A New Direction. Again. Some More.

After Nathan and I changed course to pursue domestic adoption, and then had the surprise visit from the Haitians, we settled into Christmas celebrations and anxiously waited for a phone call from our state agency to fill us in on next steps. 

We are not good waiters. 

Not like as in a restaurant. As in waiting. For stuff to happen. For people who have the information to tell us what our lives might look like in the future. So after a week, we called them. They reported that the next step was to take a mandatory training class which would take place some time starting in January.  They would call and let us know when. 

Ehhh. More waiting. 

In the meantime, we had plenty to discuss.  Like if we were going to be adopting or fostering. Seven years earlier when we had first discussed raising children who were not ours biologically, I had informed Nathan that I was not interested in fostering. My reasons were similar to many you've probably heard before. Reasons you might state yourself. Mainly, I didn't think I could have a child placed in my home only to have it removed later. How could I love and nurture a child and then let it go? Possibly likely back to a home situation I felt was unsafe or unsuitable. I couldn't fathom how I would navigate that kind of heartache.

On the way back home from a trip to Kentucky, we stopped to see dear friends who had adopted the year before. We were excited to catch up with them and meet their daughter. Since we were at the beginning of the adoption process, we annoyed them with questions. At some point they asked if we were considering foster care or adoption only. Nathan looked at me with that you answer this, it's your hangup look. I remember Rebecca mentioning that they were interested in fostering when their daughter got older. And then she made a statement that has stuck in my head ever since. "Some kids just need a soft place to land while their parents get it together."

Hmmm. I chewed on that for a while. And prayed about it.

I told God again how unsure I was about loving a child and then sending it off into the unknown. That it would break my heart to give one up that had become a part of my family. That I struggled with the unknowns and possible transitory situations that came with fostering. That I wasn't sure I could handle my home becoming a revolving door of children. 

And then He said something really profound.

This isn't just about you, Beth.

Owww. 

But He was right. This isn't about what is comfortable for me (for the love, this process is demolishing every comfort zone I've ever embraced). Or safe. Or easy. Or assured. This isn't about what will keep my heart feeling warm and fuzzy. 

This is about the least of these. This is about children up the road from our homes who are living through hell. Who are scared. And beaten. And molested. And broken. Who simply need a consistent parent figure to say you are worth it. You are worth me possibly getting my heart broken in the process of loving you. You are worth my home being turned upside down while we all adjust to each other. You are worth extra laundry, extra cleaning, extra doctor visits, extra homework, extra diapers. Jesus died for you, precious one, so you are worth the room in my heart and life to love you. Even if it's only for a time. Even if a little piece of me dies if you go away. 

Nothing about following Christ is tame or safe. We've decided to change directions from adoption only, to fostering too. That ain't safe, folks. It's not safe for my heart, or our checkbook, or our social life, or my sanity! I might get broken in this process. Every person who currently lives in my house will suffer. But if we suffer for another, we might look a little more like our Savior. And I want soo much to look like him. I want to love like He loved. With no thought of self. In order to redeem another. 

I'm not saying every Christ follower is called to foster. Or adopt. The least of these are everywhere we find humans who are overlooked and mistreated. You won't need to look long or hard to find a vulnerable life of some kind to minister to. Jesus said whatever we do for them, we do for Him. And Worthy is the Lamb.

But let's stop shying away from serving them because we want to protect our hearts. Our hearts are already secure. They are eternally tied to the One who's heart bled out for us. He can help us deal with a broken heart. Let's put our hearts on the line for those who don't know Christ. Because it's not our hearts that are in danger. 

It's the infant who crawls around in a home with dirty drug needles on the floor and isn't fed or held or changed. It's the 4 month old baby girl who is slammed against the wall during a domestic dispute and the 2 year old who saw the whole thing. It's the 13 year old girl who is being targeted by sex slave organizations because she has no one who cares where she is or what she is doing. It's the 7 year old boy who hates the weekends because the only time he gets fed regularly is at school. 

It's their hearts and lives and eternity on the line.

Not mine. 

Answering the Adoption Question. Part Four.

