His Love is Enough: Our Adoption Day Prayer for You

She labored for you for almost 9 months and then through one long night. You were born at 6:45 that Wednesday morning. She sent me a text right away saying you had arrived and we could come as soon as possible.

We were awake, but not that kind of awake. So we ran in circles for the first fifteen minutes, trying to collect our minds, got your siblings off to school and then packed up our things to come see you.

TiTi Vivian reminded me to make notes of the day so I’d be able to relay them to you. So we took a video of ourselves driving to Florida’s Space Coast. It was an unusually cloudy morning with the sun peeking through occasionally. John Mark and Sarah McMillan were playing in the background, providing the perfect, reassuring soundtrack for our drive.

We settled on your name in the car.

Eloise Sunshine.

Your birth parents loved our other kids’ names, so we wanted to pick something for you they might like too, fitting in with the trendy-but-old-fashioned names of Stella, Ruby, and Schaeffer.

I was putting on my make-up in the car and spilled foundation on my pants. In spite of my best stain fighting attempts, we had to make a quick stop into Target to get me a new pair. Big life events tend to be punctuated with everyday things. I’m thankful the spectacular seems to coordinate with the simple to remind us of our smallness. I felt safer reassured of his greatness, comparatively.

We arrived at the hospital just after noon. Our adoption specialist and the pregnancy counselor met us in the waiting room. We went in together and saw your birthparents first.

She was beautiful, as always, and I told her so. Even after giving birth.

They were understandably exhausted. She shared the story of how you made your entrance.

I want you to know how much she loves you. A mother knows another mother’s tears and feels her heart. She hears the nuances of affection in her voice and follows the inflections straight to those nurturing impulses.

We shared that time together for you, because of you.

Your birth father walked over to your crib and rested his hands on the sides of it. I hadn’t even looked at you yet. I looked at him so I could tell you about him. His face melted into a tender smile but his eyes showed the grief of all that was taking place that day.

There we were. I don’t know when you’ll be able to understand this. But all four of us, they your birthparents, and we your adoptive parents, were together there for you.  Our worlds providentially colliding to share our love for you. To join arms together, each having different roles and responsibilities, but all working together for your good. Delivery and deliverance to be inseparably linked forever.

Then we saw you. I remember telling them how beautiful you were. And in one of the most selfless acts of love I’ve seen, they wanted us to hold you. They wanted, with their own eyes, to see us love you even though it was painful for them. Their broken hearts were laid open for you and we gently picked them up – and you – and held them close.

We have part of them with us all the time in you, and we want to cherish and protect that bond. We will do that, by God’s grace and with his help, for you and them.

Next, the hospital kindly provided us with our own room and there in the quiet, we studied you. Daddy was worried you were too cold and wanted to keep your knit toboggan warming your sprinkles of red hair. You didn’t open your eyes at all on Wednesday but your long eyelashes already grabbed our attention.

Instinctively, I kissed your head every time it came near my lips - exactly like I did our other three babies. And just like that, you were my girl.

You and I share a bit of history in common, so it’s fitting you should have my middle name.  My mom, your Ammy, says I was a ray of hope born into a rather hopeless situation. And you, our Sunshine, with your own chapters added, bring our story full circle.

As I called your Ammy from the hospital with you in my arms, we wept over how God was continuing to redeem our broken story with you. He makes all things beautiful in his time. Remember that, sweet Sunshine. You’ll hear me say it often.

We who have the hope of Jesus are the broken beautiful. Broken stories, beautiful purpose. Broken relationships, beautiful reconciliation. Broken world, beautiful eternity. Broken people, beautiful Savior.

You could not be more loved. But their love isn’t enough for you. Our love isn’t even enough for you. It won’t be enough to get you through questions about your family history. It won’t be enough to get you through struggles with your identity. It won’t be enough to keep our relationship as parent and child close. It won’t be enough to help you process your adoption into our family.

If there is one thing we gleaned from our adoption education, it’s that. Our love will help you, but it is not enough for you. We fought through that statement. We threw up objections and wanted it to be a lie. But after we faced it, it freed us to surrender you to a love that’s greater, deeper, higher, longer and wider than you can comprehend. A perfect love. And dear Eloise, his love is enough. It will cast out your fears. It will help you deal with insecurities. It will stabilize you, rooting you in and connecting you with a family bond that is thicker than blood because it flows from the Father of all. He gave up his son for you. In fact, he knows something about broken relationships, because he broke their relationship for you, forsaking him so you could be brought near to him and us to each other. The most marvelous thing isn’t how extravagantly loved you are by your birth parents and adoptive parents. The most marvelous thing is that you are extravagantly loved by him.

