How Long?

What with the hurricane and some other significant but ordinary life events, not much has been achieved with the adoption this week.

It is strange how this constant work on the adoption has become the status quo - it is routine now that I am filling out paperwork, following up on paperwork, reviewing paper work, breathing paperwork, dreaming paperwork...

The hurricane was uneventful for us - though we have great sympathy for those whose lives were torn apart by it.

We had a couple of days off as our offices were closed - the public transportation system was shut down and it was too rough to travel. We stayed home all cozy and warm.

Our house always feels a little empty - the little bed in the office leans against the wall unused... a chair is all ready at the table. In fact, we talked about how we will need to get a bigger table when our little one comes.

This emptiness that we feel is a melancholy mingled with hope and expectation. It is a patience that is bursting at the seams with eager anticipation.

Someday, the little bed will be filled with squiggly legs and arms and the chair at the dining table filled with a child eager for dessert... our son, our daughter. The thought fills me with smiles.

"How long?" That is the question everyone is asking... probably another year or two... or more.

That answer is quickly followed by the comment/question, "How can you be so patient?!?"

Because we have no choice. The only way to fill the little bed and the little chair with our special little one that God has called us to, and called to us, is to wait.

So we stand with hearts and arms open, but with our spirits bowed in surrender to the God who controls it all. And we wait.

The paperwork actually helps the waiting - it gives the illusion that we can somehow hurry up the processes... And we can! But only so much. So much of it is waiting for other people to do something.

We should get a sign that says "SEVERE WAITING EXPECTED".

So all is well in Elliott land... but it will be so much better when the Elliotts are three instead of two. Or maybe four...

A Stitch in Time...

Just three more documents needed for our home study and we will be done!

Why is it taking so long? (We ask this question too!) Well, the dear postal service lost two forms and we had to get Bulgaria’s clearance on how to meet one of the requirements. But we have now cleared everything up and the forms are being re-sent and worked upon! We are almost finished.

Working out an adoption is like pulling teeth, herding cats, and saying “She sells seashells by the seashore” three times really fast, while patting your head and rubbing your tummy. If you go really, really slowly and concentrate really hard, you might get it right the first time. But if a ball drops, you just have to get right back on your horse, and back into the swing of things.

We learned in our adoption education about how a child may be a certain age, but in reality have the maturity of a much younger child – physically, mentally, emotionally, and socially. They even gave us a ratio to help us figure out the “real” age of our coming kiddo – that for every three months a child spends in the orphanage, he or she loses one month of growth/development. This means that a two-year-old child would be more like a baby that is one year and three months old. If you went by the actual age, you would be potty training, singing songs, working on social skills, etc.  But you can’t do that with children delayed by institution care. They lack the skills – physically, mentally, emotionally, and socially – to do things that a two-year-old child that has been lovingly cared for would do. You need to parent your two-year-old as you would a one-year-old. A five-year-old child that has spent its entire life in an orphanage would have the maturity of a three-year-old. You would have a three-year-old child that had been alive for five years and needs the things a three-year-old would need.

In the child development class I took in college, they never mentioned that you needed love to grow. Food, water, shelter, even security, but love was never mentioned as a basic need. These orphanages provide food (at least enough to keep the kids alive – most of the time anyway), water (once again, sometimes only enough to keep the kids alive – but I have heard that some orphanages feed the kids a watery meal, like soup or gruel or formula, and that is all the liquid they get for the day), shelter, and clothes to wear, etc. But the children are completely missing one basic need – there is no loving, one-on-one care that will make a child grow and thrive. As a result, they lag behind.

I love my child. Ian loves our child. We pray and long to hold him or her in our arms. With each month that goes by, I know my child is not receiving the care, the love, he or she needs to live and grow. As time goes by, our child is falling farther and farther behind. It really grieves me. We need to get our child home – as soon as possible. Every day, we balance this urgency with the need to do this adoption right – the whole mixed metaphor mentioned above.  We balance our faith that God is taking care of our child with actions that will bring our child to us as soon as possible.

