Bring Love In

 I’m so excited to introduce this amazing adoption family to my crazy blogger friends. I met them last year on my Ethiopia mission trip and visited their incredible orphanage! It’s an honor to share their story with you to celebrate Adoption Awareness Month! I pray their story inspires you and encourages you to live James 1:27 in a radical way.

Here is their story …. First off, I need to say thank you to Kari for all the incredible work she does here on this Crazy Adoption Blog.  As a fellow blogger, I can assure you– this kind of work takes a lot of effort, and she does an amazing job!  I am honored to have this special platform today.  Thank you!

Our adoption story is more of a cautionary tale than simply a beautiful story about how one family grew. As I sit here, thinking through our journey, there’s a word I keep scribbling on the page, circling over and over: “wrecked.”

I’m amazed when I look back and realize that almost everything we once knew about who we were is no longer true. I’m even more amazed when I see how this strange, beautiful, tragic, ever-twisting journey my family is on can be traced back to a simple conversation nearly 6 years ago.

“Are you sure you’re ready to do this?”  I cautiously asked Jessie, as we sat on the couch one evening after our two kids were tucked in bed.

“I mean– really, really sure?” I asked again, searching her eyes for clues, wishing I could climb inside her head and know for myself what she was thinking.

“Yes,” She assured me confidently.  “I’m really sure”

I smiled and grabbed her hand, squeezing tightly. We were excited and hopeful, yet so far from grasping the reality of what we’d just agreed to do, and completely unable to see how different things would be once we journeyed down this road.

The next day, we walked through a squeaky door in the back corner of a small Sacramento office suite in an aging, green building on Howe Avenue and made our way to the receptionist desk.

“Hello, we’re Levi and Jessie Benkert. We called earlier about adoption,” I said, my voice  shaking as the words escaped my mouth.

“Great! Have a seat over there, and someone will be with you shortly,” the receptionist said in a cheery voice as she motioned us toward a frumpy, brown couch behind a small coffee table piled with heavily worn children’s books.

After we made our way across the room, I looked around at the faint crayon markings on the walls, the frayed carpet, while my fingers moved across a hole in the arm of the couch. Jessie smiled. There was something about this place, something about the way things resonated inside us: The rips and scratches spoke volumes. Each blemish was a sign of good work, of those who’d helped and offered hope.

“That is how I want to be!” I said to Jessie enthusiastically as we sat that evening on our own perfect and unblemished couch, talking late into the night about all we’d learned that day.  “I want our family to be a used-up tool for Him on this earth.”

“I’m so ready for more!”  Jessie said, nearly jumping from her seat with excitement.

The truth was, our house looked nothing like that office. Our lives were not at all worn-out examples of God’s love. In contrast, we were very comfortable. We had a beautiful house, two nice cars and a business that was making good money. Our lawn was cut, our neighborhood was safe, everything about our life was near-perfect.

Sure, we did the occasional good deed, gave to our church and served when and where we could.  But, now, we were feeling a prompting, a new horizon opening up, and we were both ready to move forward.  Although we understood little about what it was we were going to do, or where exactly we were headed, we began to ask God to change us, to use us.

It’s been nearly six years since that day. We no longer own a house. We make horrible money. We live in Ethiopia in a home on a street strewn with trash. Our savings is gone. Our lives are wrecked.

And we love it!

With each step into the world of orphans, into a world of terrible needs, we learned the joy of giving. We found a better life once we gave ours away.  At first we struggled to open our eyes, nearly blinded by the overwhelming needs. Then, we quickly closed them tight again, frustrated by our inability to change more than the lives of a few. However, over time, we’ve learned our responsibility is simple: to give to those God places in front of us and to constantly seek Him for what to do next.

In a way, it’s like entering a series of rooms, each filled with needs. At first, we feel overwhelmed, but we find, in the end, God always provides.  He takes us places for a reason. He shows us what to do. He bring us people to help.

I now firmly believe our calling as Christians is to show His love to those around us.   God is truly love!  And we are the way He shows His love to the world.

For our family, adoption was just the first step. It was the first room He wanted us to enter with eyes wide open. From there, He’s never stopped revealing needs and giving us the provision to meet those needs—one at a time.

Today, our family heads a project in Ethiopia called Bring Love In. In Addis Ababa, we’re building a program to take children from government orphanages, coupling them with widows. Together, they will become a new family, while we offer provision.

We are just a few weeks from getting final government approval for our project, and then we can open our doors to accept children into the homes– children who have been forgotten, abandoned and left alone in this world because their families, for one reason or another, could not take care of them.

All of this feels like a million miles from the life we once lived–as far as possible from who we were on this earth. Yet, we can, now, see this is what we were created for, this kind of wrecked life is what He always intended.

We may have little, but we’ve learned to love much!  We still fail. We still hurt, and at times we get frustrated with how little we’re able to accomplish, but we’re learning to trust Him with everything.  We’re beginning to grasp our calling: to help the poor and needy find light in the darkness. His light.

We didn’t plan to go down this path. But the journey of adoption has opened our eyes to the responsibility we have as Christians to constantly ask him for more responsibility, to daily ask him to reveal the needs that He put us here to meet, and in turn we found our lives ruined for the cause. And we’re grateful.

Will you join us?

You can read more about our journey as broken people trying to share the love of a perfect God in Ethiopia, failures, frustrations, and the occasional victory at www.bringlove.in

Levi Benkert