So my song for you, as I’ve picked a hymn-prayer for each of our other babies, is "O the Deep, Deep Love of Jesus."

May you see his love in your past, present, and future. May you feel it all around you in brilliant displays, sovereignly highlighting all your days. May you experience it personally in the forgiveness of your sins. That is our prayer for you on your Adoption Day, February 9, 2017, and always, our dearly loved Eloise.

Here Comes The Son

I’m writing this post with a playlist in the background I haven’t heard in over 6 years. Newborn baby squeaks, sighs, hiccups, and sneezes.

This little darling, Eloise Sunshine, joined our family a week ago today, when her birth parents signed their termination of parental rights and Bethany Christian Services placed her into our temporary custody. We are in the midst of a 90-day legal risk period before the adoption is finalized legally in court.

I’ve been through labor three times and although I didn’t physically labor this time, the emotional labor of walking alongside her birthparents the day of her birth and the 48-hours that followed, was similarly exhausting.

We were amazed at the capacity of the human heart, stably bookended by God’s faithful grace, to experience the full spectrum of human emotion. We grieved for the birth parents. We have a relationship with them and hated to see our friends hurting. We hugged them, cried for them, told them of our love for them, and walked them out of the hospital at discharge reminding them that though their hands might be empty, their hearts could be full of assurance of our love for them and for the baby they gave birth to.

And in some ways we are glad for them. Glad for them to have a fresh chance to focus on the priorities in their life they’ve said need attention. I think of them when I’m up in the night with Eloise, sleep deprived myself, energy quickly depleting during the day, knowing I’m pouring out my life and time not just for her, but for them too, praying they will have the energy, time, wisdom, and discipline to do what they need to do.  

In our adoption experience, you can trace with your hand a string of love that connects our hearts to theirs. We acknowledge not everything is perfect. We acknowledge our relationship with them is rather complicated as far as human relationships go. But God has equipped Christians to face situations like this; to incarnate sacrificially, like Jesus himself.  

Paul Miller in his book, A Loving Life, quotes B.B. Warfield on the self-giving of Christ:

“Self-sacrifice brought Christ into the world. And self-sacrifice will lead us, His followers, not away from, but into the midst of men [and women]. Wherever [they] suffer, there will we be to comfort. Wherever [they] strive, there will we be to help. Wherever [they] fail, there will we be to uplift. Wherever they succeed, there will we be to rejoice. Self-sacrifice means not indifference to our times and our fellows: it means absorption in them. It means forgetfulness of self in others. It means entering into every man and woman’s hopes and fears, longings and despairs: it means many-sidedness of spirit, multiform activity, multiplicity of sympathies. It means richness of development. It means not that we should live one life, but a thousand lives – binding ourselves to a thousand souls by the filaments of so loving a sympathy that their lives become ours.”

And that, my friends, as you know, isn’t just adoption, but the Christian life in general. It is joyfully hard. It is a chance to die to self a thousand times every hour of every day. It is pressing the limits of superficial love knowing the love you need can only be supernaturally derived. It’s glorying in each weakness you see manifested emotionally, spiritually, and physically, so that the power of Christ might rest on you. It’s pleading with your heavenly Father, who gives generously, for the wisdom and grace you lack, and so desperately need. It’s asking God to keep creating faith in you, when your heart is overcome with doubt and fear.

And we could not do it without you. Thank you, to our friends and family who started this journey almost 4 years ago with us, and to those friends who have joined us during the journey. We’ve needed you each step and will continue to. While we are incarnating for Eloise and her birthparents and for you, you have incarnated for us. It is a beautiful circle of grace. Grace heaped upon grace.

There is only one hero in the Christian life and it’s Jesus whose incarnation for us we will celebrate next month. Because he left the glories of heaven and took on flesh to live, die, and rise again, we cling to his flawless incarnation on our behalf. He is the only one who has succeeded at living thousands upon thousands of lives perfectly. Will you exalt in Jesus with us?

Thank you to Robyn Moore for capturing this special family memory so beautifully.

