“Brothers and sisters, this day must be written on our hearts forever.” The pastor’s words were empowered by a quiet authority and all who were present realized he was right… this was a God ordained moment.
It’s difficult to explain the emotional roller coaster that is adoption to one who’s not been through the process. And when I say “emotional roller coaster” I’m not talking about the kind of Xanex-crave-inducing highs and lows that manifest in bitter tears and exuberant elation (although that can be the case sometimes), I’m talking about the almost constant kind of mind racing thoughts that swing violently from one extreme to the other twisting your guts all up inside in the process… “Did we make the right decision?” “Did we really hear God on this or just make it up on our own?” “Where the crap is my passport?!” “My daughter has the most beautiful eyes.” “Will my son hate me for taking him from the only ‘family’ he’s ever known at this orphanage?” “He’s going to be a great soccer player.” “Is this really how this is supposed to go??!!” …that’s what I mean.
After 44 hours and about 15,000 miles of airplanes and airports we arrived in the small, remote town in the middle of nowhere some 1,200km north of the capital city. [I’d tell you to close your eyes to picture this next part, but then you couldn’t read what I’m about to type] Imagine the smallest airport in the smallest town you’ve ever seen (whether in person or on T.V.), now cut that down in size by half and you’re getting close. It’s one of those one-runway jobs, paved thankfully, with a single metal building for the airport. After deplaning we waited in the airport lobby – not much bigger than our living room – for our contact to arrive. The crowd slowly thinned as the 50 or so people on our flight got into vehicles and left for the town until the only ones who were left were me, my wife, and the two [yes, two] airport employees. We waited for another hour with no sign of anyone coming to look for the strange white people. Thoughts racing. Remember that emotional roller coaster I described? Yeah, that. We had a borrowed cell phone that would work in the country which I had purchased a SIM card for the night before. Yet in all our planning ahead I didn’t have the forethought to get the phone number for our contact. (I know, I know… go ahead and hurl your reprimands at me for that one). The plan had been for him to meet us at the airport with the rental car he was driving in from a neighboring country when our flight landed. I managed enough Spanish for the Portuguese-speaking airport employee to understand that I needed the number for our hotel — see, we didn’t make the reservation our contact did — so I had no printout with the hotel phone number or even a confirmation number. (Keep it coming, I can feel the heat now). After multiple dropped calls to the hotel and a massive communication barrier they managed to understand we needed to be picked up and sent a car to get us. Arriving at the front desk I gave them our names and [thank God] they were expecting us… roller coaster leveling out a bit. A couple hours later our contact arrived at the hotel and apologized for being late; through no fault of his own he had been delayed at the border for a few hours by the police. We were grateful and excited to see him, and he us.
Straight away we went to meet the orphanage director. After a brief meeting with the director he took us to see the little girl we had previously received pictures and bio information about. We felt an instant connection. This was our daughter. She’s 8 months old, feisty and strong with big brown eyes that melted our hearts instantly. I wish I could put into words what it was like watching my wife hold our daughter for the first time but I know I can’t, so I’m not even going to try. We spent a handful of minutes holding her and snapping pictures – she nearly wrestled my iPhone from my hand and I was happy to let her have it – then left to continue to our next destination.
The director took us to a boarding-school type area a few miles away where the 50 or so orphans who lived there were busy getting registration papers filled out with the help of a government official who was there. Many of them had no “official” paper trail of their existence so this was a big, positive step for their futures. We met many of the kids and snapped a couple group pictures. I was amazed at how happy these kids were despite their circumstances. My heart was swelling with Jesus’ words; I knew that “the Kingdom of God belonged to these.”
Later that afternoon we went to the director’s church, he’s also a pastor, where a seminar was being held. It was the end of a two day training for local church members and pastors teaching them how to care for orphans and encouraging churches, through the members of their congregations, to take in orphans both by foster parenting and adoption. Lindsay and I were absolutely amazed. Here was a room full of people who had very little compared to Western standards and yet were opening their homes to share what they did have with those who have nothing. This was “the kind of faith that honors God.” The Kingdom of God belongs to these.
After the seminar we met a man outside the church who spoke English quite well. Before this moment only our contact and another wonderful man, who was a local pastor also helping us, were the only people we’d met who spoke English. As we stood outside the church, the man mentioned that he was an ordained pastor in the United Methodist Church. I told him that I’m a worship leader at a UM church in America and we set off on a lively conversation about traditional vs. contemporary worship in the Church [an entirely different post I’ll save for later. For now I’ll just say it’s not an issue unique to the West]. After several minutes of conversation he asked if I’d ever heard of his favorite songwriter/worship leader “Charles Hall.” I told him I play guitar for Charlie and he was absolutely floored. The pastor told me about being in the U.S. last Summer for some continuing education for seminary and that he had attended a Charlie Hall concert while there. He described stopping by the CD table afterwards to take a picture and meet the band. We had met in passing in the U.S. more than a year ago! Remember how small and remote I described this place being earlier? There was no way this was a chance meeting. Roller coasters. He went on to describe how he wasn’t even supposed to be there that day. He had previously planned a trip to the U.S. to visit some friends over the Thanksgiving holiday but decided to stay behind at the last minute as another friend of his in the country where we were visiting was having surgery later that week. He was also not scheduled to be at the seminar that day but decided to stop by as it was a seminar his church was helping support. There are a lot of things I don’t understand about God and the way he works. Now before you go accusing me of being an apostate, I know it’s not a politically correct thing for people who are leaders in the Church to admit they struggle with “why” and “what” and “how” and “when” and “are you even real” questions but, believe me when I say many (if not most) of us do whether we’re willing to admit it or not. So many questions I’d been wrestling with for quite some time were silenced in that moment. This “chance meeting” was ordained by God. There were simply too many coincidences for it to be coincidence.
