January 27, 2011: We have had Joy now for one month, and it has been sweet. Every moment of it. I have experienced the Lord moving mountains. I think of the years of waiting and believing God for miracles, and then I look into Joy’s deep brown eyes and I am reminded of God’s ways being much higher than my ways, His timing perfect, and His ways mysterious. And all that the Lord does in the waiting that can only happen as we groan and cry out to Him in prayer. Thankful is an understatement for how we all feel currently. Surreal, humbled, curious about what’s ahead, believing God for more miracles in this process. Humbled by all the prayers of the saints that have walked this road with us as we waited on God for our daughter/baby sister. Thank you for believing with us.
After a few vague emails, on our 17th wedding anniversary we got a phone call asking us if we were willing to adopt sisters. We knew about the baby, but not about the older sister. So we pressed into praying and enjoying our weekend away, dreaming about what God had for our future. After 12 days of agonizing prayer and questions and waiting and wondering and seeking godly counsel, we headed to Pattaya by way of Bangkok. You are probably not familiar with Pattaya, but you may have heard the song, “You’re the God of this City,” written by an Irish band and made popular by Chris Tomlin and Passion. This song was written while the band was worshipping in a bar in Pattaya. In Thailand, this city is known for its night life, drugs, the Russian mafia, and all manner of other things that accompany this type of darkness. While at the same time, there are beautiful elements of Pattaya in all that Redeemer God is doing in that city. Needless to say, we went with mixed emotions not knowing what our time there would mean for our family.
We had come to a place of peace in seeking out how God would unfold the details. The situation was unclear in that the baby was in the care of a Canadian family working with a ministry in the city that ministers to children in the slums. The birth mother desired to have the baby placed in an adoptive home, but the birth mother was incarcerated shortly after abandoning the baby at the hospital because she was in possession of drugs. Supposedly, birth mom didn’t even know that she was pregnant until a few weeks before the baby was born. Doesn’t this sound like a divine set-up for the Lord to come and work? The two year old sister was being passed around the slums living with various friends of the birth mother.
I’d love to tell you the story in person someday with all the God-sized details, but in the meantime, over a 24 hour trip to Pattaya we met with the birth mother, social worker, and others involved with the children and received Joy into our family. Others involved in the case made it clear that the older sister was not able to be adopted. At the meeting at the prison, we had twenty minutes with the birth mother and social worker. There are few times in my life that I have felt such a tangible presence of the Lord as I felt Him physically transform beauty from ashes. The intensity of such brokenness and tender power of the Living God still leaves me speechless and teary. The favor of the Lord with the social worker. . . bringing Joy home to meet her new siblings—Ben’s reserved heart melting with love for Joy, Kate’s uncontainable excitement, and Jak’s tenderness with his new baby sister. Yes, you read that correctly; Jak is taking this protective role of big brother with great maturity and tons of kisses. Isn’t it beautiful the way the Lord creates a family? We also had Brent’s parents here visiting for the holidays, and Joy Janelle was able to meet her Nana, Genelle, whom she is named for, just hours after we were a new family. Isn’t that fun timing of the Lord?
Joy has stolen our hearts. Her smile, coos, giggles. She is now sleeping through the night, and honestly I miss those midnight feedings. I think it is the kindness of the Lord we feel of getting to experience things that we thought we would never get to do again, and there is a sweetness with the Lord that is indescribable. So we are praising God for the diapers, bottles, and learning again how to be parents of an infant as we also beg the Lord to make us wise parents of our growing teenager, preteen and precious kindergartner. We are laughing a lot these days.
So now as we wait for the adoption process to be completed in all the significant meetings and details that will involve, our prayer is that God will part the waters and continue to rescue and deliver, make a way, and fill us with strength and courage. I love the stories of the parting of the Red Sea and the parting of the Jordan River and the extremes that the Lord goes to in order to rescue us from slavery and send us into the land He has for us. Please continue to pray for this adoption process to be completed in Thailand and then in the states, for favor with all government officials, and for our family as we transition.