Because of Aaliyah and Shiloh

My last post over five months ago, was written through tears of disappointment because God had used us in a birthmom's life in a way we wouldn't have chosen - being there for her through the struggle of her uncertainty, ready to welcome her baby into our family as our own, but then being called to rejoice with her as on her way to the hospital she called saying she was choosing to parent her child. After we hung up the phone from that call, without wasting much time, we went through the house putting away the pack and play, the car seat waiting to be grabbed on the way out the door to the hospital, and the pink onesies and sleepers ready to dress Aaliyah, our anticipated baby girl.

It wasn't primarily for me we cleared away reminders of the bundle who wasn't coming home, but because we knew who would be coming home in just a few hours. The three children God had called us to parent. And we didn't want to make the sight of unfulfilled hopes harder for them to bear.

I laid with Stella in her bed later that afternoon as she sobbed heartbroken, hugging her and wiping her cheeks, blotchy from tears. I couldn't help but wonder how navigating the peaks and valleys of emotions associated with adoption might effect her heart and view of God. But that was out of my control. As a family we talked through it, prayed about it, and grabbed onto the same truth that had us securely strapped in all along.

So, we were not greatly shaken when our second adoption fell through a few months later. We opened our hearts to learn and be and receive whatever God wanted, and prayed for baby Shiloh and his future without us.

Then God surprised us again today, as he loves to do in adoption. But not with a baby to hold. Instead with a third place ribbon around her neck from Stella's speech contest. She competed against over 200 students and placed for her speech articulating why adoption is important. In it she said how adoption has helped her understand birth parents who are in situations so different from hers. She concluded that together we are loud in supporting adoption and helping children have loving homes.

Once again, God has reminded me that he has not wasted these last three years as we've been waiting for an adoption match to finalize. Through it, he is working in our hearts - and our kids' hearts - every step of the way. So even though we never got to kiss Aaliyah or snuggle Shiloh close, God has used them to draw us and our Stella, Ruby, and Schaeffer, nearer to his heart. This medal will continue to be a visible reminder to us that our empty arms are not an indication that God is slow in keeping his promises. Instead, he is patient, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance. (2 Peter 3:9) So we ask again, keep working in us and through us for your purposes, Lord!

 

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Because of Aaliyah and Shiloh

My last post over five months ago, was written through tears of disappointment because God had used us in a birthmom's life in a way we wouldn't have chosen - being there for her through the struggle of her uncertainty, ready to welcome her baby into our family as our own, but then being called to rejoice with her as on her way to the hospital she called saying she was choosing to parent her child. After we hung up the phone from that call, without wasting much time, we went through the house putting away the pack and play, the car seat waiting to be grabbed on the way out the door to the hospital, and the pink onesies and sleepers ready to dress Aaliyah, our anticipated baby girl.

It wasn't primarily for me we cleared away reminders of the bundle who wasn't coming home, but because we knew who would be coming home in just a few hours. The trio of blessings God had called us to parent. And we didn't want to make the sight of unfulfilled hopes harder for them to bear.

I laid with Stella in her bed later that afternoon as she sobbed heartbroken, hugging her and wiping her cheeks, blotchy from tears. I couldn't help but wonder how navigating the peaks and valleys of emotions associated with adoption might effect her heart and view of God. But that was out of my control. As a family we talked through it, prayed about it, and grabbed onto the same truth that had us securely strapped in all along.

So we were not greatly shaken when our second adoption fell through a few months later. We opened our hearts to learn and be and receive whatever God wanted, and prayed for baby Shiloh and his future without us.

Then God surprised us again today, as he loves to do in adoption. But not with a baby to hold. Instead with a third place ribbon around her neck from Stella's speech contest. She competed against over 200 students and placed for her speech articulating why adoption is important. In it she said how adoption has helped her understand birth parents who are in situations so different from hers. She concluded that together we are loud in supporting adoption and helping children have loving homes.

Once again, God has reminded me that he has not wasted these last three years as we've been waiting for an adoption match to finalize. Through it, he is working in our hearts - and our kids' hearts - every step of the way. So even though we never got to kiss Aaliyah or snuggle Shiloh close, God has used them to draw us and our Stella, Ruby, and Schaeffer, nearer to his heart. This medal will continue to be a visible reminder to us that our empty arms are not an indication that God is slow in keeping his promises. Instead, he is patient, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance. (2 Peter 3:9) So we ask again, keep working in us and through us for your purposes, Lord!

 

We Don't Get To Decide

The situation takes me back 9 years ago. I'm standing at the counter mopping up crumbs while I mop up tears too. Wiping up a kitchen mess while I wipe my red, swollen eyes at the same time. The familiar lessons of sovereign bullets and choosing to give thanks in the taking, quickly come to mind. They are a strange comfort to my grieving heart, messengers of sorrow, but simultaneously singing a sweet refrain.

