Why International?

A friend recently asked why we chose international adoption over adopting out of the US foster care system.  Now usually when someone asks me this, it gets my cackles us.  Because the question is typically accompanied with a sneer of judgment from a complete stranger as if to say “Why do you not want to help American kids?”  {Sidebar: one time this nurse at MCV when Grace was teeny tiny and being checked by the specialists said to me, "Oh, I am so glad you decided to help out one of our own kids.  I don't see why so many help those foreign kids when there are kids here to love."  I said, "Um, it's only 9am and I can guarantee that is the most ignorant thing I will hear all day.  Can we please be seen by another nurse?"  Yeah, her jaw dropped and I think Sloan tried to hide under the sink.  But she left the room and we didn't get another nurse but a very apologetic doctor.  My quick wit may get me in trouble A LOT, but don't mess with me where my kids are concerned.  Cause I ain't afraid to cut somebody.}  However, this friend asked it simply to understand, as in she wanted to know how God lead us.  So I will answer.  But get comfortable, because this answer is kinda long.  It was not a decision we took lightly.

For starters, I will say that typically there are two reasons people adopt:  1. to grow a family and, 2. to provide a family.  Sure the latter achieves the former, but the motivation is different.  We adopted Grace to grow our family.  Jesus parlayed that adoption into a passion to see more of His heart for the orphan.  And here we are pining for two Congolese kids.

Initially, we did look into adopting out of foster care.  We have friends who are foster parents.  Sloan has mentored a young man who aged out of foster care and is now in college.  So it isn’t a world that is foreign to us.  The goal of the foster care system is to keep biological families intact.  Sometimes this is a glorious thing.  Parents are able to get their lives together while their kids get a break from the brokenness by being placed in a foster family.  But more often, it is a legal ping pong where there are no winners.  Case workers get frustrated at the judicial system and kids get shuffled.  Foster parents’ hearts get broken.  Kids never seem to have the chance to settle into the security of a permanent home because the next court date may mean they go back into foster care or back to their biological parent.  Therefore, the children who have done this dance back and forth until a judge finally says to the biological parent “Okay, that’s enough, your parental rights are being revoked” are typically much older.  And the state revoking a parent’s right to raise their child shouldn’t be taken lightly.  It’s a big deal.  It’s a broken solution to brokenness.  

For this, I am ever so grateful that Grace’s birthmom made an adoption plan for her.  That she had the courage to put her children’s lives before her own.  She relinquished her rights.  No judicial fight.  Grace and the twins were free to be loved.  Do I sometimes wish that we had known about the twins so they could’ve been placed with us?  Of course.  But I’m grateful to know and love their Momma via facebook.  Apparently, the vanilla versions of Grace have similar laughs and giggles and ridiculous temper tantrums.  

But typically, the children available for outright adoption from the foster care system are older.  They’ve been in the system awhile.  And these families DO need homes.  We simply felt that because Henry and Grace are so young and particularly unable to fend for themselves, it didn’t seem right to put them with an older sibling who, through no fault of his or her own, may hurt them.  A lot of these kids are troubled because no one gets tossed around like that without effect.  They need a family that can love them without abandon or reservation.  Does that make sense?  And through conversations I’ve had with case workers who work in the foster care system, they understand that tweens and teenagers are not the best fit for a family with preschoolers.  Also, when we went to AdoptUSKids to search for how many kids fit our age parameters and were free and clear to adopt, there were 17.  We looked at their profiles and made inquiries, but none of them seemed to fit.

And as to why international?  Because while the US foster care system has serious flaws, the neediness is different and we were drawn to stepping into that need.  I’ll give you an example of what I mean.

Today we got confirmation that Charlie and Mollie have been moved to our agency’s transition house.  Transition House is the term our agency uses to denote the fact that our kids will learn to transition to things that will prepare them for their new lives.  They will be shown our picture and be told about us.  And for possibly the first time in their lives they will live in a home with beds.  With indoor plumbing.  With electricity.  With daily meals.  With access to clean drinking water.  With 24 hour armed guards.  They even have a little swing set and a soccer goal in the front yard of the gated house.  Our agency has a rep in country right now and she took the kids ice cream today.  Seriously, compared with other African orphanages, it is like they are at Disneyland.  

My kids live in a country where close to half of the children die before age 5 due to malnutrition, malaria, and other things that no one dies from in a first world country.  They live in a country where kids not much older than Henry are brainwashed and roped into militia.  Where kids work tirelessly so we can enjoy our cell phones and chocolate.  Where 24 hour armed guards are needed.  Because there are folks coming into orphanages and trying to kidnap kids who have already been adopted to farm out to all of us well-meaning Westerners.  It is scary stuff.  

