Our Adoption Journey Round 2- International.

It was on November 15th, 2009 that we took our very first tangible step in the long process of adoption. I say tangible step because leading up to that Monday over three years ago we had taken many other steps just to get us to that point. We had slowly and progressively been taking a years worth of steps just to lead us to that first meeting with Nebraska Children's Home Society.

Over three years ago we started the process of a domestic open adoption to bring home a son.

And it was with heavy hearts that we decided to walk away from a child that would have been ours had we stayed in Nebraska and not moved to Africa.

We knew, that in following God to Burkina, we would be sacrificing the child we had waited so long to receive. All those years of waiting. All the paper work. The time. The interviews. The meetings. The dreaming. The classes. The thinking that every time the phone rang it could be our case worker with news of a child. We had invested so much emotionally. And had we stayed in Nebraska....had we kept waiting, eventually, a woman would have chosen us. I am certain. Our long awaited son and brother for our girls would have graced our family.

But we left.

We left everything behind, we dropped our nets, to follow the Lord to Africa....including the son we waited so long to have.

But the dream remained. The longing remained.

After everything we went through in Nebraska, the idea of starting over again seemed daunting. Especially since Isaak didn't even want to adopt internationally.....at first.

The whole reason why we began pursuing domestic adoption in the states was because Isaak was not interested in pursing it internationally.

Funny though....before moving to Burkina ever entered our radar and we were living in Nebraska engaged in our domestic adoption, Isaak started making comments every now and then....about adopting again. Randomly he would just say, "next time we adopt, maybe we can look into this county, or that country." Or "Such and such might be an option next time."

My ears would perk up but I wouldn't say anything. I just stored up all those little comments in my heart. Quietly taking note that despite Isaak's initial lack of interest for international adoption....the Lord was beginning to slowly soften his heart to the idea.

And then, when we began the discussions of moving to Africa, all of a sudden it wasn't just a "maybe" but a, "when we move to Burkina we will adopt a child from Africa." He was certain.

So, with both of us being certain, with both of our hearts still settled on the plan to adopt, with the desire still intact and the will to press forward...we committed our hearts to bring a child home during our time here.

If we thought that adopting domestically was challenging....doing an international adoption, turns out, was going to be even more complicated.

And it was shortly after leaving Nebraska and while in DC that we came to our first challenge.....

Challenge #1-Burkina's off limits.

Right before we moved to Burkina Isaak started inquiring about the requirements for adopting internationally while doing the job that he's doing. Isaak has a very different job from what he did in the Air Force, and we soon discovered that they had a number of restrictions for adopting internationally. The first thing we were told is that we could not adopt from our host country.

That was disheartening to hear. Obviously adopting from Burkina was our first choice, seen as how we would be living there, but if the US government wouldn't allow it then there was nothing we could do.

And then, that whatever country we decided to adopt from (so long as it wasn't Burkina) we could never work in after that. Then they told us that the adoption could not be finalized no earlier than six months prior to the end of our assignment. And both parents had to be proven to be deceased.......Eyeyeyeyeyeye. Freakin'. aye.

We had so much going on just to get to Burkina, we couldn't really process that and since we had no idea what the adoption process would look like, all we could do was just surrender all that new little information to the Lord, throw up our hands and say,  

"okay God, it's all you...lead us! Africa's a big ole continent and our son is out there somewhere and we're gonna need you to direct us where to look to bring him home if it can't be from Burkina."

So, we then arrived in Burkina. And it was now...

Challenge #2- To extend or not?

With our domestic adoption stretching on for three years, there was no telling how long it would take to bring home a child internationally. And with our assignment in Burkina only being two years...we were nervous that that might not be enough time to start and finish all we needed to adopt. Having walked the path of starting an adoption and leaving before we saw the finish....we did not want that to happen again. We did not want to get stuck in the middle of the adoption process only to have our assignment finish and not have a child. And the only way to help ensure that didn't happen was to extend for another year.

