Can you imagine?

We have had a few good and busy weeks, and tonight I have finally made time to sit down and relate some of our adoption journey and where it is bringing us. While we are in the middle of it, surrounded and astounded by what God is doing, I am at times caught off guard by a comment or two from those who have not experienced adoption in this way. I want to share a bit of my heart tonight in hopes that others can see a little of where we are coming from and where we are going.

Before we got married we both had a strong desire to work in the mission field of Latin America, especially with orphans. In addition to our heart for missions, adoption was always the way we desired to grow our family. God had woven these two desires together in both of our hearts and His timing for either missions or adoption was yet unknown as we started our life together. The first years of marriage and a few career changes later brought us to the adoption of our first child, and shortly thereafter, the adoption of our second child. Certainly, our heart for missions has remained and our tenderness for the orphan has steadily grown as God seems to be bringing the mission field to our home at this time, instead of bringing us to live full time in Latin America. We know that God has given us a joyous mission here. We consider it a joy and a privilege to raise the children God brings to our family through adoption.

Throughout the past year we have had the opportunity to consider adopting several waiting sibling groups in Colombia. For one reason or another, these opportunities have not come to fruition. Sometimes it was because other families had already completed their paperwork and we hadn’t even begun. Other times, though, we read more than thirty pages documenting the sibling group’s history and came to realize that our family could not provide the environment the children would need to thrive due to the particular injustices they had endured during their young years. Until you have read that kind of information and have processed the hurt these children have faced, and then had to make the decision to say no to parenting these children, when your heart wants to say “yes”, you will really never understand what the adoptive parent goes through in that instance.

A week and a half ago I spent an afternoon pouring over the paperwork on a waiting sibling group in Colombia. This was not an official referral for our family from ICBF (Colombia’s Family Welfare Institute), rather an identified sibling group at a private orphanage that our agency was trying to help to find a home. I had told our social worker we would prayerfully consider the information and make our decision by the morning. Of course, Nic had a big presentation at work to the senior management team and was entirely unavailable, so he had no idea that this was even on the table for consideration. Strangely, I didn’t feel any sense of burden knowing that he was unavailable as I waded through the information – I knew that God would unite us in spirit in this decision. As I read the many pages of family history my only option was to cry out to God on behalf of these children. I found that I didn’t need to pray about whether or not we adopted them, but I needed to lift these precious children up before the Lord – their needs were so many. The passage that came to mind was Romans 8:26-27 “In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God’s will.” It was an intense afternoon of reading and considering the great needs and praying for these children. Ultimately, we knew in our hearts that these children needed a home where they would be the only children, or the youngest children who could learn from older siblings already in the home. Our home with young children would not be a success for this particular sibling group. I was at peace with the decision, but emotionally drained from considering all that these children had gone through.

Later that evening as I was recounting our decision to someone, I shared that the sibling group we had considered had needs that were best met by another family who did not have young children in the home. The person’s reply was something like, “Oh, so I bet you’re glad those are not going to be your children!” I guess I was too stunned and drained to respond at that time, but later that week my heart ached as my head replayed the comment over and over. I am absolutely NOT glad that those are not going to be our children. With all of my heart I wish that we could have provided a safe, loving place for them to learn to be a family. I mourn the loss of that opportunity for these children and pray that God will raise up a Christian family to love them as He does. I have been praying steadily for these children who have captured a piece of my heart, but who will never call me “Mom.”

While I was sharing our adoption news with someone else recently, I was again shocked by the words that people say without thinking. But instead of discouraging me, those thoughtless words got me to thinking more and more about how God has been preparing our hearts for this adoption and her careless words got me quite excited. The most thought provoking thing was when a woman responded to me in a shocked voice, “Can you IMAGINE having two or three more children?!?” I just smiled at her for quite a long time because actually yes, yes I can. I have imagined it since we got married. I imagined it every time we filled out the forms to complete our homestudy, psychological evaluation, immigration application, FBI background check, and Colombian dossier. I imagined it with every check I wrote to the adoption agency, US government, and translator in Colombia. I imagine it as I clean out closet space for them and try to plan for beds, sheets and clothing we may need. I imagine it as I search through home school curriculum and resources, trying to make a plan for children whose ages, genders and educational needs I don’t yet know. I imagine it every day as we pray for the children and the needs they likely have now as they wait without a family.

I praise God that He has given us the ability to not only imagine adopting more children, but that He has also allowed us the painful opportunity to consider adopting sibling groups who will not come home with us, in order to know more clearly the needs our children may likely have and the hurts our children may be experiencing. Please imagine with us and pray along with us for our waiting children.