But God

Faith is the confidence that what we hope for will actually happen; it gives us assurance about things we cannot see.  Hebrews 11:1

It's official!  We are a family of SEVEN - Andy, Katie, Abel, Samri, Sophia, Eva, and Jonas Thompson!  Last week we were in Ethiopia to finalize the court decision. We had to appear before a very serious judge, answer about twenty questions, and then we received the approval to become Samri and Abel's parents.  It was a joyous day and we left from there to celebrate with them over cheeseburgers and glass bottles of soda.

This story - it's an incredible one - but it's just the middle of the story.  There's so much more to tell from before, and so much more to be written.  It's also not our story.  The more this unfolds, the more aware we become that this is God's story and we are privileged to be part of it.  Seriously, there are days it takes my breath away -- this honor of partnering with God in His incredible story.  I'm not sure if I can ever do it justice with mere words.

There's one part of the story that I'd like to write now though, one that began years ago, and involves a bold girl and a faith-filled boy.  I'll start with the boy, whose name is Abel, who is now our son.  He told me this part of the story last week as we were driving in a van to spend the day at a beautiful resort.  We had about an hour and a half in the car and it was dusty and loud and I was peppering him with questions, trying to get a feel for who he was and what he was like.  The day before, the court declared him my son, this grown boy-almost-a-man, and I knew I had a lifetime of experiences to catch up on.  Somehow throughout the course of our conversation a story emerged from his past,  I'm guessing from a few years ago.

 He said there were five boys, including him, who all lived at the orphanage together and all prayed for a family.  These five friends all wished for and prayed for this together.  Over time, two of the boys were adopted and moved to America.  The other two boys left the orphanage to go back and live with their parents -- one was a bad situation, and one was an okay situation.  And that left Abel, alone, getting older, getting closer and closer to aging out.  He said he felt lonely every night and cried because he was the only one left of those five praying friends.  He figured that God had given up on him and that God must not be real, because he had prayed, and God didn't answer.  And so he stopped praying, and he stopped believing.  But God didn't stop believing for him.

Time went by, and Abel found himself listening to a message at church, one which explained that sometimes bad things happen in life and life can be very difficult and hard to understand.  But that we must never give up hope, and we must always keep praying, because God has good things planned for us.  And that day Abel decided to start praying again for a family.  Time went by, and he was told he only had four months left before he would need to leave the orphanage (children age out around 16 years old).  He and his sister would be separated and he would have to go find his way on his own.  But God had a plan for this boy, this precious one who refused to give up hope.

Not long after this crisis of faith he found out that he and his sister were going to be adopted.  A family had started the process to adopt them.  And that was us, probably right around March of last year, 2014.

This boy had wrestled with faith, as we all do at some point in our journeys.  Because life IS hard.  Things happen which throw us off course,  that create fear and panic and doubt.  We wonder, "Where are you God? I've prayed and asked and you didn't answer me."  And we are tempted to give up, throw in the towel, and walk away forever.  But God -- He never, ever, not for ONE second gives up on us. The journey took longer than expected, and things have happened along the way that were confusing and difficult.  But God was there all along the way, just waiting for the right time to begin the rest of the story.

But let's not leave out the bold girl, who you know is Samri, and is now our daughter.  Two summers ago, a team from our church went to Ethiopia for a missions trip.  They visited many different places, one of which was the orphanage.  When they go to this orphanage, their sole purpose is to spend time with and love on the kids -- children who don't receive one-on-one attention on a regular basis.  It's more of a being than a doing.  They don't paint walls, they don't organize closets -- they just sit on the ground and play and laugh and talk and hug.  It's vital and necessary and such a beautiful way to serve.  My dear friend Ashley was the leader of this trip.  As of today, she has been to Ethiopia eight times.  She loves this country and this people and she had been to this orphanage before.  But on this particular visit, she spent some one-one-one time with a young girl, and over the course of their conversation, this girl made a bold request:  "Can you find me a family?"  Ashley was taken aback; how do you answer that question?  She said, "I will take your picture, and I will show it to everyone I know, and I will pray that there is a family out there that will adopt you."  But Samri said, "Wait, I have a brother!"  She ran to get Abel, and Ashley snapped their picture along with the promise to tell their story to everyone she knew.