For two months now, we've anticipated the December placement of a baby girl in our home. We met with her expectant mom and talked, crying and laughing, for over an hour. She set up a hospital plan, inviting us to visit her during labor and take over parenting responsibilities immediately following delivery. And then yesterday, she changed her mind, and decided not to follow through with the adoption plan.

While we rejoice for this life and the unification of a family unit, we can't help but grieve over the loss of this baby being added to our family. Adoption always involves grief, and in this case, in spite of our tears, we are thankful that we are grieving so this birth mom doesn't have to. When starting down the path of adoption, it's easy to talk a big game about taking risks, being a father to the fatherless, and painting this glorious picture of the gospel. But actually, we don't get to decide how it all ends. Because really, God is the one who is ultimately Father to the Fatherless, and maybe what he really wants us to do is be faithful to show his love to those in need in smaller ways, like getting an expectant mom through the roughest six weeks of her life because she knows someone cares and is willing to love her child as their own. Maybe he wants us to bring her flowers and write her a reassuring card telling her she matters. Maybe he wants us to faithfully pray for her and her child because no one else is. And maybe he wants us to be willing to open our hearts and enter into her hard story and make it our own, helping her bear all the heartbreak and drama it involves. And in the end, maybe our arms are empty, but hers are full. And that's OK, because we don't get to decide how he uses us.

As friends (who have had more than their share of grief in the adoption process) told us, "We don't adopt perfectly. But God does." And our expectation has to be in him - the real Father to the Fatherless and Helper of the poor and needy. Maybe our adoption story doesn't end like we expect, at the front of a courtroom all smiles with the same last name. But maybe God chooses to use our willing hearts to love others in a smaller way, even to our personal hurt, as just a part of the process and writing of a few short pages in the longer story of their lives.

And we've decided that what he decides is good enough.

 

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I Love What I've Got

We've been on the FL waiting list for adoption now for about 4 months (waiting a total of 16 months including our time in MI) and we haven't received placement yet. We put this simple video together, basically using photos from our profile book expectant parents view. No one else on the Florida waiting family list has a video, so we are asking that God might use something as simple as this to draw the right expectant parent's attention to our family. Our expectation is in Him!

 

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Our Promise

Thanks to those of you who have followed our adoption journey as I've shared it here this past month. For our friends in Florida who haven't been with us from the beginning of the process, I hope reading about it has helped you to feel more a part of things by knowing how we got to this point. And for those who have been with us all along, our dear Michigan and Ohio friends and family, I hope you felt our continued thankfulness for all your support. We are immensely grateful!

 

I've tried to cover as much of the process - the good and challenging - from our perspective in a way that is helpful to those considering adoption for their family. It would be great if these posts answered some questions and soothed some apprehensions. It would be even better if that percentage of people who actually adopt increased significantly from just 2% for the sake of expectant parents, babies, and children in foster care not waiting reunification, all to the glory of God.

But regardless of what this series has done for others, I am thankful to rehearse and solidify in my mind the steady leading of God in our lives these past few years. I have benefited from tracing his hand and trust that I am more prepared to give an answer to others of our hope in God as they ask about our adoption.

To end the series today, I wanted to share another page from our profile book (the book expectant parents will view as they consider selecting us to parent their child). It wasn't a requirement for our Michigan book, so this page is hot off the press for our Florida book. It's called "Our Promise To You..." and is the last page the expectant parents will see as they close our book.

Our Promise To You...

We promise to tell your child the happiest news ever of Jesus' great love, wisdom, care, and power.

We promise to show that love, wisdom, care, and power to your child through our lives every day, with His help.

We promise to offer you relief from wondering if your child will be loved and cared for every single day of his/her life through every stage of his/her growth and development.

We promise to love your baby through his/her middle of the night cries to the joy of his/her first smile.

We promise to love your toddler through the tantrums of the trying terrible twos and kiss away all the boo-boos and skinned knees as he/she learns to ride his/her bike.

We promise to love your school-aged child and tuck him/her in every night, helping him/her with homework, quizzing him/her on multiplication facts, being involved in his/her school, and helping him/her develop his/her God-given talents.

We promise to love your teenager through his/her mood swings and adjustments into adulthood, crying with him/her through his/her first break-up, disappointing friendship, and frustrated bench-sitting, and cheering for him/her over baskets scored, reports completed, and recitals performed.