We were later having a conversation with this pastor and our contact who is also a pastor from another country in Africa. The UMC pastor asked our contact man what his last name was. After hearing the answer he quietly said “Brothers and sisters, this day must be written on our hearts forever.” He then told us his wife’s maiden name… it was the same surname as our contact-pastor-friend’s name. These two pastors from different countries in Africa who had never met were in-laws. We were also told this wasn’t a common surname. Roller coasters. Too many coincidences to be coincidence. It’s difficult to explain the significance of this apparent relation between these two pastors. Those who have some familiarity with African culture understand what I’m saying. Family, and properly honoring those within the family, is everything to these wonderful people. It’s different from Western culture in that it doesn’t matter how “distant” the relation might be, family is family. Heart full. Questions silenced.
The next day we made the 150km journey to an even more remote town. The orphanage director had previously explained to us that he had to split up the 250 or so children in his care to multiple townships because there simply weren’t enough resources in one place to care for all of them. This orphanage was laid out like a small village. All of the orphans were living in small grass huts, 3 – 5 orphans per hut, spread out over about a square mile. There were several women also living there caring for these children. Prior to our trip we hadn’t received any information on a boy. We were told that the boys were all at this secondary location and because the journey was so far we would have to make the trip once we were in the country to possibly identify a boy we’d like to consider adopting. We had seen pictures and received bio information on our daughter in advance. We were walking into this second location “blind” as it were. Our prayer was that it would be clear who (if any) was the right little boy for us to adopt. After walking through much of the orphanage and meeting most of the children we came to a tiny hut on the backside of the property. We saw a little boy there just about the age we were hoping for. Lindsay and I felt instantly drawn to this boy. We asked what his name was. The caretaker responded that his name was “Obvious.” What? Did we hear you correctly? Obvious? [Remember what I said about praying it would be clear who the right boy would be?] After asking for the spelling we discovered that it isn’t spelled the same as the English word “obvious” and would in fact be pronounced a bit differently if read by a Westerner. But it was clear to us. Too many coincidences to be coincidence. We hung out for awhile with the little boy and I got to play ball with him for a bit. We took some pictures we could print out and leave with him so he’d recognize us when we return.
We attended church Sunday morning in a cinder-block building with a dirt floor and no roof. That experience could be another post entirely. The joy with which these people worshiped, dressed in their Sunday best, was absolutely contagious. No cool lights, no sound system, no fog machine, just Jesus.
The rest of the trip was spent in meetings with the orphanage director and completing all the necessary paperwork to get the process started. There were several other really big moments of “divine intervention” that we can’t share the details of just yet but will hopefully be able to share after the process is completed.
On this day of thanksgiving we are so very thankful for all the prayers that so many of you were praying on our behalf during this trip. Your faith was strong even when ours was tested. Thank you. You absolutely made a difference and your prayers are forever linked as part of our story to bring our kids home. Part of the reason we’re “journaling” this process is so that we can remember it all to share their story with them as they grow.
We also ask for your continued prayers that the process would move forward without roadblocks while we are back home here in the States. There are a few key documents on that side that need to be created and processed in order for the children to legally and officially be ours to adopt. After this first trip our faith is strong that all of that stuff will happen without a hitch. We also believe it was your prayers that helped make such a huge difference this first trip so we humbly ask for your continued prayer for this journey.
That’s all for now. Check back soon for updates. We hope to have news about the timing of our second trip soon!
- Ben
** I’ve posted a few pics from our trip on here. As much as we’d like to, we can’t show you pictures of the kids yet since they’re not legally ours. The pics of the grass huts are from the village where our boy lives. The cinder block building is the church where we worshiped on Sunday **
Our hope was that we’d be able to spend around two weeks in Africa getting all the paperwork processed and bring our kids home without going back a second time. But, unfortunately, that simply isn’t going to be possible. This first trip we’re taking in just a week or so to start the legal process will be just five days long; there are a ton of meetings and time at the orphanage that need to happen during that five days, but we feel confident we’ll be able to get it all done. Our second trip will [hopefully] happen sometime in December and will be the one where we pick up our kids to bring them home! We’re not far off from where we need to be financially to make that second trip, we just need to raise a couple thousand dollars more.
