Guest: Adoption Ruined My Life

Adoption ruined my “life”…it might ruin yours too. So, rewind 4 years.  My wife Christy and I were living a good life in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.  We were pastoring a church that we had planted 5 years prior and things were very good.  We loved where we were living, enjoyed what we were doing and were very content.   We had 3 biological children, all of whom were adorable kids, 2 cats and a Golden Retriever living in a century old farmhouse surrounded by farms, countryside and could watch incredible sunsets out our kitchen window.   Things were very good.

Christy and I had talked about international adoption from time to time through the years, however I kept dragging my feet.  I wanted it to be the right timing for us to start the process.   Then on the night before Thanksgiving 2006, I broke the news to Christy – “I think it is time for us to start the adoption process.”   That night we stayed up half the night researching countries and agencies and trying to figure out where to start.   It took us awhile to find the right country for us and the right agency, but by May 2007 we had submitted out application and our full dossier that September and the wait began.  Like most adoptive parents we were so excited.  What an intense time full of ups and downs as we waited for that referral call!

While we were waiting, we sensed God starting to stir within us a transition coming.   We stared to feel like our time in Lancaster was coming to a close and that within the next couple of years we would be moving from the area to do something different.  Our plan was to move to Philadelphia and plant another church…but as many times can be the case, it seemed that God had other plans.

In May 2008 we got the call with a referral for beautiful little 5 month old Hanna Tessema from Southern Ethiopia.   We were stunned and so full of anticipation at how God was bringing this little girl into our family.  Our kids were stoked.  Our friends and family were supportive.  We could hardly wait until September 2008 when we traveled to Addis Ababa to welcome Hanna into our family.   Our trip to Ethiopia was amazing.  Our agency was incredible and their on the ground staff was top notch.  We took some extra time to travel while we were in Ethiopia and were amazed by the beauty of the country, the people, the culture, the history and the heritage.  We left having welcomed Hanna into our family and with a warmth in our hearts for Ethiopia.   Adoption had powerfully impacted our family forever.  And, now our plan was to go back to the US, settle into life and take on whatever God had in store for the next leg of the journey of faith.

There was a problem with that plan, however.  We couldn’t get Ethiopia out of our hearts and heads.  I walked around dazed and confused for weeks – in an Ethiopian fog which I just could not shake.  We had spent time working with the poor in Jamaica and in Bolivia before, and the return culture shock always had to be worked through, however this was different.  Could it be that this was the next thing that God had in store for us?   Could it be that this was a tool He was using to draw us to move to Ethiopia?  Christy was “in” long before I was.   I dug my heels in and felt that our best scenario was to just stay in the US, plant another church and take occasional trips to Ethiopia to serve.  However, God was not done with me and He used some pretty intense ways of speaking over the coming months about Ethiopia and His intentions for us there.

By March of 2009 Christy and I were on a plane to Addis Ababa to take a scouting mission to see what God might put in our hearts.  By the end of that week God had seared Ethiopia in our hearts and we knew that we would start attempting a process of moving our family to Ethiopia.  God had not only seared Ethiopia in our hearts, but specifically the poorest of the poor.  We felt like God had given us a way forward.  In September of 2009 we said goodbye to all of our dear friends in Lancaster, gave away or sold most of our belongings and moved in with Christy’s parents to wait to raise the rest of our funding.  On November 5 we flew out of Dulles and were enroute to our new life in Ethiopia.

Here I sit one year later and am stunned at what God has done over this past year.  There has been plenty of joy and plenty of pain to go around.   We have had major ups and major downs along the way.   We’ve lost friends and gained new ones.   We’ve had false starts and waited too long on other things.   Our kids have thrived and are in the middle of their element here.   I am in the middle of doing some of the most difficult things I have ever tried in my life.   I am in the middle of a process of learning a very difficult language, learning culture, writing proposals to a foreign government, helping to see an NGO form here while also overseeing the formation of a 501c3 in the States.  I am not an administrative guy, yet God’s grace is apparent.

When I say that Adoption ruined my life, I really mean it. My predictable, experienced, middle class, suburban experience is long gone.   I now find most days that I am over my head and even the simplest of tasks can take days to accomplish.  Even one year in, everything is still new and every day is full of ups and downs and the unpredictable.

However, the life that I now have is off the charts.  I never quite imagined that life could be so full.  Everyday is an adventure which God takes us on – teaching us how to trust, how to risk, how to stretch so far that without His intervention we will fall flat on our faces.  It is a place that we wouldn’t change for the world.   We now live in Korah, and view the trash dump from our windows.  We are surrounded by the poorest of the poor and are in the midst of developing holistic ministry to the most vulnerable of families – to care for children in a Day Care setting whose parents currently take them to the dump for the day or take them to work in dangerous situations…to see them get food, healthcare, clothing, hygiene, and care during the day while also helping their families to become more sustainable and healthy themselves.   We also have plans for an afterschool program and an Orphan House down the road.   I feel under-qualified in most areas, yet this is what God has put in our hearts…and He is stretching us every step of the way.

Along the way God brought a scripture to mind that guides us – “God sets the lonely in families.”  We want to do whatever we can to both see children able to stay within their families and be cared for there as well as for both the orphan and the widow to be welcomed into family.   While we have those times where we feel underqualified and overwhelmed in the process, we also feel God’s Presence with us.  These are His people, the people whom He has chosen to be closest to…and we sense His leading, His guiding and His provision of whatever grace is needed for this moment in time.

I thank God for adoption and how He used in our lives to do something much deeper for our family.  I thank God that He used adoption to not only expand our family, but also to expand our world and our faith.   I thank God that He cared enough about us to “ruin” our lives for Him, for the poor, for the fatherless and the vulnerable.  He used adoption as a call to partnership with Him which has taken us on a journey in which we will never be the same.  Proceed with caution… Adoption may ruin your life. too.  Actually, I pray that it does.

Jerry Shannon.  wife: Christy Shannon
kids: Joshua (11), Micah (8), Caia (5) and Hanna (almost 3)
organization: Embracing Hope Ethiopia
website: www.embracinghopeethiopia.com
email: shannonjerry@gmail.com facebook: jerry shannon  twitter: jerryshannon  phone: +251 912 928251
address: po box 145217, addis ababa, ethiopia