Ashley returned to America, and we invited her over.  We wanted to see her pictures and hear about her trip.  It was a gorgeous summer evening and we had finished dinner and we were sitting on our back deck.  She told us many stories, including the one of Samri.  She cried, we cried.  It moved us, and stirred something within us.  After she left, Andy turned to me and said, "Are we the ones that are supposed to adopt them?"  And I remember responding with an emphatic, "NO!"  Are you crazy?  Our lives are chaotic enough!  There's no way I could handle 5 kids!  And they are older kids!"  (We thought they were 11 and 12 years old at the time).  When people adopt, don't they adopt babies?  But we agreed we would pray for them, along with anyone else that was also praying for them.  But God had a plan that He was slowly revealing to all of us.

The first picture we saw of Samri and Abel

Samri and Ashley

In November of that year we had the incredible opportunity to go to Ethiopia ourselves, through a series of events that is a different story altogether.  I chronicled that journey in the beginning part of this blog, which you can read here and here.  We ended up meeting Samri along with many other children when we visited the orphanage.  But our hearts were not in ANY way thinking about adoption at this time.  I snapped a few pictures and that was it.  But God was writing a story.  When I returned from that trip, my heart was different.  I had fallen in love with God's work there, with the people we met, with the ministries where we served.  I asked a friend to fast and pray with me every Monday morning and we both committed to pray for Ethiopia and all the people we loved there.

And you know what happened, if you know us, because we have told our part of the story so many times, where God merged all of our stories into one.  As I prayed for many people in Ethiopia, there was one name and one face that was always present in my heart: Samri.  I couldn't stop thinking about her and her story, my heart breaking that it was going on another year with no hope for a family.  And then there was that infamous Valentine's Day of 2014, when I found out she was older than eleven -- she was 14 and her brother was 15 and at 16 he would have to leave.  And I cried and cried all day long, knowing what that meant for her and her brother, the only family she had.  And I ruined our romantic Valentine's Day dinner that evening, as I cried again and spilled these thoughts to Andy, who was shocked, but responded with openness to what God was moving in me.  We barely finished eating that night, but we prayed.  God, these two kids are on our hearts.  We don't have any idea what that means for us, but we feel the need to do something for them.  We begged Him to tell us what our family could do, and didn't have any idea what that might be.  But God did.

Five days later, Andy fell and broke his ankle in three places, and this part of the story has so many twists and turns and amazing connections I cannot possibly capture it in this blog post. I can sum it up by saying: When God opens a door and beckons you in, and you walk through trembling in obedience and fear, He takes the lead from there.  In the midst of a huge trial, He was faithful, He followed through, He did things beyond our imagination.  And as I have gotten to know other parents in the adoptive community, I'm learning that this is not unique to us.  Everyone has an incredible adoption story, full of miracles and events that only God could engineer.  I'm learning that God's heart beats for the orphan and He will go to incredible lengths to love them and bring them into families.

With adoption, it is not the parents who are rescuers.  We are the rescued, all of us.  We all have been adopted from a life of loneliness and isolation, invited into a family, given a new name, and made heirs to all the benefits and promises of God's family.  I'm realizing we were all orphans before we knew Him, and adoption is a just a small illustration of His plan to redeem and restore all of humanity into His family. He went to great lengths to rescue every single one of us.

But this unfolding of this particular story -- it takes my breath away and brings me to my knees.

It's not going to be all sunshine and roses, as many adoptive parents have written before me.  But then again, neither is life.  God didn't promise a good and perfect life; He promised a good and perfect God who would never leave us as we navigate this uncertain world.  He promises to love us, He promises to be there for us, He promises to never give up on us.  So as we look at the road ahead with hope and some fear, that is what we know we are promising to our five children.  Not that the story of our lives will be always be good and perfect, but that we will be together, this family of seven figuring it out together -- never losing hope, never giving up on each other, always there for each other -- just as God has promised for each and every one of us who joins His family.