We promise to equip him/her with all he/she needs to succeed in college, his/her career, and as he/she starts his/her own family.

We promise to incorporate your cultural and ethnic background into our family life and tell your story of love and sacrifice, and how God linked our stories together in His perfect plan for his/her good and happiness.

We promise to give every ounce of our energy to nurturing and showering this precious child with all the love we have - FOREVER.

 

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The Money Thing

Adoption can be expensive. It costs about $25,000 for domestic infant adoption. After our first information gathering meeting at Bethany, we were overwhelmed with the cost and discouraged knowing we certainly didn't have that kind of money.

33% of Americans consider adoption. 79% of those are concerned about the costs, the biggest deterrent. Less than 2% adopt. (Source: Abba Fund)

The cost almost deterred us. Matt came to realize if we waited until we had all the money and even tried to plan where it would come from, we would never start the process. He decided since we were in a stable place financially, we needed to start down the path and see how God provided. So that's what we did.

A few days after getting approval of our formal application, I contacted my talented hair stylist and good friend, Melissa, about doing a fundraiser through the salon where she worked. She eagerly agreed and along with friends who made delicious refreshments to sell and other generous vendors who donated portions of their proceeds, they helped us raise almost $2,000. The big fundraising ball was rolling!

Then another friend from church approached us about holding a fundraiser and selling health and beauty products from her company and donating the proceeds to our adoption fund.

And God kept providing through donations in all amounts. We received financial gifts from our fundraising website, some from sweet kids who raised money from their lemonade stand, a large amount from my mom and step-dad's church, a few thousand from a concert my step-dad held, and another several thousand from our dinner at CBC. People contributed goods to raffle and a family from church who owns our favorite Mexican restaurant in Metro Detroit had a day in November when they gave us a portion of their proceeds from sales. We sold tshirts with our "Together We're Loud" logo and had various people sacrificially give a few hundred or thousand dollars here and there. Then we were so encouraged to learn in February of this year that we were awarded $6,000 through Steven Curtis Chapman's Show Hope Grant.

We read books and blog posts about debt-free adoption before we got started which were very helpful. We also learned a little along the fundraising way ourselves. (Just to be transparent, we are hoping to have a debt-free adoption, but have incurred approximately $2,000 more in fees from our transfer, so we will see how it all works out in the end.)

1) It is hard work. I likened it to adding on a part-time job. So many details to plan, things to organize, and thank yous you don't want to miss. Like most work, there is profit in the end, but it really is just plain old work.

2) We couldn't have done it without a huge support network. We had many dear friends from the church of which we were a part during Matt's seminary years who came to several events. We had amazing support and generosity from our beloved church, CBC. They let us hold several events at the ministry center which cut down on our needing to incur costs in renting a facility. And there were other friends and family near and far who gave monetarily, but also let us borrow tables and chairs, gave discounts on tshirt printing, and offered free design services. We were humbled to see so many people join together to help us raise money.

3) Although many people were supporting us personally, we were given a platform to help promote adoption and orphan care. We learned so much in the process and I hope we were able to spur others on in living out pure religion from James 1:27, to take care of the fatherless.

4) To get money, you have to have money. Most grants are looking for substantial efforts on your part indicating you have done all you can to raise as much money as you can before asking them for money. They also want to see that you do an adaquate job managing your personal finances, show financial need, but don't already carry debt. It seems to be a tricky balance. Also, it does help to have good friends who volunteer at the Show Hope table at Steven Curtis Chapman's concerts to put in a good work for you so that Mary Beth herself might look at your application. (Thanks, Troy and Mal!)

5) In much the way physical child birth strips you of your dignity, all the bearing of personal information in the adoption process forces you to be an open book. The level of financial detail some grant applications go into is crazy, let alone all the essays you have to write about why you want to adopt, how you've prepared, your spiritual journey, your theological persuasions, etc. I like writing and it was tedious and a bit intrusive even for me! (Although I do understand why it needs to be that way.)

6) The place of need has been a good place to be. As nerve-racking as it is to know that $25,000 bill is coming due, God has given us much grace as we stepped out following him not knowing how we would make all the ends meet. It has been a chance for us to see his kindness, goodness, and generosity to us through others. Our kids have seen him directly provide our adoption needs, so much so that Stella said, "I want to be more generous to others like others have been to us." Sometimes I tend to think that giving of our resources is the best way to teach our kids generosity, but God has shown us that humbly receiving generosity is also a way he chooses to magnify his faithful character.

