of “Why adoption, why international, why Bulgaria, why a special-needs child and how are you going to do it all?” have helped us refine our purpose and path to our special little child. You have believed in us!You have encouraged us!

In reading the last paragraph, it sounds like we already have our prize and are cradling our child in our arms. Well, we don’t – yet. But I know we are going to. Why? Because this is not just happening based on our own gumption, but because of the faith of our friends! We know that when the going gets tough, we will have you to lean on, you will help us over the hurdles ahead, you will be our “village”. We also know that the Greatest Friend of All, God our Loving Father, is faithful. He has surrounded us with you – our friends and family and is using you to strengthen and encourage and equip us for the good work He has called us to.  And it is a “calling”; we feel that it is in the very depths of our souls and spirits. I will write more about that next week, but for now, I just want to thank all of you for your faith and faithfulness, and not just for what you have already done, but for what you will do.  Thank you for taking this journey with us, carrying our burdens, lightening our load. It is hard to express just how much we need and appreciate you. We love you for loving us – we love you more for loving our child and for making it possible – in hundreds of different ways – for our child to come home to us.  Thank you, thank you, and thank you!

Almost Done… Isn’t Done.



SANITY... the first thing to go when dealing with paperwork.



We are at last filling out the final forms for our home study paperwork. We are so ready to be finished with this… it has taken far too long. Sheet after sheet, form after form. We are so tired of it. But there is another reason we are ready to be done with it. We are yearning for our child! The sooner we finish the paperwork, the sooner we will start and finish our home study, the sooner we can submit our dossier to Bulgaria, the sooner we will get a referral, the sooner we will be bringing our child home!

Some of the paperwork is really, really boring… like filling in every address we’ve lived at since we were 18 years old. Some is really interesting, but time consuming – like writing out our autobiographies. Just think, someday I could take this autobiographical essay and expand it into a book! Or not… as I have said, we’re ready to be done.

One of the assignments we have is to map out our child’s life once he or she comes home.  Where will his or her school/daycare be? Who will be our pediatrician of choice? Who can we call if we have a question about adoptive parenting? What are our plans for making our child aware of his/her cultural background? For taking care of his/her special needs?  If we die, who will have guardianship? These decisions make us feel like we are parents already, trying to make the best choice for our child.

But who is our child? We wish we already knew – not knowing is the hardest part of waiting.  Not knowing, but still loving. Will it be a boy or a girl? Will it be a toddler or a little child ready to enter kindergarten? Will he or she have laughing brown eyes and a beautiful full grin or a shy smile and a head full of curls? Will our kid like broccoli and brussels sprouts like Mom or love all things bread like Dad? We will love whomever God gives us to love… we just can’t wait to meet him or her!

I think we will have a party when we are done with the last form… anyone want to come over and celebrate with us?

Fun Acts of Faith

Our hope is high and we are sailing the high seas of faith! We know God has called us to adopt and are trusting that He will bring us the perfect (for us!) child. A precious child who will fit into our family, whom we can love on, read stories to, and give to a knowledge of God - true and intimate.

We want our child to know God, to walk hand and hand with Him, to know in his or her heart of a higher adoption available – adoption into God’s family. We want our adoption to mirror this mightier one, not only to everyone who wanders in and out of our lives, but to our child as well. We believe that God will give our child a receptive heart and an active mind to search out the great things of God. We are stepping out in faith that we will be the sort of parents who can walk the difficult roads of adoption and of parenting an adopted special-needs kid.

Part of this faith is believing what is not as though it is. We don’t have our kid yet. We have yet to overcome the obstacles of all the paperwork, fundraising/saving of $30,000, and the months and months (if not years) of waiting for our referral to come. But we believe, we know in our hearts, that we already have a beautiful son or daughter, waiting for us over in Bulgaria! He or she is ours, not blood of our blood, but heart of our heart! In faith, we so completely believe this that we are taking action. It is a great joy to step out and get ready for the arrival of our coming cutie pie!

The first thing to getting ready for a major change in one's life, as any women will tell you, is to get a haircut! Here is my new mommy do:

We have received such encouragement from the Scriptures over the past month. Through various people, our own study, and God speaking through His Word, we know God has special plans for our family and for our children. Part of this encouraging Word was an answer to a prayer we’ve been praying – whether we should move out of our little apartment or not. And God said we are to expand our tent pegs! We have found a bigger place with a washer and dryer in the apartment – something which, as we have been told by all our parent-y friends, is something very difficult to do without when you have kids. So no more trips to the laundry room with the broken machines! Hurrah! We will be moving the beginning of June. It will be a little more expensive, but so worth it! Anyway, would it be a step of faith if it did not stretch us? Here is our new home… only two buildings down the street!

 

The latest faith action has been to become involved in some Bulgarian cultural events. Since we love exploring different cultures – what fun it is to do so in connection with our beloved child! In a completely “God way”, we have been hearing of Bulgaria right and left nowadays. One of our dear friends, the fabulous actress/songstress Amie, has recently become involved with a Bulgarian theatre group and invited us to a poetry reading of Bulgarian poems at the Bulgarian Embassy here in DC. Only segments of the poems were translated into English, but it was a beautiful event with amazingly beautiful people, language, and music. And food prepared by the Embassy chef! Truly fantastic! We met some very interesting people there, including a lady who has started an educational/medical facility in Sofia (the Bulgarian capital) for special-needs children. We had a lovely conversation about Bulgaria's special-needs children and our adoption. She couldn’t quite understand why we would want to adopt a special-needs child, which we thought was odd, as she has such a heart for them herself. But she was a wonderful person to meet and gave us her card in case we had any questions about Bulgaria she could answer for us. After all, that is what DC is all about – networking!

If you want to look through the Flickr photo stream of the event, you might catch a glimpse of us in the audience!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/aticc/sets/72157629604504465/with/6990177407/

We will be going to more Bulgarian cultural events in the future as they are officially part of our adoption education. We need 30 hours of education before we can fly out to Bulgaria to pick up our kid.  If you would like to come with us, let us know - the more the merrier!  The next event is April 1st and is a celebration of Bulgarian culture: http://www.aticc.org/home/ambassador-theater-presents-hopa-tropa-kukerica.