How does one eat an elephant?  One bite at a time.  Apparently that is the only way I can tell this story, too. Small chunks. Stay with me, or don't. Some will find common ground, others won't. It's here for those who need it. Chomp, chomp!

December 1, 2013 - We were in Hartford enjoying a visit with my family. The cousins were having big fun together. As the oldest, my nephew Lane was the leader of the pack. His sister Brooklyn was the baby and at almost one, so stinkin' cute I could have eaten her with a spoon. Both of my kids doted on her that day.  I remember thinking how much fun it was to watch them interact with her. At one point I commented to Nathan, "Could we have a one year old?"

"I don't think we can just produce one," he said, "but we could potentially adopt one."

Time stood still.  He said the "A" word. We had not been using the "A" word. Not in months. (Find out why here.)

With that one uttered word, the silence around adoption was broken.  

And then came the torrential rainfall of the word.  For a week solid it poured into my mind relentlessly.The radio. A fiction book I picked up to read. Mom calling to tell me about little ones in her preschool who had been orphaned. Blog posts shared on Facebook. 

Out of the blue two friends who live in different states that I rarely talk to sent messages asking where we were in the "process". (I hadn't let them in on the fact that there was no "process" at the time.) I couldn't get away from it. And for the first time in months, it was all I could think about.  

After seven days of this onslaught,  I decided I should mention it to Nathan. 

It was Tuesday. We were putting up the Christmas tree and talking about what our family would give Jesus for his birthday that year. In the midst of the ornaments and excitement, I say something like, "Umm, Nathan.  I've been thinking about adoption again".   

After Titus and Anna went to sleep that night, Nate and I sat on the couch and discussed the "A word" for the first time in months. Before turning in, we prayed about it together. Once the "amen's" were said, I thought, "The last time we prayed like that, we moved to Alabama".  I knew God was moving.  But I had no way of knowing how fast He would go! 

December 8 - The following Sunday. I was standing where I always do on Sunday mornings around 11ish. The front row. During worship, we sang "This is Amazing Grace". One of the lines says; "He makes the orphan a son and daughter". I  get all choked up when we sing that part.  Every. Single. Time. But that Sunday, I also had a fleeting vision of a row full of children. I kinda laughed in my spirit. Really, Lord, a row full? That's funny.

After a busy Sunday morning at church, the four of us came home and crashed. Everyone laid down for a nap, but I couldn't fall asleep. (Weird. I'm a champion napper. It's one of my spiritual gifts.) I shuffled into the living room with my half-read fiction book in hand (the one I randomly picked up earlier in the week that coincidentally featured a main character who was adopted...had no idea) and sat in my rocking chair. I read a little, stared at the tree, listened to Nathan and Titus snore on the couch, and generally thought about how wonderful and perfect our life was. I was completely satisfied in that moment with our life and how everything was turning out. I felt deep, deep peace.

Nathan roused a little later and we decided breakfast for supper would be divine after our lazy afternoon.  I was standing at the stove burning frying bacon when Nate said, "I think I'll go out and check the mail while you're working on that. I forgot to yesterday." When he came back in, I glanced over to see what he had in his hands. Double-take. It was a plain manila envelope. The kind they sale at Walmart everyday. It had no unusual markings to set it apart. Just our handwritten address.  

But I knew immediately what was inside it.  

I stared a hole through Nathan as he was pulling out the stapled packet of papers it contained. 

"Did you request another application from Chambers County DHR?" I asked. 

"No. I have had zero contact with them since last August," was his reply. Chills covered my body as he pulled out an application identical to the one I had tossed in the trash months before. 

Then...a still, small voice whispered to my spirit, 

"This is what I want for Christmas". 

And I knew.

Nathan asked if I wanted to fill out the application after the kids went to bed.  Usually my response to that would have been something like, "Have you lost your MIND? Not until we pray and fast. And seek godly counsel. And search the Holy Scriptures." But with absolute calm and certainty I simply said, yes. 

Yes, let's pursue domestic adoption.

So we stayed up late documenting everything about us on the 20 page application. We mailed it in on December 9 and waited impatiently for them to contact us about what to do next. 