But, if we extended for a year we would then be leaving Burkina in the summer of 2015. Isaak would have been in the Air Force for longer than 14 years at that point...officially disqualifying him from ever applying to the Air Force's PA program. His pursuit of becoming a PA and working in medicine would halt. And Isaak has been working towards this goal of his for as long as we have been in the adoption process....which is years. He went back to school while in Nebraska, taking night classes to meet all the prerequisites needed in order to apply to the program. He would leave for work at 6:30am and not get home until 10pm, and then still had homework to do on the weekends. He never complained. He worked hard. He got amazing grades. But then every time he prepared his package to apply the board would release a statement notifying everyone of recent changes to the program...and Isaak would have to delay his application to the following year in order to meet the new requirements. He took off a semester while we lived in DC to concentrate on his training and shortly after arriving in Burkina he started back up his studies again, doing his courses online.  (He is actually at the table right now working on his accounting class).

So there we were, stuck between the choice of two dreams.

Extend for a year to better our chances of bringing home a child?

Or,

Stay for only two years, take our chances, still leaving room for Isaak to become a P.A when we leave?

The dream of adopting vs. the dream to be a P.A.

What would it be?

For Isaak, there was never a choice. There was never a debate. He was not stuck. He didn't hesitate. He didn't even have to think about it. It was a very easy decision for him. I mean, it was really no decision at all. He was so willing to lay his dream of becoming a P.A., something that he, I feel, was made to do....at the foot of the cross. He sacrificed his dream in favor of another. He was sure....it was only me that wasn't. I did not want to see Isaak lose out on the opportunity to follow his dream of working in medicine. Something that he has been working towards for so long. It seemed like such a huge sacrifice. He is made to work in that field. I believe that with all my heart. But, but but but....he was sure. And so we extended for another year.

Jesus never said that following after Him would be easy. It comes at a great cost...of this we know well. But, it has also blessed us in more ways than we ever could have imagined. Despite the sacrifices...He is worth it. Always worth it. Which is why we follow Him.

After that came...

Challenge #3- Finding an agency.

Did you know that there are over 3,000 adoption agencies in the U.S.? Holy. freakin'. cow. 

With all the adoption agencies to choose from....how would we ever sift through them all and decide on who to work with?

I really didn't know where to start looking....so when I don't know where to start....I start at Google.

In my vain attempts I started doing some research on the web and looking up different agencies to see what countries in Africa they worked with, knowing that if we couldn't adopt from Burkina we wanted to adopt from close by or neighboring country. But, my research wasn't getting me anywhere. It seemed like the only agencies I found worked with Uganda and Ethiopia. Every now and then I'd come across an agency that worked with Ghana or Liberia but there was never any peace about even sending an inquiry to those agencies.

And some were just straight up shady.
 
So, I started asking around from friends in the states who have more experience in this area than I do. But again, most of the agencies didn't even work with countries in N. West Africa. And the ones we found that did....well, you had to be Muslim in order to adopt from them.

Yeah, well that's not gonna happen, thanks anyway.

Dang. Does it really need to be this hard? I mean really. We couldn't even start because we couldn't even find an agency!  Why can't there be one adoption database with all the 3000 adoption agencies listed and the countries they work with, that way when newbies come along they have one place to go and look. I don't think that's an unreasonable request! Makes a lot of sense actually. That way you don't spend weeks upon weeks wasting your time only to come up empty handed!

The process was not starting out on a really encouraging note. In fact, I was starting to get really discouraged at this point and we hadn't even started yet. Not a good sign.

And then all of a sudden seven weeks after arriving in Burkina we received some news.

As in very God fashion....He sent a ray of hope, He stretched down His hand from Heaven and planted our feet on the path that would set us on the course for our journey.

On Monday October 1st Isaak received word that we could in fact adopt from Burkina Faso after all.

Wha what??!? I'm sorry, come again?!?! Ah! Sometimes, there is no point in asking how...you just need to stop and worship the Lord for only something He could do!