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Some Fun Stuff - Possible Names, Baby Clothes, and a Rocker

This series has been heavy at times, so I thought as I wind it down, I'd mix it up a bit and throw in a little fun!

Since moving to Florida, I will admit I have become an avid Walmart shopper. We have one literally 2 minutes from our house (and Target is about 20 minutes away now), so it is the store nearest us. But it's also super affordable. Since they started their Savings Catcher program in August, I have gotten back over $30.00 in the past few months alone. Also, I have found some really cute clothes for me and the kids there and some fun home decor. (These pillows: cute for winter and cuter for anytime.)

A few days ago, I stumbled upon this site that chronicles great Walmart finds. Imagine my excitement. :)

I couldn't help but be drawn to these adorable baby clothes they linked to.

Stinkin' cute or what?! They look like they're straight off the rack at H&M!

This fall it hit me that I wasn't shopping in the baby/toddler section anymore and I have been going through serious withdraw from not shoving some chubby baby thighs into jeggings or snapping a necktie appliqued onesie on a little bod. (This baby needs to come quickly!)

Next, how about this mid-mod rocker?! Especially in the always in style, IMHO, happy orange color. :) I've never had a rocker in a nursery and don't even know if I'd use it, but I like looking at it!

Last, and on another note, we've had much time to consider names for our new little babe. We wanted to pick a name that would be appropriate to his/her ethnic heritage and to our family heritage. We have settled on a boy and girl option. (I will caveat that we are open to working with the birth family to incorporate a name of their choosing into the child's name as well, so these are subject to change.)

For a boy, we have picked Carter Matthew. We like that he will be named after his dad (Matthew) and we also like how Carter matches with Schaeffer's name. But we also appreciate the man behind the Carter name, Pastor Tony Carter. We have some very good friends who attend East Point Church in East Point, GA, where he is the lead pastor. You may know him from his work with The Front Porch or his writing in Tabletalk. He and his wife, Adriane, extended such kindness to me and Matt a few years back when we were in GA for a funeral, allowing us to come over to their house on a Friday night and grill them with questions on church planting and how there might be any hope for us white people to have a multiethnic ministry. They showed us around their house, introduced us to their 5 kids, and sat in their living room with us like they had nothing better to do than entertain two strangers who wanted to keep following Jesus and glean wisdom from their experience and biblical knowledge. I'm currently reading Pastor Carter's book, Bloodwork. What a godly namesake!

For a girl, we have chosen the name Aaliyah Sunshine. We like Aaliyah because it is feminine and fits well with Stella's and Ruby's names. And Matt has insisted (although I'm not opposed to it at all) we use my middle name, Sunshine, for her. He loves it and I love knowing she would bear my name, signifying the bright days ahead for her, by the grace of God.

But for now, we wait and pray, trusting our God who already knows the child he has us for, and who will give him/her to us at the right time. He has never been late before, and we are confident he'll be right on time again.

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Thankful for my Adoption

 

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Transracial Adoption - How?

In yesterday's post, I wrote about the concept of missional living to answer the question of why we're adopting transracially. In today's post, to answer the how question, I'll use the term incarnational.

During our transracial adoption training at Bethany, we were required to watch a lengthy video of several adoptees evaluating their experience being raised by adoptive parents who were of a different ethnicity than their own birth ethnicity.

It was eye opening. Definitely, the common theme was evident - if their adoptive parents did not make an effort to expose them to, educate them in, and celebrate their ethnic origin, it was a double grief to the adopted child. The first grief, I've already written about, is grieving the loss of their birth parent and the second grief, in their case, was the loss of their birth culture.

So Bethany had us do an exercise where they gave us different colored beads representing different ethnicities. We had to answer questions like, "What is your pediatricians ethnicity?" "What is the principal's ethnicity at your child's school?" "What is the ethnicity of your neighbors on each side of you?" We dropped the appropriate color bead representing that ethnicity to answer the questions. At the end, the point was to reveal how monochromatic (white majority) our lives are if we are not intentionally building relationships and immersing ourselves in a culture other than our own.

They encouraged us to see our family as having a transracial identity. We should not think of ourselves as a white family with a black or bi-racial child. We should think of our whole family taking on our child's identity in an incarnational way - willingly laying aside our privileges and preferences to identify with our child's birth culture and history and weaving it into our family's new identity.

