adoption

Do you ever feel like God is fully messin with the events of your life? Like He sets you up? You know what I mean...random life happening and then shazaam, you are in a moment and you can’t walk away from it. You have been forever moved.

I am in one of those moments.

Trace has friends from her bible college days that we recently went and visited in Vancouver, Washington. They recently adopted a little girl from china named Rebekah. Beautiful. Both the adoption and the little girl. And redemptive. Choosing to step into a long term relationship and in so doing...saving a life.

They are in the process of adopting another little girl. Except she is not so little and the circumstances are incredibly moving...you know...from random to shazaam.

Here is a post from their blog.

Patterson and I began to inquire again regarding other children. A new agency sent us a waiting list. We sat down together and began looking over names and sibling groups. I felt it was time and I was ready to do it. After we began, I felt my heart sort of struggling along and I wondered if I was really ready. I found that I felt little emotion when looking at the kids. When we were done we decided that our kids weren’t on the list and we just needed to wait. The next day I felt totally overwhelmed. The thought of searching through a sea of orphans to find our children seemed such a daunting task and, well, maybe I wasn’t ready. That afternoon I found myself completely losing it on the kids. Yes, I made them all cry (except for Jeremiah who was, lucky for him, in the basement). I ran down there to escape and cool down. As I paced the floor, I cried to the Lord and told Him I desperately needed His intervention. I told Him I was tired of feeling as if we were groping around in a dark room trying to find direction. This wasn’t a calm, logical conversation; this was a freak out, desperate, emotional conversation with the Lord. I begged the Lord to do SOMETHING, ANYTHING that would give us direction. Everything we tried to do with our adoption just ended with us starting over. I felt like every time we made progress, we ended up being pushed back to the starting line. When I was done, I dried my eyes, took a deep breath and headed upstairs, a calm, rational mom, ready to apologize to her poor kids.

Three hours later, Patterson called. He said our caseworker had just called him to ask if we might consider a 14-year-old girl from Ethiopia (I will use Elizabeth for her name, as this will be her middle name and we can’t publish her Ethiopian name until she is legally ours). Our caseworker got emotional as she told this young girl’s story. Elizabeth was living with her grandmother because her mother had died. Actually, the Grandmother had five children, four of whom are now deceased so the Grandmother was left with the five grandchildren. Grandmother couldn’t afford to keep all five grandchildren so arrangements were made for Elizabeth’s four cousins to be adopted, leaving Elizabeth (as she was the oldest) to live alone with her grandmother. In July, when our caseworker was in Ethiopia, the Grandmother approached her and told her she was sick. She wanted to get the paperwork done for Elizabeth so she, too, could be adopted and implored our caseworker to find her a US family. The paperwork was done. Last month, the Grandmother passed away. Elizabeth cared for her until she died; this left Elizabeth completely alone. As the conversation progressed, our caseworker shared that she and her husband had two of Elizabeth’s cousins. They were desperate to find her a family as soon as possible. That evening, our caseworker sent us pictures of this young girl. It didn’t take us long (we had really decided before we saw her) that this was our girl. We called our caseworker and with great joy and elation told her we would take Elizabeth.

I immediately fell before the Lord and thanked Him for answering my plea! Psalm 34:15-18 came to my mind:

“The eyes of the Lord are toward the righteous, and His ears are open to their cry. The face of the Lord is against evildoers, to cut off the memory of them from the earth. The righteous cry and the Lord hears and delivers them out of all their troubles. The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.”

So, here we are, not even one month later, and we have been given a court date for Elizabeth. It is December 12th!!!! On that day, the courts will decide if Elizabeth will become legally ours. Hopefully, all the paperwork will be in order and they won’t need extra documentation. We are very excited and still look back in wonder at all that God has done this year. We enter the Thanksgiving holiday very thankful, indeed. God has turned our mourning into dancing! We are hoping to travel in January. What a wonderful way to begin the year...

Patterson and Rachelle have until July 7, 2009 to finish all the paperwork and get approval from the courts or she is considered ‘unadoptable’ because she will have turned 15. The resulting consequences of which are bleak. The two likely professions left to her are prostitution and becoming a paid slave – a maid.

As I have asked more question regarding her other family, here is what I have found:

* Her dad is dead; we don’t know when that happened.
* She has an older brother, but if he is alive no one knows where he is.
* This child is truly alone.

We are not even sure she knows that Patterson and Rachelle are trying to adopt her. Their case worker has been to Ethiopia to check on her, but in terms of what has been communicated to her, little is known.

Here is the random to shazaam. Trace and I have gotten involved for several reasons. The most significant being that how often do we get to be tangibly involved in saving a life? And how often do we have an opportunity to fully see life as it is…where I see the stuff that irritates me and the things that I struggle with as they are? Petty.

The costs of adopting a child from another countries varies, but it usually costs around $30,000. Patterson and Rachelle are short about $14,000. And because this is time sensitive, they have to have $5000 by their December 12th court date.

I am wondering if you want to help us bring this child ‘home’?

What do we need?
20 people to give $100
10 people to give $500
3 people to give $1000
1 person to give $5000

Join the Shazaam moment...or maybe I should say ‘movement’...
and when you do...let me know and I will tell you how to get money to them.

Jonathan

For more info see:
http://www.thecakefamily.com/Adoption/041608.htm
http://www.bringmysisterhome.com/