The word yesterday was "koy." Wait some more. But, at least it wasn't "no." The government official that our agency needed to see was not in the office yesterday. I believe the agency is going to try to see this official again today. The director of our agency is traveling today and tomorrow though, so it is not likely that we will get any news until Friday at the earliest.
After waiting for so long to bring Yosef and Mihret home, it's hard to not lose hope at times. These past two weeks, it's only been through spending lots of time with God that I've been able to maintain hope. And God has been happy to spend time with me too. He's not challenged by how quickly a human heart can lose hope. Rather, He is moved with compassion for us.
I grew up in Pennsylvania where the winters are very long and the snow seems to last forever. My favorite flower is the daphadill because even while the snow is still thick on the ground, their yellow heads appear to remind us that the winter won't last forever and that the joy of spring is coming. Hope. Daphadills represent hope to me.
Well, this past January of February, we were being told that our kids weren't getting a courtdate because they had come from an orphanage whose director was under investigation. (Haregowein for those who have read "There's No Me Without You"). We now know that our kids did not come from Haregowein's orphanage, but still, that was a pretty hopeless time in this adoption. We had just discovered that much of what we had believed to be true was not as it appeared. I wondered if my kids would ever come home. Then, I had a dream one night that I had taken Kaitlyn to school on a cold morning and when I came back home, I noticed that my daphadills had sprung up during the night. I thought, 'but it's too early for the daphadills to come up!' I believe that God is still in the business of speaking to people through dreams, through pictures He puts in our minds, by making our hearts just seem to know certain things, through other people, and however else He so desires. Well, when I woke up from that dream, I immediately knew in my heart that God had given me that dream in order to assure me that just as the daphadills spring up to give hope of what is to come, He wanted me to have hope that He would indeed bring my kids home to me. Well, wouldn't you know it- that morning when I came home from taking Kaitlyn to school, I noticed that my daphadills had sprung up in the night, a good month before it was time for this to have happened. My heart smiled, knowing that God was faithfully giving me added assurance that all hope was not lost. That there is hope in trusting Him.
This has been a very long year for our family. That dream seems like it happened a decade ago. I hadn't thought about it for a long time. Last week, our pastor said to me, "Heather, I hate to even tell you this because you're going to think I'm crazy. But when I was praying for you, God put a picture of a daphadill in my mind. I don't know what it means, but I didn't want to NOT share it just in case it's important." Well, I immediately knew that God was reminding me yet again through something very personal to me that He is faithful when the winter has been so long and we feel like the snow will never melt. He's challenging me to seek Him in the darkness before dawn. Sure, this is a dark time for us, but the darkness gives way to dawn every single day. It's been that way since the beginning of the world. He is faithful to a thousand generations. And He is faithful to THIS generation. He is faithful to my Yosef and Mihret. Because before they were mine, before they belonged to their mother, Denkenesh, they were HIS.
3 comments:
Welcome to the world of adoption. Lesson to be learned---adoption is based on fraud. Sad but true. The faciltator for my first child went to prison. All the health and developmental reports for my second child were fraudulent and my third child, from Ethiopia like yours, was illegally relinquished and the agency put blinders on...I found out my last child had healthy, living parents who could have easily parented her AFTER she arrived in the US. Talk about one angry kid. Nothing like being sold to the highest bidder. Yes, it's a hard lesson to learn but adoption is based on fraud.
Wow, I can certainly understand why you would feel that adoption is based on fraud! It's sad that so many people have negative experiences in what should be a joyous thing. The world is definitely broken. While I know that there are many fraudulent agencies and facilitators, I still don't believe that adoption is based on fraud. I still maintain that adoption is based on the love that God shows to us, His adopted children. I believe that adoption is a representation of that kind of love. The love that seeks to redeem that which society would rather discard and forget about. We as parents cannot forget. It's true though that adoption is an industry and anybody who wants to think otherwise is either ignoring the obvious or is blissfully ignorant of the facts.
Great post!
jen
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