In The Silence...

A month has gone by now in the silence of our blog, but you can bet that there have been few rare minutes of silence in our home with our five children.  There have been sweet moments of bonding, hundreds of stories read in English and Spanish, daily chores accomplished, mountains of laundry washed/dried/folded/delivered, daily supper times filled with teaching manners and etiquette, daily homeschooling, lessons on the intensity of sibling rivalry and the strength of sibling love, tears of struggle and tears of joy.  Our only silent moments during each day are during our supper time games of Little Red School House in which Nic sets his watch in increasing increments and challenges everyone to be silent for the growing duration.  It is a most helpful game.  Noah even wins on occasion.

This past week we celebrated our three-month anniversary of being united as a family with Serena, Aliah, and Jonah.  God has accomplished a lot in the past three months in our family.  It was a big step of faith to add "big kids" to the mix, but we felt God's calling on our hearts in this area and we pressed forward, seeing His provision and confirmation in every area as we proceeded.  We knew as we continued on through this journey that there would be difficult times.  If we are honest, every family - whether adoptive or biological - faces difficulties at times.  We knew in advance what some of those struggles might be and we prepared the best we could for this difficult transition time.  As with all of life, there were things with this adoption that we were not prepared for, even with the best research and planning.  I think sometimes it is better that way - it causes us to rely on God instead of our own forethought and fortitude.  It helps us to see that we need Him more than we need our plans and intentions.

When we were united in Colombia it was apparent to us that the kids had missed out on a lot of what we would consider normal developmental educational experiences.  This was not a surprise to us, and we even looked forward to the experience of teaching the children and helping them discover a great many things about the world.  Nic and I both love teaching children and watching them learn, and the kids are enthusiastic students, so we eagerly set out to assess our starting places with each child and get to the "work" of learning.  It was then that we began to see more than a typical developmental delay in Jonah, and since coming home we have entertained the possible diagnosis of every scary and debilitating diagnosis from brain trauma to fetal alcohol syndrome and from autism to fragile X syndrome.  During the past month we have been exhausting every avenue of medical/developmental testing and anxiously awaiting the results to find out how to help Jonah.  We have had an average of five medical appointments per week and have been so thankful to have the help of our parents every Friday and our church friends on other days to make it to appointments and arrange child care for the other four children.

God has been so merciful in all of this.  Our transition home could have included so many of the difficult contingencies for which we planned, but instead, we have been seen God's great grace in the lives of our children and His great blessings via our families, friends and church family to ease the intense focus in seeking a diagnosis to help our sweet son.  What we have found is that we can't get any help for Jonah at school, or even at home, without a proper diagnosis and it just takes time.  Life as we settle in is still difficult, and that is okay.  I have always believed that God's blessing is not in the absence of difficulty in our lives, nor in the abundance of material possessions.  God's blessing is His presence and peace in the midst of even the most difficult times.  His promise is to never leave or forsake us.  Deuteronomy 31:6 says, "Be strong and courageous.  Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the Lord your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you."

Many people have asked us if we expected to be adopting a son with potentially severe special needs or if we knew in advance of Jonah's needs.  We didn't know how this would all turn out, but God did.  We reviewed the referral documents carefully, asked all the right questions in advance, and were assured that all the children were healthy and developmentally on target.  Some people see this as a reason to become angry with the Colombian child and family welfare system who placed them with our family.  To be honest, we have felt that emotion, but not without also feeling relief.  Relief that we didn't know in advance.  You see, in our own humanness and fear we likely would have turned down a referral with such an unknown and scary diagnosis.  In our humanness we would have missed out on the opportunity to add three beautiful children to our family, children who desired and deserved a family.  We would have missed out on this journey that has drawn us so much closer to God as we seek His best for our son and our entire family.  We would have missed the incredible bonding and growth that has taken place in the lives of our first two children if we hadn't welcomed big siblings into their lives.  It is a hard place right now to want (and need) so badly to help our son, and to have to wait on a diagnosis, but we never regret welcoming him into our lives and we know that God's plan for how and when we found out about his special needs was in His perfect timing and we can trust in His sovereignty.

God has been faithful to provide daily encouragement in His Word and through the people He has placed in our lives.  Our friends, family and church family have come alongside us to walk this journey with us and we know we are not alone.  In the silence of our blog we have laughed, cried, and grown together at home.  Please pray with us for a speedy, clear and hopeful diagnosis for Jonah.  And praise God for His abundant blessings of peace, provision and His daily presence in our family.