One more metaphor… a stitch in time saves nine. For all you non-sewing people out there, let me explain. Suppose you have a beautiful new coat and are anticipating a winter of warmth – and you look so cool in it as well – it is the very latest fashion. You wear it a day or two, and love it! But the next morning, when you are struggling to put it on as you rush out door you hear a rip – the sound of snapping threads. “EEeek! Not my new coat!” you say. You take it off and, yes, there, right in the armpit – a very teeny tear – just a couple of stitches loose really. “No one will notice, I will fix it when I get home!” you say and rush off. No one notices and you forget that it even happened. You wear and wear your beautiful coat, until one day, when you are hailing a taxi, you feel a cold breeze sneak in and, there, it all its ugliness, is a tear of mammoth proportions – how could it have become so big without your notice?!? You keep your arm down for the rest of the day and once you get home, you get out your sewing kit and ugh, what a task! So many seams are affected and the lining is torn too! You sew and sew, and finally you are done – but it looks like an ugly scar. Better keep your arm down until you can buy a new coat.

Now if the tear had been taken care of when it was only a couple of threads, the new coat would have stayed new and beautiful and lasted longer. This is why a lot of people will adopt only infants – the “tears” are smaller and easier to fix. This is also why we feel the need to adopt a child with lots of mending needed – children are not coats and the tears in their lives cannot be fixed with just a sewing kit, and, most importantly, you cannot just go out and get a new one due to some devastating tear. These children are little souls that need healing. How will this happen? As corny as it sounds, love will be our needle and thread. And not just our love, but God’s love – the only love that not only heals wounds but heals ugly scars too.

How to Choose a Child

We continue to tie up loose ends for our home study… a form here, a letter of reference there. No momentous accomplishments, just little steps.

I also continue to check (almost daily) the webpage of waiting children available through our agency. I know that it only changes every two months, so they are the same faces there as yesterday. I know my son or daughter is not among them… yet. But I pray for them, that they would find families, find love. One is an angry little boy – who can blame him? Everyone he has ever known has rejected him. One is a cute little girl who can only just barely walk with a walker due to cerebral palsy. A couple of sibling groups, a sweet little girl whose only fault is epilepsy. How does one choose amongst so many wonderful little people?

Quite honestly, if I had my way, I would adopt them all. Ian and I have prayerfully considered each – hoping that God will say, “Yes, this is your son!” or “Yes, this is your little girl!” But each time, the Lord has said, “No, you are not the plans I have for this little one. Wait, you will see My purposes for your child soon enough.” So while I pray for each sweet soul, I leave them in God’s hands.

We are leaning on this promise that God has placed in our hearts: “Wait, you will see My purposes soon enough… For I know the plans I have for you, plans for good!”

I would write about something else… about how cute it will be to set up our little one’s room, or maybe discuss if we should adopt siblings. I am sure these will be later posts. But no, this is where I am at – this is the lesson God has me learning right now. This is the path Ian and I are walking down… learning to trust in God’s purposes, in His plans. When it comes to choosing a child, we seek those plans and purposes.

So when we see the most adorable set of twin boys, for example, we both, separately, seek out God’s will. “Is this the child/children for us?” is the question that we ask our Father. God answers and we then share the answer we received individually with each other. So far, we have heard the exact same thing every time. Each time, we are so eager, hoping God will say, “Yes.” Each time, we have received God’s “No” that is accompanied by His peace. We know that He has plans for these children, plans for GOOD. But those plans do not include us. (Note: For those of you who are as eager as we are and ready to jump to any wonderful, but mistaken, conclusion, I will spell it out for you: this means we are not adopting said twin boys in the example. Don't get too excited yet.)

When it comes to choosing a child, we are leaving the choice in God’s hands. We are opening wide our arms and waiting for the child God will place in them. We will keep waiting and we will keep asking. We are eagerly anticipating God’s “Yes!”, when His plans for a specific child are include in His plans for us – and vice versa! Hasten the day, Lord!

