Choice

Adoption update: Two weeks ago I called my lawyer. It had been six weeks since we had talked at which time she told me, “We are fourth in line for local adoptions. Wait one more month.”  Are you doing the math? The one month had been expired for two weeks. That is why I called. So this time when I called (Jan. 14th) this is what she told me, “We are fourth in line for local adoptions. Wait one more month.”

my attitude while I wait is my choice

You know what? I believed her in December and  I believe her now in January. What other choice do I have? We are so close I can taste it. Like the smell of rain before you can see, feel or hear it. I have my arms open wide, a huge smile on my wide open mouth ready to catch the first drip from that stormy sky.

What are we waiting for? We are waiting for the judge (thank God that there is a judge now) to assign a child to our family. She will call us in to read the file of the child. She will ask us if we would like to adopt this child. We will say yes. Then we will be given an order from the court allowing us to visit the child at the orphanage or home where she is. Within a week (more or less) we will come before the judge a second time. This time the child will be present. At the end of this hearing the child will be allowed to come home with us for a trial period of two weeks. I say ‘trial period’ because that is the term they use here, but I know that she will be ours from that moment forward. At the end of that two weeks a third court appointment will be arranged and the adoption will be made final. So are you seeing how quickly this is going to move when this next step comes?

Last week a friend of mine asked me for a quote about adoptions for his college paper. He spent a number of weeks with us here in Bolivia last summer. I was glad to oblige. Here is what I wrote to him:

My unique perspective stems from the fact that I am both an adoptive parent and an orphanage director in the country I am adopting from. The way the Bolivian government has decided to do adoptions is that the parents apply, go through a rigorous approval system and then the judge assigns the family a child. This is the case for national and international adoptions. The judge is the one selecting the child for the family. Adoptive families are allowed to express their preference of: gender, age and health status. Beyond those few stipulations it is considered prejudice to select a child for yourself. No system is perfect. Every child deserves a home. I need to trust that because we felt that the Lord would have us to adopt a Bolivian child at this time means that He knew that this was the system we would have to work with and He has our best interests in mind. In the end I have had to come to peace with trusting that God can work to bring us the child we are meant to have through which ever judge is making the decision. He is really that capable. I trust Him in this. It is not what I expected when I started to investigate how this whole adoption thing works. I should clarify: It is not like it works in the movies. Then again, real life hardly ever is. The way I have chosen to look at it is that we were not offered choices about who our natural born children were going to be. God gave us a wonderful inheritance in the kids we have; I love them so much. Why would I expect it to be any different for this addition? I may not get to choose my child but I do get to choose to be happy about the child that I am given.

“Children are a gift from the Lord;
they are a reward from him.”

Psalm 127:3

Tagged as: adoption, God thoughts