I mean, all we knew is that before the US government said we couldn't. And now we could. So whatever happened in the in between of that reversal we are giving all the credit to the Lord!

God's plan will. not. be thwarted by man.

After praying months ago for the Lord to clearly direct our paths to the exact country where the specific child God has set aside to be apart of our family would be waiting. After weeks and weeks of searching for a different country and an agency and coming up empty. To then all of a sudden receive word that we could adopt from Burkina when we couldn't before!

Jesus Jesus Jesus!!!!

I tell ya, as soon as I got off the phone with Isaak he emailed the headquarters of the orphanage that some dear friends of ours work at here. I then emailed a missionary friend I very recently met here who had adopted a Burkinabé child a number of years ago, to get with her and find out anything she could tell me about adopting from this country.

I had new life in my weary bones!

Another couple of weeks went by, and as God would have it again....on the same Saturday I would have a coffee date at the house with my friend Heidi who adopted from Burkina to hear her story and pick her brain, later in the evening Ruth Cox came by the house, the founder of Sheltering Wings Orphanage in Yako, to discuss with us the prospect of adopting from here as well.

After months of trying to get started and wanting to figure this all out....it seemed like we were finally getting somewhere.

In the morning Heidi shared with me her story and I left feeling encouraged that this could be done.

In the afternoon with Ruth I learned that Burkina Faso very recently joined the Hague Convention and there was only one adoption agency in the entire U.S. that was authorized to do adoptions out of Burkina Faso. And the country had very specific guidelines for prospective adoptive parents...and it appeared that once again, before we could ever even get started...we were already disqualified. 

Challenge #4- Disqualified.

Ruth told me that Burkina Faso does not permit parents who have two biological children permission to adopt a child from their country.

I heard that, and it took everything I had not to start crying in front of her.

No Lord. No. NO!! This was it. This. was. it!! And now we can't again?! What kind of twisted game is being played with our hearts?!?!?

Ruth told me that she was actually in town for an adoption conference this week and while she was there she would mention us to the Director of Placements for all Burkina adoptions and see what she says, just in case. She was very straightforward though, and told me the likelihood of her allowing us to adopt was not good. She told me she would be in touch in a few days and then we parted ways.

I could feel myself starting to crumble. The weight of discouragement was weighing heavy on me.

There were no words. Not really. Just a crying and a groaning to the Lord from deep within for all the hurt and pain and discouragement. For wanting what always seemed to be just out of reach.

The days that went by while we waited for Ruth to call seemed to drag. But in the dragging, somewhere in the midst of the discouragement...I came to peace with the Lord. It was not easy...but I finally surrendered to His will. Whatever His will would be.

I prayed that if for whatever reason we were not meant to adopt from Burkina that He would obviously shut the door. That if this was not His plan, the Director of Placements would deny us the opportunity to adopt.

Then one afternoon around 5pm my cell phone rang, and it was Ruth. She told me that she talked to the director of placements like she said she would, and that the lady said she would, "100% deny placing a child in our home."

This was one of those moments where time ceased to move. It was like I was hearing her in slow motion. The words coming in slow and precise. After she said that, time just kind of paused, like I was suspended in that moment....she stopped talking for a second, and I said to myself, "okay, I guess that's God closing the door." I said to Ruth that I understood and had been praying for the Lord to close a door if this was not His plan for us, and even though it hurt to hear, we were glad for obvious closure.

And then Ruth said to me in response, "She said she would deny placing a child in your home in the context that it was healthy. There is still a possibility if you're open to a special needs adoption. If that is something you and Isaak would be interested in I could ask her specifically about that. In my experience the Burkinabé government has allowed for couples already having kids to adopt special needs children. "

She went on to tell me about the profiles of a number of children in the country who are currently up for adoption and the needs that they have. She told me to discuss it with Isaak and if we were interested she would place more more call to find out one more time if they would allow us to adopt a S.N. child.