A Time for Everything

A couple of weeks ago, Ian and I taught a lesson to the children at our church. Quite honestly, we had forgotten that it was our week to teach and we arrived with no lesson in hand. I am glad that we serve a God who is always prepared, though, for He had placed a verse on my heart for quite some time and I was able to pull it out and pass it on to the little ones. Having mulled the verse over for days, it was like an overflowing fountain, and the lesson was planned in a few minutes, with activities, and easily executed. How I wish all of my teaching was so easily prepped for!

That verse has continued to resonate within my heart...

There is an appointed time for everything. And there is a time for every event under heaven. Ecclesiastes 3:1

Oh, so cliché! This verse is probably used at the turn of every season, at every graduation ceremony - it is even a rock song.

But when God breathes a verse into our hearts, minds and souls, it does not matter if it is the most oft-quoted verse in all of time. It is full of life and has great depth of meaning. It emerges fresh and new - ready to inspire, comfort, lead. This verse revealed a facet of God I had not seen before - or perhaps just never really looked at, as it was there all along.

For me, it is linked to the story of a woman lost in the desert, fleeing from a hopeless situation, dying of thirst, running from the sight of her dying son in anguish. Hagar had a life-changing, life-restoring, life-repurposing encounter with God. God met her need, gave her back her son, and gave her a vision and a purpose for her future that would help her endure the season of difficulty to which God asked her to return. It was then that God was given a name that revealed His loving and all-knowing character towards those of us who are caught in the chaos of this world. The God Who Sees!

The God Who Sees - He sees our anguish, our desperate need, the things that hurt so much we just cannot face them. He sees the hopeless, difficult situations we exist in, our broken dreams, and how sometimes we just want to lay down and die.

He doesn't just see our troubles - He lived them. He knows each ache and pain we experience. He knows the seasons of human life... and death. He knows the bitter chaos that consumes our world.

What a relief to know that He appoints a time for each sorrowful season to end, with times of refreshing, times of joy to match the times of sorrow! What a comfort to know that He has also appointed a purpose to each time... our endurance of difficulties will transform us into overcomers, with strength, joy, and patience for the next level of His work for us/in us! God sees each of us in our circumstances and has planned fulfillment for our needs, answers of hope for our despairs, a vision and a purpose for our future, and has allotted us strength for each step of our way out of the desert. All because of His love for us!

For us, the season that Ian and I are facing now is relatively easy - we are simply asked to do mountains of paperwork, raise a ransom to free our beloved child from the orphanage and a life of fatherlessness, and jump through seemingly endless bureaucratic hoops. The strength for these tasks has already been provided - we have been promised all that we need to accomplish our calling. We are merely asked to persevere on the long road to adoptive parenthood, step after step, mile after long mile. It feels hard though, but, yes, we are learning patience, to lean on God's strength and promise, and are learning to trust that God will fulfill our heart's desire for a child.

We have hope that God will bring this season to an end soon! We will hold our kiddo in our arms - soon! We also have the promise that while we work and wait, God is working good things - in us, in our child, and in our community. We are learning the heart of God for the fatherless, our child's heart is being prepared for our family, people are watching the God Who Sees in action and thinking, "Maybe God sees me and my circumstances too", or "Maybe there is hope in the midst of my suffering!" or "Hey, maybe I could step out in faith too!"  The answer to all of these "maybes" is "Yes" and "Amen"!

The Groaning World and the Adopted Child

Diary of a Soon-to-be Daddy

Romans 8:19-22 says that Creation itself waits expectantly and groans for the sons of the Living God to bring it life and liberation from its bondage to decay (paraphrased).

This is perhaps a slightly off-topic way to start this week’s installment of Ian and Mel’s Adoption Blog/Diary of a Soon-to-be Daddy, but it is entirely relevant to our adoption, where we stand in the process, and who we are as both adoptive parents and as adopted children of the Lord – a point I shall henceforth explain.