These trainings were meant to make us count the cost of taking on the responsibility of raising our child who is of a different ethnicity. They wanted us to leave their office grieving the loss of our own ethnicity - not because it's better, although admittedly it is easier - so we could more adequately understand what our child will go through.

And that's exactly the effect it had on us. We left accepting the fact that although our skin color will not change, collectively as a family, we had to be willing to see ourselves and be seen as the ethnicity of our child. So we knew we needed to prepare to experience racism ourselves for the first time in our lives. My mom already had when she told someone we were pursuing an African American placement. The individual said, "Really?! Well, it will be fine when that child is small, but Matt and Erica just need to be prepared for what that child will become as an adult."

Blatant racism that minority cultures have been dealing with for decades. May God help us and use our family for his glory and our good and greatest joy!

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Transracial Adoption - Why?

This is a hard post to write in the aftermath of the Ferguson verdict yesterday. As a family approaching transracial adoption, specifically African American placement, I feel my heart pulled in two different directions. One is the world of white privilege I've always known and taken for granted, and the other is the world our child will come from stacked with decades of oppression and prejudice I have never known. Michael Jackson was wrong. It clearly does matter if you're black or white. And honestly, it makes me scared to death to think of how I can even attempt parenting our child in a way that educates him/her about realities I have never known and equips him/her to live responsibly and graciously in the cruel existence of racism.

So what made us pursue transracial adoption?

Since college, we have had a burning desire for missions. We are missionaries at heart, even though we've never served long-term in a foreign field of ministry. I wrote about it here, all the different avenues we pursued, asking God to, "Please send us!" He chose not to, and we are content with his will. But, we do see the benefit of being stateside missionaries (because we are all really called to missions anyway) who are frustrated that we've been left behind. And we've come to see our desire to adopt transracially as fruit of that desire. If we can't go to them, we will bring them (or at least one of them!) to us! Afterall, parenting in and of itself, is a mission field, right?!

Early on in our parenting (Stella's first birthday as a matter of fact), the first baby we got her was an African American doll. Yes, it was a very small beginning in and effort to opening our daughter's eyes that God's creation isn't full of white people. We wanted our family to be a context, from its inception, where we and our kids would see that he really is "Lord of the Nations" and one way his great glory could be explored was through learning about people from every tribe, tongue, and nation. In essence, we wanted our home to be a place of raising non-ethnocentric, global students for God's glory. No small task.

We attempted to do this in different ways. Matt and I were in Detroit a lot when most long-standing Michiganders were still living in the white flight mentality. I remember going to the Jazz Fest in 2002 as one of the few whites venturing into that context. I remember holding on to Matt's arm as we made our way through the crowds. The racial tensions were so thick you could feel them. One African American man looked at us and jumped back, mockingly clearing the area and sarcastically said, "Oh! Let's make way for the suburbanites!"

Fear and conflict have never been seen as obstacles for my eye-of-the-storm loving husband. (So we were not surprised when our most-like-him daughter wrote on a paper at school that her career choice is "Storm Chaser.") So, he decided to consider a possible church plant in Detroit. We visited a black church in the city to try to learn the ministry context better. We'd often put ourselves and our kids in situations where we were the minority - a playground at Belle Isle where Stella and Ruby were the only white kids, a restuarant off the beaten path in Detroit where the African Americans would ask us, "How did you find this place?" (Which by the way, served one of the most delicious smoothies I've ever had - the "Blessed and Highly Favored.") We set up several appointments and looked at apartments and condos in the city. Matt met with a city developer to see the best area for a possible church plant. He complied statistics and wrote a proposal. But again, God directed otherwise.

God is always at work and wastes none of the circumstances when directing the paths of his people. We see now how those early desires and good (though sometimes misguided) intentions, laid the ground work for us to become a transracial family. We still had a lot to learn, but that initial burden to open our hearts to people not like us and find ways we could change and become more like them for the sake of his name, has led us here - opening our family to receive a child we don't want to make like us, but like Jesus.

More tomorrow on how God has continued to teach us and prepare us to be a transracial family.

 

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A Father's Heart

(This post originally appeared here in June 2013. As I wrote yesterday, it is the outpouring of what God was helping me think through as we attended adoption training to help our child with the grief of a lost birth parent relationship.)

I held it like it was you, that red crochet heart. It hung on my bed post reminding me you were out there, just not here. And how can a 7-year-old reconcile that?

Mom said you loved me and I wanted to believe her. But tears soaked my pillow many nights that second grade year, because if you loved me, where were you?

