Guest: Guided Steps

Imagine with me for a moment…you have traveled a long way, you have had a long journey, little sleep and no one understands. You have been on this journey for what feels like an eternity.  You are tired and weary and emotionally exhausted but you know that you are following God’s sovereign plan for you.  No question about it.  You finally reach your destination drag yourself and your wife up to the door of a place to stay and all you hear is…”No room.”

Now I am sure you are already picturing the true story that I have just put you in.  You are Joseph in the story of Jesus’ birth.  You have gone down a path that very few understand, you are and your wife Mary are certain you could not be more in God’s will if you tried.

Now imagine again with me….you are weary and excited.  You have collected papers from everywhere, been to a notary so many times that they know you by name, you send a Christmas card to the UPS store because they are like family, you own a fire proof, water proof safe, you ask for postage as a Christmas present, your facebook page is riddled with fundraisers of yours and every other blogger friend you have, and at times you appear to be a square peg in round world.  You know what the word Dossier means and how many pieces of paper are needed to complete it.  For some, your life has been counted by monthly numbers, for others it has been counted in how many days are left in your giveaway.

Now I am sure that for those that have or are in the process of adopting are picturing their adoption journeys. You are probably thinking of your “Meetcha Day” or “Gotcha Day” or dreaming of the one to come.  I know that I am anxiously awaiting that day! So what does an adoption journey have to do with Joseph?
Jesus was a child born of Joseph’s heart.  Joseph was blessed to become a Father to the Fatherless.  Jesus becoming fully human was adopted by his earthly father, Joseph.

Our adoption journey is not quite the same as Joseph’s story.  However, God has directed our steps in this process as well.  My husband and I had the typical “how did you meet” story.  We got set up on a blind date, discussed adoption on that first date, and got engaged one day less than a month.  Typical, right?
Adoption has been on our hearts and our minds since our first date back in 2003.  We started the process of adoption in 2005 and found out that we were expecting our first son shortly after completing the home study.  So we put adoption on the shelf and were blessed by one more addition to our family; a daughter.  Shortly after the birth of my daughter my heart was overcome with an aching to hold the little one we started out for so long ago.  We started researching adoption and decided on Ethiopia.

Before we knew it, our baby girl was a year old and we started the paperwork to adopt.  As we getting ready to send it off we decided to look around just one more time because Ethiopia had just put into effect the two trip rule.  We were unsure of how this would work for our family.  As we did we ran across a new program for Uganda.  We decided to head that direction instead…only to have the door slam shut.  Still moving along we then decided to pursue adoption through the DRC (Congo).  We searched for the perfect agency and found it.  I talked with the director several times and loved her heart for the children.  We filled out the application and were ready to send it off when we learned that they were putting their program on hold because they were concerned about some problems.  Door number two slammed shut.  This was a little disheartening, but we dusted our shoes off and went in search of our child again.  We finally settled on Rwanda.  It is a beautiful country with beautiful people.  We were accepted, but not without having the intake coordinator try to persuade us to go with Ethiopia instead.  We were resolved however, and pursued Rwanda.  We were almost done with our Dossier when we learned that Rwanda was closing for an unknown period of time and we would not make the cutoff date.

This time around my heart was overcome with grief.  This journey had seemed so long already and we now were without a plan.  We had learned about so many countries already and fallen in love with so many beautiful cultures, and we were feeling lost.  After much prayer and some tears we decided to transfer over to Ethiopia.
When we transferred we decided to look at the waiting children list because we had been waiting all this time and we decided we really didn’t want to wait on a list.  We didn’t want to wait on a list when there was a list with children waiting for us.
Then we got a call from an agency saying that they had a sibling group that needed a family….would we be interested in looking at them.  “YES!”
We had already said yes in our hearts before the little loading symbol stopped circling.  Once we saw their faces, we became a family.
We thought we knew where our child was, we searched all over Africa; but God knew our children were waiting in Ethiopia all this time.  He directed our steps to create our family.  We do not have the same story as Joseph, but just as Joseph adopted Jesus before he ever saw His face we too adopted our kids in our hearts before we ever saw their faces.
God has presented us some wonderful examples in His word of how to carry out James 1:27.  For us adoption is not just following God’s plan but also filling the holes in our hearts.
“In his obedience, Joseph demonstrated what his other son would later call “pure and undefiled” religion, the kind that cares for the fatherless and the abandoned (James 1:27)”.

-Russell Moore….http://www.russellmoore.com/2006/07/27/why-evangelicals-support-israel/

No wonder Jesus had such a heart for the Fatherless

Susan Allee
Allee-fam.blogspot.com