As she talked I was frantically writing down everything that she said. When we got off the phone I just stood there. Frozen. You know when you can feel when someone is looking at you. In a crowded room or alone in your house, you can just feel eyes focused on you. I felt that in this moment. Even though I was totally alone in the kitchen...I could feel God's eyes on me. And I could feel the smirk on His face.

He said, "What? You told me to close a door, so I did. But then I opened up another one right next to it."

When Isaak returned from work a little bit later I unloaded on him everything Ruth told me.

And may I say, thank God for Isaak. His calm balances out the basket case that is me. For real, my poor nerves. In a matter of mere seconds I went from thinking our adoption journey had ended to it being open again. My emotions were just all over the place. The first thing Isaak said after I told him the new news was, "We were willing to adopt a special needs child in Nebraska and almost did. Why would here be any different? Nothings changed in our hearts. If we were open to it then, we're open to it now."  He was right. Our hearts hadn't changed.

I waited a couple days to call Ruth back. I spent some time praying, just to be sure that this was what we were suppose to do. But the peace that I had when I first heard the news never faltered. It never left. Despite my ravaged emotions, there was peace. It just made sense, deep down inside, like this is exactly what we were suppose to be doing. This was the path we were suppose to be on.

So a couple days later I called back Ruth and told her we were open to adopting a special needs child and to please contact the government again and make sure they would allow us to move forward before we signed on with the agency.

A few days later we heard back from Ruth again. And we were a go. The door was open wide. Now all we needed to do was submit our application to officially start the adoption progress. Ruth came by not long after and gave us a dozen profiles to look over of special needs children currently ready for adoption. We started reviewing the profiles. Looking at faces. Talking. Dreaming.

We were into November at this point. 

At then when we were given the go ahead Isaak printed off the agencies application paperwork from work and brought it home. And then, again, right when we were on the cuff of starting, all of a sudden, everything stopped.

Challenge #5- Frozen solid.

We were both on the same page. And then suddenly, we weren't. Satan dug in his claws and planted doubt and uncertainty where peace once was. And all progress, overnight, came to a stand still.

It was during this time that the Lord gave me a word. He said, "If Satan can kill the dream before it ever starts...he's going to. Because it's a whole lot easier for Satan to do damage control on a dream that has yet to begin, than on one that got started and God got His hands into."

And it's true. If he can stop the dream from ever happening, by golly he's going to try. Because the last thing that Satan wants is to see God take our dream and expand it to God size proportions. So he sets out to stop us before we ever get started. Satan is cruel and will exploit our fears and hangups to keep us from following after God.
Here we were, on the verge, the cusp, of officially beginning the process to bring home a child...the dream on the brink of becoming reality once again...paperwork in hand....and we can't move.

For two months we went back and forth on one major issue in particular.

Isaak had some major hang ups with the idea that we were paying for a child. That someone was getting rich and profiting on the selling of that child. With the horror of human trafficking ever escalating and the exposure finally reaching a greater audience...Isaak couldn't help but feel like a participant in what he considered a form of human trafficking. He couldn't reconcile his conscience with that. He knew that God had called our family to adopt, he knew that, but all of a sudden he couldn't get past this hang up in his heart. He couldn't see that we were rescuing a child from a life of living in an orphanage with no hope for a family or a future. He couldn't see that the money we were spending would be saving him, as opposed to exploiting him. I could see where he was coming from. Adoption, in many places all over the world has become a very lucrative business, with governments pawning off children to the highest bidders. 

It really stinks that we live in such a broken world where children are exploited to fatten an already rich man's wallet.
Sometimes it really stinks that there are no easy answers.
But, we shouldn't always be quick to surrender to easy answers.
Sometimes we have to wrestle.
It was in Jacob's wrestling that He met God face to face.

And for two months we wrestled, with each other, with God. It was not an easy time. Or a pretty time. It was full of pain and frustration and mounting discouragement.

For two months, we were frozen solid. Unable to move forward. God won't move a couple in opposite directions. And until we could both come to a place of agreement or compromise, there would be no progress.

