Not All Who Wander

"Not all those who wander are lost..."

Taken from the Poem "All That is Gold Does Not Glitter" by JRR Tolkien in the Lord of the Rings novels

It has been a while since I have given a status update as to where we are in the process of our adoption. For those of you who have lovingly walked beside us in this journey and have given us words of encouragement, I send my sincere thanks. This road is a long one, and we have cherished your support along the way.

That being said, there's been a change of direction for our family, and I hope, as I share our most recent adventure, that you won't jump ahead and try to guess the outcome. Instead, I ask that you simply read the story, coming alongside me as I share how God has been working in our lives.

On Wednesday, October 29, 2014, our agency shared on Facebook a need for a family to take in 3 sisters, ages 3, 10 and 12 from Latin America in order to prevent them from having to separate. I didn't see the original post from the agency, I just saw that two of my friends had shared it themselves. On a typical day, I would have scrolled right on past, praying for the best for these children and moving on with my afternoon at the office. However, on that day, I found myself with pen in hand and writing down the name, email and phone number of the Lifeline contact.Without consulting my husband, who was home asleep from his 3rd shift job, I sent this woman an email letting her know that we would be interested in taking these girls. 

Yep, you read that right. No long discussion of pros and cons with my husband, no asking my friends what they thought, no reviewing of my family's financials or any other reasonable thing. I just sent the email and jumped right off the edge into the unknown. And, you know what's funny? I didn't have a single ounce of fear coursing through my veins that afternoon after I hit "Send." No, jumpy tummy or thoughts that I had lost my mind, no frantic scramble to retrieve my message back from the internet universe, instead, I just felt like it would all be okay. 

That afternoon when Mike got up, I sheepishly explained what I had done. He informed me that he had seen the same post and had wanted to ask me about responding to it. I just jumped ahead, and he was 100% supportive. Having not spoken a word to one another, we were on the same page. In fact, he didn't think it was enough to send an email, he wanted me to call and show just how serious we were in our intent.

I did hear back from our agency that day, and there were already two families who were reviewing the files of these little girls. I would be contacted if they decided not to move forward. In my head, I had already romanticized the entire thing. I had rearranged the furniture to fit all of them in my house, I was going to try and learn their native tongue, I was boning up on my information regarding adoption of older children. I was so ready to move, and yet, one of the families said yes and the door was closed on going any further. Of course I was happy that these little girls would get to stay together, but at the same time, I was a little sad over things not working out for our family.

The weekend came and went, but I just couldn't dismiss what had happened. In one afternoon, I had gone from the woman bringing home one, to a woman willing to brave the adventure of three. What?! There had to be something to the change, right? After some prayer and searching, I came to the conclusion that God was trying to show me that if I was so willing to step up for those three, why not three somewhere else? If it pierced my heart that children who had already lost their parents might possibly lose their siblings, then why wasn't I willing to step in somewhere else? Those three little girls weren't the only set of brothers and sisters who faced separation. While Mike and I had placed a description on our home study that said one little girl, minor special needs, between the ages of birth and four years, God had expanded our description to a bigger possibility, one that stretched the ages of our sons and daughters and the number of seats filled in our mini-van. Once again, feeling peaceful about this new direction, I knew Mike and I had something to talk about. 

On November 4, 2014, I filled my coffee cup and sat down at my desk to start my work day to find an email in my office inbox from my husband:

"I have to admit I was a little sad. I thought we may be on the beginning of a crazy adventure! While these sisters are not joining our family, their story did reveal something about us. We each independently read their story and came to the same conclusion:

We can do this. We're  ready to bring 3 girls home!

Maybe these girls are not for us but, we just expanded what this calling could mean for our family. We need to pray and talk (and pray some more) about changing our search. A sibling group seemed right to me."

Okay, so maybe we didn't have quite so much to talk about! It is nothing short of entertaining when God places the same thing on our hearts separately so that when we come together, there really isn't much to discuss. We're already on the same page. 

Cue the brand new adventure! We began talking with our adoption agency about what these types of changes would look like for our family, and guess what? They didn't think we had lost our minds for turning a new direction! When we explained how we felt God was calling us to something different, they were completely supportive and willing to help us pursue siblings. (This is one of the many reasons why I love working with a Christian-based adoption agency. They get our type of crazy and are on board with it.) But, China isn't a country with sibling adoptions typically, so where do we go now?

When I returned from my recent mission trip to Haiti, even while recovering from a nasty stomach bug, I still hit the internet that very next day and looked into Haitian adoptions. However, once I started to read into the process, I decided that the idea was crazy as we were so far into our China adoption and dismissed the idea altogether. So, when I asked for a breakdown of what international programs had sibling groups available, should I be surprised when the worker wrote, "It might be helpful to look into our Haiti program," and Mike agreed.

Why wouldn't we look towards Haiti? Twice, I have set my feet upon Haitian soil, and each time I have wept over the orphans there. I have held them and hugged them close, carried them around on my hip, shared some giggles and smiles, and colored pretty pictures alongside them. In Haiti, there is a church where I worship with my brothers and sisters, and friends who help me share the gospel in a language I don't speak. Part of my heart stays in Haiti every trip, even though I only visit for a short time once a year. 

So, to update, our little family will now be growing by two or three little boys or girls who first called Haiti their home, and we are absolutely thrilled. We've started the process of revamping our home study to reflect adopting multiple children and will begin to gather what we need for our Haiti dossier. Our agency has been great about helping us through the change, and we have felt an instant connection with our new social worker. We have truly felt God has gone ahead and prepared the path for this new direction in our lives.

But maybe you're like my middle child, who was a little slow to warm up to the change because he was ready to travel and bring his little sister home. By changing to siblings from Haiti, we've extended our wait time by at least another year, and that can seem a little sad when we were getting so close to the finish line. It can almost feel like we took a huge step back, 

I understand those feelings, and I don't want a longer wait either. Having looked into those precious faces, eye to eye, I realize that there are children needing families in Haiti and I wish I could speed up the process of adoption. Unfortunately, it just isn't that easy, and we're still going to need the support of family and friends as we work to bring our children home. 

The definition of "wander" is to "walk or move in a leisurely, casual, or aimless way." It may seem as if, in this adoption process, our family has simply wandered around without direction. I feel like if you plotted our route on a piece of paper, it would look like some swirly scribble that crosses back over itself more than once. 

But sometimes, those who wander aren't lost. Sometimes, we're just following God's direction, and even if it isn't a straight line from point A to B, and even if the journey doesn't seem to make sense at times, we still follow where He leads and trust that He's got this. Adoption is and continues to be a faith-building part of my life, even more so as we change directions. 

To all our friends and family, Happy New Year! We have enjoyed sharing our moments of 2014 with you, and we look forward to sharing 2015 with you as well. It can be exciting and a little nerve-wracking to know that there is so much that can happen in a year that we haven't planned, but the great thing is, nothing surprises God. He's already seen 2015, and He'll be right there with us in each and every moment.

God Bless!