Taking the First step

We were driving to my in-law’s house on Friday night and I was telling Aaron about the kids at Drawn from Water in Ethiopia that some acquaintance of ours, Jesse and Levi, were rescuing. They were putting those children up for adoption. Then I moved to tell him about some information my friend sent me about getting funding for international adoptions.

In the middle of my telling he turned to me, looked me in the eyes and knowing where this was going said, “Yes.”

Then he teared up for second or two and said, “It seems impossible, but so much of our life is impossible right now. I’m open to it happening since it wouldn’t really happen unless God makes it happen.”

I wrote to Jesse and she told me which agency they were working with and what we had to do. At the same time she asked if we had considered adopting through the state as they had done. “I feel like a traitor mentioning this…” she said, “But it worked out really well for us.”

I went ahead and contacted the international adoption agency and started to figure out if we qualified. I was filling out forms and researching all that November, 2009.

Dec. 2 we had a meeting with our lawyer to hammer out details of incorporating The Charis Project and applying for non-profit status. I was 2 days late.

I am never late.

That’s when we found out that Jellybean was on his way. Talk of adopting faded into the background. We would not pursue that with another baby on the way.

Once he was born I could not stop thinking about adopting. We wanted to adopt someone older, a boy 2-4. Boys don’t get chosen as often as girls for some reason, but we’re willing to take a boy. I thought we should do that before Jellybean got too old and too settled in his position in the family so the transition to one more older sibling would be easy.

One day in September I looked around at all the stuff I was already doing, barely, and realized that it was absolutely foolish to think of adding another child to the mix when I could barely keep all the balls I am already juggling in the air. I let go again and sat back to settle into getting on top of everything around me.

An aside: If there is one thing I realized taking a 3 week vacation and trying to come back into things full swing when we got home it’s that my life is hard work. Really hard never ending work. And when I  lose my rhythm the whole thing falls apart. I almost have my rhythm back. Almost.

But then there was a conversation, a phone number, and I started thinking about what Jesse said about adopting locally from foster care. Only thinking though, remember. I’m too busy.

That all changed the day I read this post from 6yearmed. I thought to myself, “I may be busy but I can do better than that for a child. I’ve got room for one more.”

I got up, found the phone number, and made the first phone call.

When I told Aaron about it he responded by telling me that he heard something about a local child the day before that was so awful he refused to tell me. “You have stuff you have to get done today,” he said, “This would wreck you for a really long time.”

“So it was bad?”

“I was shaking when I heard it,” he answered, by way of confirmation.

I still don’t know what it was.

Tonight we are going to the first orientation meeting to find out more about foster adoption. Our hearts are open. Now we learn what’s involved.

We’ll see where it takes us.