Meanwhile, on the following Sunday I got the most unexpected phone call of my life. 

Answering the Adoption Question. Part Three.

By now you're thinking, "Gah! Will it ever end?" Sorry, dear readers. I'm not known for my brevity.

September 2013 - The first picture Nathan sent me from this trip was of the entire group of kids who live at Alex's House.

Can you even stand the cuteness?

I wept when it came up on my screen. I looked at those darling faces and longed to hug and kiss them. Nathan took an Auburn baseball cap to Renel and had the chance to spend time with him. Such an amazing thing considering the last time Nate saw him he was homeless and hungry standing on his parents' grave. Who was this smiling, healthy child? Such a transformation.

That smile does funny things to my heart.

War Eagle!

On the fourth night of Nathan's trip, I had put the kids in the bed and was escaping into Pinterest world. (Funny thing about Nate's trips; the housework is greatly diminished and my free time after 8pm goes up! Probably in part because we exist off of pb&j and cereal while he's gone.) My phone buzzed alerting me to a new text. I guessed it was Nate with his usual nightly report of the day. One solemn sentence stared at me from the phone:

"Tough news about adoption."

"What do you mean?"

"It doesn't look possible from Haiti for us."

The questions started flying and my fingers could barely keep up. Neither could my heart. How could this be possible? 

I could bore you with the details that I didn't believe that night, but long story short, a Haitian adoption was not going to happen.

On September 10 I began to grieve for the child I would never hold in my arms.

Starting that night and continuing through the fall, I went through every stage of grief.  The shock that followed the text. In the weeks to come I hit denial, sure that there must be some way. All things are possible with God, right? I kept looking for a loophole, an exception.  At one point after Nathan returned home he was explaining to me (again) the reasons it was not going to happen. I said, "I guess we will just have to move to Haiti!". My heart clung to the desire for a Haitian child and refused to let go.

As the leaves turned colors and gently made their way to the ground, I slowly settled into acceptance. But with it came the questions. Had I heard God wrong? Adoption had been the catalyst for our move to Alabama. Were we out of God's will? Did others think we were all talk with this adoption stuff? Just following the latest Christian trend? 

I wrestled with how my life was going to look. Titus was off to kindergarten and with just one at home  I had been expecting to throw myself into paperwork and home studies.  What should I do with myself?

One day in late October I was going through a stack of papers. I came to the information packet Nathan had requested from DHR back in August containing the application for domestic adoption. I took one look at it, and promptly threw it in the trash. " Us four and no more." I thought. 

I remember the anger and pain just seeing it brought to my heart. I still wanted my Haitian child, even though I had come to terms that I wouldn't have him. 

When I look back on that fall one thing stands out vividly in my mind; the silence surrounding the "A" word. Other than the first couple of weeks after Nathan returned from Haiti, we did not talk about adoption. At all. Period. This was a topic that had been so commonplace in our home, our children understood the concept by the time they were three. But for several months, it was an off limits topic.

Nathan tried to bring it up a few times, but bless him, it was a dead end conversation. He had no idea what I was struggling with. My grief was so internal, I had not even shared it with him. I held that hurt close to my heart. It was a secret place and I wasn't ready to let anyone into it. Just me and the Lord wrestling it through

But He seemed strangely silent during that fall, too. Until early December. 

When He nearly blasted my ears off.

  

Answering the Adoption Question. Part Two

February 2012  - Nathan led a second mission trip to Haiti. This time it was solely through Alex's House. (If you are looking for mission trip opportunities click here!) On the last day, the group was driving to the airport but took a quick detour to see the mass grave from the earthquake. Seeing two young boys who looked hungry and ragged, they stopped and offered the snacks and water they had stashed in their luggage. 

Renel and Remy and an adult brother.

Story told, the boys were orphans. Their parents had died in the earthquake. The very ground they were standing on was likely their parents grave. Nathan was grieved and broken all over again. The group drove away, but sensing that the Holy Spirit was prompting, they made a u turn.  Bill and Patrick (directors at Alex's House) got information about who the boys were staying with and where.  A few weeks later, Renel and his brother moved into the safety and security of Alex's House!  (Read the full heart moving, tear jerking account via Alex's House.)

