Hard News

*Note: this is from an email we sent out to family and friends back on January 1:

As you all surely know, Ru$$ia's adoption ban was signed, and it takes effect today.  Thanks to all of you who have prayed for us and encouraged us during what was a very difficult week.  Just wanted to let you know where things stand at the moment.

We've connected with the State Department as well as with other adoptive families who find themselves in the same lurch.  Lots of people are doing lots of work to see what can be done to allow families who have made their first trip (like us) to finish the process.  However, the Ru$$ian govt is on holiday for about two weeks so we're not sure how much can be accomplished at the moment.

Though this was devastating news, we hope that God will use all of this to improve conditions for the 750,000 orphans in Ru$$ia.  And we still hope that our little guy will come join our family.  

"This is my Father's world / O let me never forget/ that though the wrong seems oft so strong/ God is the ruler yet."

Thanks for caring and praying,

First Trip Complete!!!

This was originally written in October 2012: 

First trip complete!  Our little guy has definitely become more at ease with us each day (bummer that we have to leave!) and we spent snacktime with him and played for awhile.  We learned that he likes to sing and dance and also has far better table manners than the two boys who have grown up in our house.  This kid is seriously great: playful, perceptive, sweet, goofy.

The hardest part was leaving and knowing that we probably won't see him again for some months.  We still have to finish compiling our court dossier, and even though we're almost finished with it, our facilitator indicated that she doubted that we'd get a court date assigned before the end of the year, and the month of January is a time of national holidays so things will move slowly during that time.  We'll move as quickly as possible, but bureaucracy moves at its own pace.  (As a reminder, we need to travel back for our court hearing when it is assigned, and then again 30 days later to bring him home.)

THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH for your encouraging notes and prayers.  We have been so strengthened by them and have seen circumstances arrange themselves in remarkable ways that we cannot believe to be coincidental, so know that your prayers have been put to work, and we are grateful.  We are thankful in advance for your prayers for safety as we return home tomorrow! 

Book Recommendation: Adopted For Life

I reviewed Russell Moore's great book Adopted for Life in the Presbyterian Outlook.  Here's the link.  Then go read the book.

Is That A Light At The End of the Tunnel?

Today we have received what feels to be (long-overdue) hopeful news:

Our agency has informed us that a three-step adoption treaty ratification process is scheduled to begin tomorrow!  Our hope and expectation has been that this treaty's ratification between the US and the other government is a necessary step that has to occur in order for the adoption suspension to be lifted.  Until now we have had no sense of when that might occur, other than "soon."  So this is a great step.

In fact, our in-country facilitator is willing to receive our dossier to begin the process of translating it so that it is ready for submission.  Thus far our dossier has been sitting in our agency's office here in the States, so it is enormously encouraging that the situation has shifted enough that we were invited to send it over--it means our facilitator wants to get working on it so it is ready to go as soon as the way is clear.

We still aren't sure when this means we will be formally submitted, or how long the ratification process will take, and obviously we are painfully aware of how tenuous this process can be, but this is wonderful news nonetheless.  As Bethany put it, the doors haven't swung wide open yet but they are starting to open slowly.

Please join us in praying for continued progress.  And pray for the child we so hope to be ours!

Amy Julia Becker Speaking At My Church

If you're in the area, please consider coming to hear Amy Julia Becker, author of A Good and Perfect Gift, (a book I have praised already) who is coming to speak at Neelsville Presbyterian Church in Germantown on Saturday, May 26.   We'll have two presentations: "Rethinking Perfect Children" and "Loving Beyond Ability," with a lunch in between.

Books and lunch will be available...the whole thing is free.  You don't want to miss it.  Click here to register.

Also, feel free to tweet, share, blog, email, or otherwise tell people you know who may be interested.

Putting the Fun in Fundraising

One nice part of adopting is getting to know families who have adopted or are currently in the process.  It's great to hear and share stories.  One family we've crossed paths with is Steve and Aimee Gautreaux, who are adopting a girl from China who has meningocele and spina bifida.  Ain't she a cute little girl?

Today the boys and I spent the morning helping them with a big yard sale at the church to help them raise funds.  It was  beautiful day and a lot of fun--turns out the boys are very well-behaved at yard sales which, it turns out, are basically enormous toy collections.

Got rid of an old lawnmower that was taking up space in our teeny backyard! Score!

Good turnout!  

 My favorite part was when one guy inquired at great length about a breast pump.  He then decided to buy it but wanted to assure us that he was planning on selling it, not using it himself.  Uh, thanks buddy.  We kind of assumed.

Elizabeth Clark stopped by and found these stylish boots!  

Looking good, Elizabeth!  

(Don't tell her that her mom brought them to sell.  

Maybe next time, Nina.)

It was nice to be able to spend time helping another family like this.  We've been so blessed and provided for by the generosity of so many people that it feels good to spend time helping someone else. 

Here's hoping that the Gautreaux's bring their daughter home soon!

Predestination and Adoption in Ephesians: A Higher Dignity

Some thoughts on adoption I've had in preparing for a class I'm teaching at church on Ephesians:

Ephesians 1:4-5 says that God "chose us in him before the foundation of the world...in love he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ."

First thought: adoption offers a very helpful analogy that helps us think about the much-maligned and oft-misunderstood idea of predestination, which usually brings to mind a scary, capricious God arbitrarily determining who will be saved and who will be damned, thereby stripping human life of freedom and dignity.  Adoption helps us see why this is a misunderstanding.  Predestination means that God chooses to adopt.

I think of our own situation: long before the child we hope to adopt knew about us (he still doesn't), we knew of him.  In love, we have chosen him and "predestined" him for adoption as a son.  This, I think, is something of an analogy (though very small and imperfect) of how God loves: long before we know about him or can return his love, God chooses to make us part of his family.  The good news is that God's choosing to adopt is far more effectual than our human choosing to adopt.  When God chooses us for adoption, nothing can stop him, there is no local government that can suspend adoptions and hold up the process!

Second thought, this from John Stott's commentary:
"God destined us in love to be his sons.  This expression seems to be the key to our understanding of the present consequences of our election.  Election is with a view to adoption. Indeed, when people ask us the speculative question why God went ahead with the creation when he knew that it would be followed by the fall, one answer we can tentatively give is that he destined us for a higher dignity than even creation would bestow on us.  He intended to 'adopt' us, to make us the sons and daughters of his family." (39)

That bold section is what caught my attention.  I can't tell you how many times as a pastor people have asked me this exact question: why would God create humans if he knew that they would fall into sin and screw it all up?  Stott's answer is intriguing: God's choosing to love us ennobles us and grants an even higher dignity than "mere" creation.  Indeed, God's creation is "very good" (Genesis 1:31) and something of his love is revealed in the beauty of creation, but his love and grace is demonstrated even more powerfully and gloriously in the beauty of adoption. 

Astonishingly,  that this determination happened "before the foundation of the world"--before he made anything, God knew that we would turn from him and reject him, but decided that he would adopt us back into his family anyway (and at great cost!)  The fact that God loves us enough to choose to adopt us grants us a higher dignity!


This passage articulates how our family's process of adoption has caused us think of God's love for us in a new way.  And it reminds me that though God is not pleased that so many children are without families (anymore than he is pleased by any other manifestation of the fall), but when families welcome children through adoption, it paints a picture of his great love. 

I only hope that our adoption contributes "to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved" (Eph 1:6), and that it participates in raising our child's  dignity--and the dignity of orphans like him--as those created in the image of God and loved from before the foundation of the world.