Sometimes a mom can love enough for a mom and a dad. She did. And she'd sit with me and tell me about you. Good things, actually. It made me smile to hear you were voted "Most Popular" by your eighth grade class. I thought it was cool that you sang in a high school rock band. And my friends now would laugh to know that you worked in your family owned bakery since there's little I hate more than baking. I'd replay those few facts I knew about you over and over in my mind acting like you were familiar and hoping that would change reality.

When I was brave, I'd look at the picture taken on one of the last visits I had with you when I was three. It's of us sitting in a bean bag, reading a book. I'd imagine what it would be like to feel your reassuring arm around me again. I couldn't remember and I knew a little girl needed a strong arm to steady her in this scary world. But all I really had was that red crochet heart you sent me one Valentine's Day.

And it's not just that we didn't have you, but it's who we got in your place. We got more heartache and pain. But when he was gone, Mom got Jesus, and we said you can have all this world - with families good and bad - as long as we could keep Him.

He never left us. Never hurt us. Never went back on His word. He was perfect. I know. I read it and couldn't pull my eyes off the page. I underlined over and over all of those promises He made to the fatherless. And I started to believe them. I started to believe I could trust Him. That I had found the perfect Dad. Or rather that He had heard and found me! "If [the fatherless] cry out to me, I will certainly hear their cry." (Exodus 22:23) He rescued me and quieted me with His love just like I knew a Father's heart should.

And He keeps hearing. When I enrolled in a Christian college that was clearly unprepared to deal with me and my Gen-X baggage, and was harassed by my admissions counselor because I couldn't provide your address or any information about you, I cried out and He heard. Then in Freshman Orientation when the Vice President piled up statistics about being doomed to repeat the cycle of dysfunction if you were from a broken home like I could be scared out of sinning but would always be a second class Christian, I cried out and He heard. And when a girl in my dorm approached me like I was wearing a scarlet letter and said, "Do [the young man's] parents know he's dating you? I mean, my dad would never let me date someone from your kind of background," I cried out and He heard. And when I pulled out my birth certificate a couple months ago and saw the line under "Father's Name" staring back at me blank and bare like I didn't even have one, I cried out wondering how my heart could buckle so quickly under the weight of something that's empty, and He heard.

The thing about the past is that it doesn't stay put. It comes with you and you have to keep dealing with it. That's something we have in common, right? But because Jesus has dealt with it, we can too.

A few years ago when we talked for the first time in over thirty years, I told you like I've indicated here, that our life was hard without you, but that I didn't have grievances to air, only a message of hope and forgiveness to share. And that's the case today.

And even though you still say you want to talk soon but have fallen short again, I understand and so does Adam. He fell first and dads and moms have been doing the same thing ever since.

Even though at one time I wanted more than anything to be known as your daughter, to have my last name be yours, I've found security in a Heavenly Father who has demonstrated His heart of love for me in this, while I was still a sinner, Christ died for me. And my acceptance into His family doesn't require a certain pedigree or family heritage. He doesn't require a specific bloodline because His love for me and you is based on the precious blood of His Son, who by the way knows a little about being born into the shame of scandal. I guess I'm in good company, after all.

Stella's question caught me off guard earlier this week as we were picking out a Father's Day card for Matt. She asked if I was getting a card for you. I never have, but maybe this can be it. And maybe you and others like us will read it. So, from a daughter's heart that has been radically changed by the overwhelming love of her Father, let me show you His heart. He loves reckless sinners with a reckless, profuse love. Our wild living is no match for His forgiveness. In fact, He meets our sin with extravagant grace. I know because I've experienced it!

"[W]hile [I] was still a long way off, [my] father saw [me] and was filled with compassion for [me]; he ran to [me], [and] threw his arms around [me] and kissed [me].

"[He] said to his servants, ‘Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on h[er]. Put a ring on h[er] finger and sandals on h[er] feet. Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let’s have a feast and celebrate. For this [daughter] of mine was dead and is alive again; [s]he was lost and is found.’ So [we] began to celebrate." (Luke 15:20, 22-24)

The Father's looking for you too, ready to open His heart of compassion and arms of love and meet you where you are. There's nothing more I pray for you this Father's Day than for you to know Him. I can imagine Father's Day is difficult for you. But this one can be different. It can be filled with the joy of new life, a changed heart, repentance, and restoration! And so, tomorrow I wish you, Dad, a Father's Day worth celebrating!

 

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