As Nathan came home and shared the story we both felt an incredible connection to those boys. We became Renel's sponsor through Alex's House. We sent money monthly and presents at Christmas. We received letters and pictures and returned the same. And we hoarded secret dreams of bringing them into our home. (Read about the day I fed Renel Spaghetti AT MY DINNER TABLE, YA'LL!)

One of our last Sundays at FBC Fort Sumner.

September 2012 - We packed, and cried, and said goodbye to the dearest place west of the Mississippi. After two days of driving across five states and three time zones, we pulled up to the house we had chosen with our (current and future) children in mind. We dove into "settling in". Knowing we needed to give our family some time to adjust to the move, we decided to put adoption on the back burner for six months. During that time, we still talked about adoption, but didn't do anything to move forward.

March(ish) 2013 - Time to put this adoption dream into gear! I began to research, again.  Agencies this time. I talked to friends who had adopted and combed the websites of the agencies I liked most. As I did, one aspect of adoption came into clearer focus: the COST. Before this point in the process I had seen the numbers, but not being a "numbers person" the figures had made absolutely no dent in my thinking. As Nate and I began to discuss how to fund this thing, we both defaulted to our normal responses.

Nathan worried. Calculated. And worried some more. I simply ignored the reality of our finances and declared that "God would provide". I knew amazing stories of how God miraculously delivered the funds for other adoptions. If he was leading us to adopt, he would give us what we needed to adopt. I wanted to proceed with the process despite the fact that we had a minuscule amount saved. Nathan did not. He felt strongly that we needed to have a safety net in savings before we set out into the unknown. We both worked harder to cut corners and save more. I secretly prayed God would help Nathan see the light and step out in faith (prideful much?). We kept saving. Continued talking. Prayed hard. Had some tense conversations. And by the time summer arrived....we were still broke.  

And still longing for our Haitian child.

August 2013 - We were on the way to Hartford to visit family for the weekend. The kids had fallen asleep and Nathan and I were lost in our own thoughts with the radio droning on in the background. A commercial(?) of sorts came on in between music sets. A female voice advocating for children in the Alabama foster care system. She stated the number of children in the state who were currently adoptable. 261. I darted my eyes over at Nathan without turning my head. Is he hearing this? I wondered. A few minutes later he asked, "Did you hear that?"

We were both flabbergasted. We had no idea there were so many children in our state waiting to be adopted. Looking back, I guess I assumed that most of the children removed from their homes were stuck in some kind of foster care purgatory. 261 waiting to be adopted?!?

We talked about it that night. The need.  How we could meet it. But I kept going back to the desire to adopt FROM HAITI. I had been dreaming of a black child for two years. Nathan, though, was really interested in this new development. I didn't have much time to think about it over the weekend as we were at a reunion of sorts with my family(read: doing manual labor at "The Mawmaw's" with all the cousins). Twice during that weekend I walked in on Nathan grilling my aunt and my cousin (who both work for DHR) about details on domestic foster care and adoption.  He is nothing if not thorough.

By the time we returned home Saturday, he was sold. Already looking at mini vans and planning how to rearrange the kids' rooms to accommodate more beds. I told him several times that I simply was not ready to switch from a Haitian adoption to domestic. He didn't push. He never does. He simply asked if he could request more information from DHR. I figured I would give him that much. What difference would it make?

A week later the information packet arrived in the mail. Complete with an application attached. He looked at it all. So did I. I felt deep emotions over those kids, I really did. But I still saw a Haitian darling when I closed my eyes at night. So after a few days, the packet got moved to "the stack". (You know. The stack of junk on top of the fridge or side table that sits and simply collects more stuff to deal with.) We were busy.

Nathan was getting ready for his third visit to Haiti.









  

Answering the Adoption Question. Part One.

We're at the point in the journey where people are beginning to ask about the journey.  Here's my take on how this thing moved from a conversation, to quite possibly the scariest step of faith I've ever taken...

