Our Adoption

As many of you know, we have been in the process of adoption for almost 3 years now.  We began this process prior to accepting GOD’s call to start and run All Things New and to move to Haiti to take care of our children.  It has been a long road (to read our adoption story, and to consider donating to our adoption please click here) up to this point in our process, but we are now matched with a birth mom who is due on October 17!  It was such an incredible feeling to get the call that we would be bringing a new member to our family, and we are so excited to have a baby soon.

As you may remember, we started our adoption process thinking that we would be adopting a child or children from Ethiopia.  At the time we signed up for this, this program was known to be one of the more stable international programs in the world, but everything changed so quickly.  We were told by our agency that it had gotten so bad that they were contemplating pulling out of Ethiopian adoption altogether and they strongly advised us to change to a different program.  It was solely because of this change that we made the decision to pursue domestic adoption and considered adopting an infant for the first time.  When we first approached a domestic agency, we were afraid that no birth Mom would choose us.  There would be so many worthy candidates, and we thought the idea that their child would be living in a 3rd world country would make them think twice before choosing us.  In the end, however, it was precisely because of our experience in Haiti that we were chosen.  In fact, our profile was not even shown to the woman who chose us, but she saw our profile sitting off to the side, noticed that we lived in Haiti, and told the agency that her mom had done work in Haiti as well.  There was an instant connection, and we are now expecting our first child!

As I reflect back on our adoption process, a few things come to mind:

• If we had started in the domestic adoption program and adopted an infant before deciding to move to Haiti, I am not sure we would have started All Things New.
• If our initial attempt to adopt in Ethiopia had worked out and we had children earlier, I do not think that we would have been in a position to move our children to Hope Rising (click here to learn more about our move) when we did.
• If we had needed to make the decision to leave the Ethiopia program (and consequently lose the crazy amount of money that we lost) 5 years ago, I am not sure I could have gone through with it.  Today I finally understand the place that money should play in my life, and it was worth everything to get to meet my child soon.
• When we have to go to the states for a few months to take care of our child and leave our other children in Haiti for a while (not long, but a while), we now have so many other people who love them and will take care of them.  It will still be difficult, but we know they are in good hands (click here to read about all of the people who are there for our children now).  Just to answer any questions, it will take 90 days for the adoption to be finalized in Florida, after which we can apply for our baby’s passport at which time we will immediately come back to Haiti.  In the meantime, I will be in Haiti for at least part of the time because neither of us could wait that long to see our children here.

GOD’s Timing is Always Perfect.

Do I always believe that…No.  Do I always live like that…No.  But when I take the time to look back through difficult times, wonderful times, and even normal times in my life, I can always see the hand of GOD making everything happen like it should.  When we started the adoption process I thought we would have children quickly because we were so open to different things and to different ages.  When that did not happen, I began to wonder why and think that maybe GOD had forgotten about us.  But now that I look back, He was perfect and His timing was and is impeccable.  

Isn’t it funny how that happens?  When we are in the midst of something it is difficult for us to understand the timing of things and why certain things happen when and how they happen.  But when we have gone through the trial, and we have time to look back at what was really going on, we can see GOD’s perfect timing everywhere.  The sad thing is, the next time I go through something difficult or something that I do not understand, the same thing will probably happen.  I will probably wonder why GOD has forgotten, or maybe I will think things are unfair, or may I will even think the whole world is against me…That is until I get to the end and I am able to see the hand of GOD in every single thing that happened.  Or maybe, this time, we can learn something.

No matter what we are going through or what is happening in our lives, GOD is in control.

It’s just true.  And if we can remember this truth, how much better will our next trial be?  How much easier will it be to go through everything in our lives knowing GOD is always there, He will never leave us, and He is in complete and utter control of everything.  

When we were going through the adoption process, there were a few times that I wondered why nothing was happening.  Why was it taking so long?  And then, all of a sudden, we are having a baby, and everything makes sense.  GOD had us in His hands the whole time, we just had to wait for OUR child.