The Question "Why?"

Our precious soccer players on the way to their first games!

We had our first of potentially 5 Home Study meetings with our adoption case worker last week.  I was incredibly nervous beforehand because I wasn't really sure what to expect.  I knew she would be asking us lots of questions, but I wasn't sure how intense or hard to answer they would be.  I also knew she'd be introduced to our kids, and you never know what secrets they might reveal.  And, I knew she would be sort of checking our house to make sure it is "safe" to raise a child in...this I was the least worried about since we've done a pretty good job with the two we are currently raising here.  :-)  I have to say that it went really well, and I really should've spent my time worrying about something else, like "why do I waste my time watching reality tv?"  Anyway, I'll tackle that embarrassing question another time.  The best part about the meeting was getting to reminisce about our past, about how we met, what it was like when we dated, about our wedding and honeymoon and how our marriage has changed over the last almost 10 years.  We laughed a lot and even the hard questions were not that hard to answer.  One of the questions Jamie (our social worker) asked us that we've been asked a lot since we've begun this process is "Why are we adopting?"  That seems to be the question we get most frequently, followed by "why Ethiopia?"  So, I thought I'd use this next blog post to explain how we came to this decision for our family.

As seems to be the case with most families that have a heart for adoption, we did not get here on a straight and narrow path.  TJ and I never planned to adopt.  It was not something we had ever really talked about, especially since we'd been able to have our own children.  But, it was something that God started to put on our hearts about a year ago.  It all started with a little boy named Eli (which I think is slightly ironic, since we refer to our adopted child as "Little E")  Eli was a little boy that attended my Mom's school.  In a conversation with her last fall, she mentioned him to me and asked me to pray for him because he'd already lost his mother and his father had just passed away. He had older brothers and sisters, but they weren't sure where he would go.  Mom said he was such a sweet kid, but had not had an easy life so far and she just wasn't sure what was going to happen to him.  I told TJ about Eli and our hearts went out to him.  We sat on our couch for a long time talking about how much we wanted to just take custody of Eli (a boy we'd never even met, but whose story touched our hearts) and bring him home and show him what it meant to live in a loving home and be a part of a real family.  And, this is where God began to prick our hearts and prepare us to advance to the place we find ourselves in today.   Eli was taken in by one of his siblings and is doing well.  But, our conversations did not end with his story.  We started talking more frequently about our desire to love the unloved, to take care of the abandoned, to share the love of our family with someone who otherwise would never know that kind of unconditional love. We felt like we had been so blessed with two amazing children and we wanted to pass those blessings on and love on someone else.

And, so we started doing some research.  That was OVERWHELMING!  There are so many ways to answer God's call from James 1:27-to care for the world's widows and orphans that it was hard to know where to begin.  And, then as we started narrowing down the options that fit best with our current family situation, we began to feel strange thinking and talking about it all, like we were shopping for a child.  It is a strange experience to talk about "picking" a child to adopt.  All of our research led us to the place we are today...adopting from Ethiopia using an agency called Lifeline.  God continues to show us that this is HIS perfect plan for our family.  He continues to place people in each of our lives to help us learn and prepare for what this change will bring to our family.  The newest confirmation and blessing comes from Trip's soccer team.  He was placed on a team that is being coached by a pastor whose family just adopted a child from Ethiopia who is playing on Trip's team.  His name is Abiti and I can already tell he and his family are going to be a special part of our adoption story.

 Thank you to all of you that support us and this call that God has placed on our family.  Thank you for all of your questions and answers.  And, thank you most of all for your prayers.  Please keep them coming!  Before our next home study, we both have to complete auto-biographies.  I can only imagine what this project will stir up.  Stay tuned to find out as we continue to answer more of those "why" questions.  :-)