May 2006- Nate and I got married. Adoption was a part of some of our earliest discussions. I have a vivid memory of one of them. We were in the kitchen of our seminary housing on Sandage Avenue in Fort Worth. (Sounds like a lovely street...it was the ghetto. Multiple episodes of COPS were filmed in the blocks surrounding ours.) We were waiting on dinner to burn finish, and in the meantime planning the next two years of our life including when to have a baby. (We had been married like two weeks. Tell me other newlyweds engage in this insanity.) We both mentioned that we would like to try for biological children, but whether we could conceive or not, at some point we wanted to pursue adoption. I don't remember the specifics about all that was said, but one aspect is etched in my mind: Nathan was really interested in fostering and I was adamant about adoption only.  

January 2011 - Five years, three moves and two biological babies later (turns out I'm Fertile Myrtle)... It's 8pm and I've been going head to head with a strong willed 2 year old for 12 hours while simultaneously rocking/feeding/changing a 3 month old. Sitting in Titus' room, I'm attempting to stuff said 2 year old into footy pajamas while he thrashes about as if they are made of acid. Anna's lying on the floor screaming. Probably because she's wet and cold. Because I haven't gotten her pajamas on yet. Because I was a rookie and didn't have the sense to dress her first. Nathan had been at work (pastor) all the live long day, and then to a missions committee meeting.  He walks in and sits dreamy eyed on the floor, zero recognition of my angst and exhaustion showing on his face.  

I look at him like Why aren't you helping me?!

He misinterprets my look as How was your day, dear?

He picks that moment to reveal, "I want to lead a mission trip to Haiti in August."  

Oh, really?

(Disclaimer: I lived 22 drive hours from free childcare/Nanna and Nanny. I was sleep deprived and spent nearly every waking minute in our house with creatures who eat their boogers and cry/fuss/whine/argue 8 hours a day. Be gentle with your judgement as you read my response.) 

My retort to his heart for missions?  "Fine. You go save the world. I'll stay here and raise all these children!"

As if there were more than two.  

I remember nothing about the rest of that night. Other than the way I stewed on the injustice of Nathan traveling the world with fun adult-types doing exciting work while I potty trained and bottle fed all by myself. (I had entitlement issues...way past that, surely.)

I wish I had known then that God was going to use Nathan's trip to Haiti to wreck our hearts for orphans and change the trajectory of our lives. 

Maybe I would have been nicer.

August 2011 - Nathan takes his first trip to Haiti.  By this point I've repented of my self serving attitude and am playing the role of the supportive wife. As a part of the mission trip, he visits two orphanages in Port-Au-Prince.  One we simply called the "bad orphanage" and the other was Alex's House. The children at Bad Orphanage were underfed, mistreated, unsupervised and exploited. Example: on one of Nate's visits, the children had found a dead cow head, drug it to the orphanage and were attempting to get meat off of it to eat. 60 children. Because they were starving. Nate and the other men on the trip had serious conversations about taking the director on a long trip off a short bridge.  

I love Nathan's Indiana Jones look here!

Alex's House, the good orphanage, was a totally different story. The children there were loved, fed, obviously well taken care of and taught about Jesus! (Check out the story of Alex's House here. Spoiler alert: you'll want to adopt them all.) Nate met the director, Bill Howard and discussed the orphan problem in Haiti. His heart was shattered at what he had witnessed. As he came home and showed me picture after picture of the poverty, the emptiness, the need, I was broken too. We both struggled to eat, knowing the conditions of so many there. We looked around at our stuff and knew God had not given it to be hoarded.  We looked inside at our hearts and saw the selfishness, and cried rivers of repentance. One thing began to dominate our conversations; adopting a child from Haiti. 

We began to do what everyone does when they consider adopting. We Googled. And Googled. And Googled some more. We bought the book, "Adopted for Life" by Russell Moore (Moving and informative! I highly recommend it.) and read scores of blogs. As we read and researched one thing became clear: this was going to be a daunting task and would require more of us than we could anticipate. Support from family would be crucial. We began to wonder if it was time to take the Lawrence clan back east.