           

Mel and I recently finished our adoption education and home study visits. We took ten hours of online classes in which two portly Midwestern ladies taught us all about the needs of orphaned children that adoptive parents have to provide for. We then met twice offsite with our social worker for interviews and parenting discussions, and had one home visit where the same social worker – a kindly Jewess with a head full of knowledge and experience named Debbie – ensured that our home met certain requirements for parents wishing to take on the ancient and beautiful responsibility of adoption. During this process we learned about one of the greatest challenges that both orphaned children and adoptive parents face – the child’s lack of parental attachment. In other words, the lack of a healthy, trust-filled attachment between the child and its parents that leads to the child’s growth into a healthy, stable human being.

Human beings, you see, are designed to have attachments with one another. It’s the reason that we live in families and in communities, and it’s the reason we pair off and spend our lives together as married couples. When we’re born, therefore, we begin to seek those attachments with our parents. As our parents meet our needs and share our formative experiences, bonds form and the inextricable parent-child attachment grows. However, when children are raised in orphanages due to their parents giving them up or, more tragically, dying (as will possibly be the case with our future child), the child’s needs cease to be met as they should, parental bonding doesn’t occur, and attachments cease to be formed. When adoptive parents like us adopt these children, therefore, we have to be extra diligent to meet the child’s needs, share lots of bonding experiences, and grow trust that will slowly but surely lead to the parent-child attachment that the child so desperately needs to become a well-rounded, healthy person.

             

As with a lot of things that I learn, this got me thinking about God and Mankind and the parallels that exist between the spiritual and the practical worlds. It occurred to me that Humanity and God have a similar attachment deficit to that between orphaned kids and their parents. Originally, you see, Humanity and the Earth were supposed to live in a constant and pure state of attachment to the living God. Genesis talks about how God walked through the Garden of Eden with Adam and Eve, talked with them, and shared in their experiences. Creation was perfect – just like a good set of parents having a kid and spending the formative years of its life together. But when Adam and Eve rejected God’s instructions and thought they knew better, they broke the perfect bonds between Humanity and the Earth and God. They had to leave the Garden and they – as well as the Earth – fell into a state of constant decay. This to me is similar to a child losing its parent and being sent to an orphanage. That child then degenerates due to the unmet need for attachment – the most primal of all needs, even beyond food and shelter, in my opinion. But it never stops seeking that attachment. It cries out for orphanage workers, cherishing the moments when it’s heard and helped. It strains to see prospective parents as they walk through the orphanage to pick up their waiting child. It groans just like the Earth groans as it waits for God and His children to bring it life and liberation from decay.

             

When the orphaned child is finally adopted, though, it has no idea who the adoptive parents really are and what they’re going to do. It’s terrified and mistrustful. The adoptive parents have to gradually build trust with the child and fill its unmet needs in order to create bonds that will lead to full, healthy attachment. The parents even have to undo a lot of the damage that was done to the child’s psyche in the orphanage by the child’s unmet needs. But what could be considered lengthy and tiresome by many is in fact a beautiful process that any adoptive parent will say is enjoyable, powerful, and well worth it. Thusly, when we as human beings choose to have faith in Jesus as our Saviour (sent by God the Father to restore Humanity’s parental attachment with Father God), we are like orphaned kids learning how to trust our new parent. Jesus begins to meet our needs and teach us how to trust Him. We go from being orphaned children, unwanted and uncared for, to being fully-fledged adoptive sons and daughters of God. The more we spend time with Him – just like the more time adopted kids spend with their new parents – the stronger our attachment to Him grows, and the more developed and mature we become. Moreover, the closer we get to our adoptive Father, the more we’re able to bring those around us closer to Him and the Earth itself one more step away from complete decay and annihilation. 

Creation, including Humanity, groans expectantly for its Father – its primary caregiver separated at birth - just like an orphaned child cries and pleads for its parent. So as Mel and I continue our lengthy process of adoption, getting closer to the end goal, we continue to hold in our hearts God’s passion for His orphaned children and His longing for true, deep, powerful attachment with Humanity.