So we wrestled. And I cried. And I yelled at God. In anger. In disappointment. In exhaustion. In relentless determination. In the refusal to be defeated even though I felt defeated.

I am not ashamed to admit that we struggle. I'm not ashamed to admit that I yell at God either. There have been more times in my life than I could ever count where I have been on my knees banging my fists on the ground, yelling at God inside, crying and screaming out to Him.

God is the closest relationship I will ever have.

And I know that He can handle any and every emotion I have.

Because if I can't be real with Him...who can I be?

Scripture tells us to.....

"Cast your cares on the Lord and he will sustain you, he will never let the righteous be shaken." Psalm 55:22

"Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you." 1 Peter 5:7
  
Well, cares and anxiety and burdens don't come all wrapped up in a neat and tidy package with a pretty bow on top. They are messy. And ugly. They leave us cracked and broken. Splintered and bleeding. And if He is inviting me to cast my cares onto Him and lay my burdens at the foot of the cross....then I am going to. But that's not always going to be done with a smile. Or laid down softly with a little pat on top. I have been known to throw my burdens at the cross. And then collapse on the ground in the shadow of the beams stretched wide pounding my fists into the dirt.

For a long time I was very polite in my approach to God. I said what I thought I was suppose to say. We had a very cordial relationship. Like meeting an acquaintance at a business luncheon. You shake hands. Smile nicely. Nod your head in polite conversation. Laugh a fake laugh at little jokes. 

And then God was like, "Who are you kidding here? I don't want to be just an acquaintance. I don't want to be the stranger you are polite to in passing. I don't want to be like any human relationship you have. I am God. I am more. I am more, have more, can take more, will give you more...than anyone in your life. Don't hold yourself back from me! Come to me, just as you are, and I will show you just who I am!" 

It was over twelve years ago that I learned there is no sense holding back from God. He sees my heart. He hears my thoughts. He knows my pain.

And He showed me a long time ago that He can handle it.

He is the only one who can. 

And so I let Him handle it. 

Everyday...after the tears found a home in His hands....I would let Him handle it.

And then on Saturday January 19th we took a drive out to Yako to spend the morning at the orphanage and visit friends. And it was there that a child was placed in my lap. A child who was suppose to be napping, lay awake in the toddler room, crying. One of the tauntes brought the child outside to the baby enclosure where I sat and placed the precious one in my arms. We spent the rest of my time there together.

I went home that day with that child heavy on my heart. And we just so happen to have the profile in our home for this particular child. But I didn't say anything to Isaak. We were still at am impasse on moving forward. So I just quietly talked to God about things. He was my sounding board of thoughts, for "maybe's" and "what ifs", for "possibilities" and "one days."

And then, on Wednesday January 23rd....four days after our visit to Yako, Isaak came home from work and told me that he filed our adoption application and on the form he mentioned that we were interested in that child. Without ever having discussed the possibility of adopting this particular child together...God swooped in and brought our hearts to the same conclusion.

"And the two shall become one." His Spirit ensures that.

Never underestimate the power of Jesus. Never underestimate His ability to move and work on our behalf. Never underestimate His ability to heal and mend. To bring unity. To cast out doubts. To drive out uncertainty. To bring peace and assurance. He is bigger than any burden. He will overcome every challenge!

We tackled our paperwork after that without delay. A few weeks ago we made another trip up to Yako and were told that the home study is near completion for the child we hope to bring home and it won't be much longer until that precious one is officially cleared for adoption.

And in four days our case worker from Washington state will be flying out to Ouagadougou to stay at our home over Easter to conduct our home study.

This hasn't been an easy journey. But He's faithfully walked with us through it all. In the midst of every trial and unexpected twist, He has been ever present. And we are confident that regardless of how the rest of this story plays out...He will walk with us to it's completion...and beyond.

They say much in Burkina Faso...Dieu est grand.

God is great.

That is a truth I will gladly testify to for as long as I live.

Dieu est grand.

Indeed He is.