So yes, kids in the US foster care system need families.  But so do the other 145 million orphans on this planet.  I don’t see why so many like to act like it is a competition between which kids are the neediest.  Where you are born shouldn’t determine whether or not you get to live and be loved.

That’s the long answer.  

The short answer?  Um…we are adopting from the Congo because that’s where our kids are. 

i600 and waiting

Oh my goodness.  So much immigration paperwork.  For each child, there were 64 pages of documents.  Some had to be notarized.  All had to be scanned and apparently I'm an idiot about that.  First off, our old printer was a champ at scanning and the new printer not so much.  Or you have to stand there like an idiot and keep track of what page you are on and do it one.by.one.  So I broke down and went to Kinko's and paid the lovely people that I now know by name from all of our FedExing documents. 

Only to come home and discover that now that all my documents were scanned into one giant document that was too large to email.  Even though I specifically asked Shannon at Kinko's to scan it at a low resolution so that it would be less than 25 MB.  So I tried this Google share thing.  Then cursed myself for spending money on something that probably wouldn't work.  So then, I stood like an idiot, and scanned each document into separate PDFs and then sent my poor immigration helper 6 separate emails (not including the 2 original ones with the Google Share docs and also an email apologizing for all of my emails) with an accompanying 36 attachments.

This is where I'd like to thank the Wizard of Oz, Pixar, Dreamworks, and Disney Junior for parenting my children this past week.  It is incredible the amount of ignoring your "in home children" done just to adopt more children. 

So I sent my poor immigration helper about a dozen emails.  Each containing an apology for all of the emails.  I wanted to make sure all of my documents were correct before shipping them to her. 

Guess what?  She actually raved about my using the Google Share thing.  She only had to open one attachment and was done looking at my documents likety split because she didn't have to open 6 emails and 36 attachments.  (These are actual numbers, people.  Not exaggerations.  36 attachments.  18 per child.)

So of course, I then sent her ANOTHER email telling her to please ignore my other bajillion emails.  This made her type LOL.  So gold star for me. 

My documents looked great and now they are off!  Off to be matched with our translated court documents stating that Charlie and Mollie are all ours for forever and ever.  We will petition the US gov't to list them as our immediate relatives and then request visas for them.  This will take....

wait for it.....



anywhere between at least 4-9 months. 

Because the US State Department is grossly understaffed in Kinshasha and they must investigate every case for fraud and corruption, both of which are rampant in the DRC.  So it is necessary for them to make sure that we aren't participating in any child trafficking but so.freaking.long.

So. freaking. Long.

So maybe don't ask me when we will be traveling.  Because honestly, if they hadn't just changed the investigation procedure, I would've said maybe May or June.  But now I'm just praying to have my kids home by Thanksgiving.  {Actually, I'm praying to travel this summer.  Like all the time.  I may or may not have had to have a come to Jesus meeting with Jesus about this.  He sang me the "Be Patient" song and then gave me this whole Be still and know I am God, I am Father to the fatherless speech.  Classic Jesus.}

I try not to think about the time too much.  How every month they are over there kills me. How an armed militia marched into their hometown and took over the UN Compound this past weekend.  How it finally quieted down thanks to the Congolese guard and some UN Peacekeepers and a healthy downpour of rain.  (Cue Toto's Africa)  But not before 35 people were killed.  How Mollie will most likely turn 2 in an orphanage.  And how that means we will HAVE to buy her a seat on the airplane.  How I have swimsuits for them.  How when I close my eyes I see them and if I try hard enough I can see them running around my backyard in a sprinkler.  I try not to entertain those thoughts because then I just can't function.  So I just try to sell my shirts and find the ones lost in the mail and prep for our facebook auction and feed, bathe, and clothe my family. 

Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

MIA

Sooooo we've been busy.  First this happened.

That's a box full of our fundraising adoption Tshirts.  Or, more specifically, the first of two boxes.  This is the box full of the adult shirts sized M and larger.  The other box?  Well...let's just say I know why the US Postal service is going out of business.  The box left Memphis the same time as this one but has yet to be located.  An investigation has been started.  So peeps who've ordered kids' shirts or
 are skinny?  Not to worry.  You'll get your shirt.  You'll just have to wait.  Consider this your opportunity to empathize with us in our adoption journey.  And for folks who haven't ordered yet?  There's still time.  And we plan to put in another order because we've already sold out of some sizes in some colors.  So if you want one that isn't listed, just shoot me an email and I'll mark you down for one in the reorder.

But they look great!

