Step into Africa

I spent January 23 - January 29, 2010 in a bit of a fog. The thought of adopting, or should I say SAVING, a baby (from Ethiopia) was all-consuming. I thought about it from the moment I woke up until the moment I went to sleep. Surprisingly, there were no adoption dreams, so sleep was my only break. Twice that week I was honked at by the car behind me at the stoplight - urging me to move forward because the light had turned green and I was still daydreaming. While preparing meals, doing my daughters' hair, doing laundry, washing dishes - it was all I could think of and pray about. My days were a constant prayer to God to reveal His plan and to get Daddy on the same page.

January 29, exactly one week from the Hope for Haiti Now telethon, we attended an event at the First Baptist Church of Elk Grove called World Vision Experience: AIDS. For more info, follow this link: http://worldvisionexperience.org. Our family followed the life of Babirye, a young girl who lost her father, and nearly her mother, to AIDS, and who also had the disease herself. It was an incredible exhibit and opened our eyes once again to the hurt, fear, abandonment, and hopelessness that is experienced by the children in Africa. We got to feel the weight of the water jug that the children were responsible for carrying miles each day to bring (filthy) water to their home. The girls got to lie on the beds that these children would sleep on each night, which was simply a blanket on the hard ground. We had a red + stamp put on our hands to indicate our HIV status, as if we were in the cold, unwelcoming clinic ourselves as Babirye.

When we concluded the tour we were approached by a World Vision volunteer and told of the various ways we could support a child who is affected by AIDS in Africa. Upon explaining to him that we already support a child monthly in Uganda and that we didn't have the funds (thank you, Schwarzenegger) at this time to take on another, he replied with: "You're doing enough already." Enough. Enough. Tears. Embarrassment. What is enough? Is us sending $40/month to a child who has lost his parents and is being raised by his grandmother enough? The answer for ME was clear. No. God is calling me to do more. I can feel it...physically.

When we came home that evening, I made a hasty retreat to our bedroom, fell to my knees, and sobbed. The ache in my chest was nearly unbearable. I was burning on the inside, cold on the outside, shaking, sick to my stomach, and my heart literally hurt. God was breaking my heart for the things that break his heart. All this turned into another conversation with D about my God-given desire to adopt a child from Africa. I shared with him what a very wise woman had shared with me earlier that week - He (D) doesn't need to feel the burning desire that I do, he just has to concede. Quite the realization.

D is an amazing man. He wants so badly to make me happy. He wants so badly to just say "yes" and go for it. But, one of the things that I love and appreciate (more now than I used to) about him the most is that he is cautious and contemplative in his decision making. He doesn't jump into things just for the heck of it. He has to know, without a doubt, that it's the right thing to do. Knowing this, I know that when he "concedes," it means that this is for sure the right thing for us to do. He's agreed to continue to pray about it and that the idea is still on the table. Praise God!