Just a Small Dose of Reality

I thought that on the eve of our return home it might be good to share with you a small dose of reality regarding the older child adoption process, and specifically our adoption process, realizing that every process is different. Keep in mind that I love my children deeply, that their past is their private story, that I would never want to embarrass them, and that I have a fierce desire to protect them from further hurts in this world. In order to set straight any misunderstandings that our time here has been glamorous or easy, I'm going to share a few glimpses into the past four weeks.

Persecution and Grace:
This adoption process, unlike our other two, has been fraught with persecution in ways I never imagined it would be. If it wasn't paperwork standing in our way discouraging us, it was actual people. Certainly, the paperwork was much easier to deal with than the attitudes of the people we encountered who tried to deter us from our adoption process. Three officials here in Colombia, including the woman at the US embassy processing our US visas, tried to stand in our way of adopting these children. But there is a blessing even in encountering those difficult people: it made me realize the depth of my desire to love and protect my children, to obey God's calling to adopt them despite how challenging it might seem. And it is only by God's grace that He provided the preseverance to endure these challenges, and the love to reach out to the children He had planned for us.

Family Boot Camp:
During the first week it became quite apparent to Nic and I that the gentle approach to family acquisition was not going to work for this group. We skipped that often sought after time in adoption called the "honeymoon period." It was actually better for us this way because they were able to show us what they were made of, and though we were caught off guard for the first day or so we recovered quickly and entered into the stage we affectionately referred to as Family Boot Camp. It wasn't very pretty, but it was absolutely necessary. I'm thankful my father served in the Army and and my brother currently serves in the Air National Guard so that I had some mental images to draw off of for this phase of the process. Certainly, our time working with inner-city youth when Nic was a youth pastor was helpful, too. Firm, fair, consistent, and educational was the theme. Fun would come later.

The Taming of the Shrew(s):
The next phase of our journey went something like Shakespeare's play about a man named Petruchio who marries a woman named Katherina who is an awful shrew with a terrible attitude. He treats her terribly throughout the play until she is "tamed" into submission, having a good attitude. She is compared with her sister Bianca who is given everything she desires by her suitor and ultimately ends up having an awful attitude, demanding everything she wants, and whom no one can stand to live with. Of course, we didn't treat our children terribly with the hopes of taming them into submission, but surely for them it felt like it. Colombia is a much more permissive culture regarding what children are allowed to do and coming into our family culture it must have felt like we were awful parents when we didn't allow soda for every meal and we enforced a very early bedtime compared to what they were used to. This phase of the process was where we tackled a lot of attitude and misunderstanding of what it means to be adopted by a family. This taming process was really a growing process for all of us, and I'm so glad that we could share this intense time together. And still, the fun would come later.

The Daily Rollercoaster:
And this is where our journey has left us. We are thrilled to experience the daily joys of trusting one another more and sharing our hearts, giggling and playing together. We spiral downward together as fear grips one or more of the family members and we have to regroup and work through past issues and future fears. We get off the ride, dust ourselves off, regroup as a family, and get back on again to see what tomorrow's ride holds for us. Somedays are a lot more up than down. Somedays we just coast. Somedays, some of the family members want to just watch, but there's no such thing in a family - everyone's along for the ride; and some days it's a lot more wild than any of us ever imagined.

In the end after the ride is all done and the day is over, and our emotions have healed from the ups and downs, we are all thankful to be together as a family. As parents, Nic and I know that God has been preparing us for these children and even for this exact experience in Colombia. God knew what training, education and experiences we would need in our past to go through our own Boot Camp and Taming of the Shrew and daily Rollercoaster experiences with the children. God knew just how many days it would take before we would see the children's hearts and dispositions begin to change before our eyes. And He knows how many more hurts and wounds are stored up inside each of the childrens' hearts and in His own time He can heal each one, making a stepping stone out of the stumbling block of their past. We are humbled and honored to be able to be their parents and to watch as God paves the way for His precious children.