As you can see, the shirts are awesome.  They are super soft.  Like that shirt you "rented" from the gym in college and then you just eventually stole?   Yeah.  They're like that.  I've pretty much worn mine every day.  And they'll be perfect for sticky summer days in Richmond and perfect to take to Kinshasha.  Sorting them and shipping them out, as you can see, has been tedious with my "helpers".  But we still have some left and with each email I get telling me another one has sold, I am encouraged.  Encouraged that we are not alone in pining for our children.  Encouraged that some other folks are stepping into the gap to help us financially.  Which is a HUGE HUGE help.

And we also did this...

 This is Sloan making jokes about getting undressed infront of his wife and another woman.

 So he could do this.
 

So we could get these.  Our Yellow Fever Cards.  We also got our typhoid pills, malaria med prescriptions, and meds for Traveller's GI issues.

What's next for us?  Filling out loads of immigration paperwork, prepping for our Facebook Auction coming up the second week of April (yes, there's still time to donate gift cards, handmade items, and any other thing you have that you might think would bring us some cash), and celebrating reaching the end of our CONA wait period.  YAHOO!

(Oh, and we got a be stack of files from our agency with our kids' paperwork and THEY NOW HAVE THE LAST NAME PHILLIPS!)

Bowl full of grace

This blue bowl.

There’s nothing special about it.  But don’t tell my kids that. To them, it’s the all coveted LIGHT BLUE BOWL.  It is THE bowl from which to eat cereal, goldfish, ice cream.  In the morning, the first words out of each of my kids’ mouths is “I want the light blue bowl!  I’m gonna get the light blue bowl!”  They scurry and flutter to be the first child dressed and down in the kitchen, skidding to the cupboard in their socks, to snag the coveted light blue bowl.

The winning child usually gloats and cuddles the bowl until its filled with Cheerios.  The loser usually falls in a puddle crying, shouting about the injustice of it all.  When the bowl is dirty, it is suddenly my fault that none of the other 15 bowls in the cupboard will do.  It doesn’t help that my response is usually one of complete impatience.

I’m so over the light blue bowl.

My knee jerk reaction was to get a 2^nd blue bowl.  $2 and problem solved, right?  Sloan wants to throw the bowl away.  After all, if your eye causes you to sin, you’re to cut it out, right? However, both solutions are insufficient.

We could make sure they each had their own light blue bowl.  Or we could toss it.  But sooner or later they’d find something else to throw elbows over.  Perhaps suddenly the Spiderman bowl would be all the rage.

But the problem isn’t the bowl.  It’s them.  It’s us.  It’s me.  At some point, we've all got to learn to handle someone else having that thing which we most want or how to be gracious to those waiting patiently.  And perhaps we need to learn that the blessings we have right at our fingertips is all that we really need.

We want a thing so much that we’re willing to fight for it.  Never mind that our having that thing makes our brother cry.  After all, he should not have doddled while getting dressed.  No matter that we promised him yesterday he could have it.  

Or maybe it’s me that is crying about how you have the bowl and I don’t.  Sure, I could get another bowl that’s just as good or maybe even better, but that fact that you want it makes me NEED it.  And to get it I will whine and complain and perhaps even pull you out of your chair to get it.

Most times, I treat God’s favor and blessing like that light blue bowl.  If you have it, then I do not.  Maybe I’ll get it if I just try harder.  Maybe I can guilt you into sharing your blessings with me.  Maybe I’ll just blame God for blessing you and not me.

But y’all, hear me when I say this:

GOD’S GRACE IS NOT A PIE.

We do not get less blessing because someone else seems to have more.  Grace isn’t doled out first come first serve.  It’s not reserved for the most eloquent, spiritual, best dressed, or level headed.  It cannot, in fact, be earned.  Nor is it something to be Lorded over others or clung to, white knuckled, for fear that we might lose it.  Grace is ours to keep.  No take backs.

In God’s economy, grace multiplies when shared.  Even the tiniest amount of grace, when lifted up in thanksgiving and poured out for others, can feed multitudes.  With buckets of leftovers.  

Because GOD’S GRACE IS NOT A PIE.

It’s a person.  And from His fullness we have all received grace upon grace.

So what’s  your blue bowl?

Best Dad Ever

High-Low {that time Grace met a bear?}

We played high-low tonight at dinner. Here is how our days went...

Me--
High: Seeing Henry's face when he realized Daddy was in the car to come pick him up after school.
Low: When Gracie fell asleep on the couch and had a potty accident.

Daddy--
High: When Mommy let me sleep in a little bit.
Low: When Gracie woke me up by yelling "I had mini wheats!" in my face.

Henry--
High: When I beat a level and got a comet star. (in Super Mario Galaxy 2)
Low: Hmmmm....I didn't have a low. It was all highs.

Grace--
High: When I put on my jacket and beat up a bear.
Low: When the bear tried to hit me in the head.