Adoption

After a long and tedious process of piles and piles of paperwork and appointments, the much-anticipated day finally arrived. Latif's new parents landed in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, and began to make their way to Yako to meet their new son. The last several weeks had not been without complications, and it was nothing short of a miracle that the adoption was even happening. But God is faithful, and Latif has a new forever family. Their love for him carried them across the ocean hundreds of miles to take him as their own.

We made the new family a celebratory chocolate cake on the day that the adoption finalized, and I think Latif really enjoyed his first taste of chocolate!

Latif and his parents stayed with us in Yako for several days. I loved watching Latif and his dad hold hands as they walked across the courtyard. I loved watching his mom snuggle him as he sat in her lap. I loved hearing Latif call his parents "mama" and "papa". And I enjoyed watching him grow in comfort with them as they gradually increased their time together. Soon, he was eating all his meals with them, playing legos and reading books with them, and sleeping with them in their room at night.

While it was amazing to watch Latif bond with his family, it was difficult to watch the other children react. Sometimes they fought for the attention of the parents. Some were confused and thought that Latif's parents were their parents. After Latif left, they sometimes seemed sad that one of their friends had gone. After all, they had lived with him every minute of every day. Even I felt like something was missing after Latif left.

Some of the children have potential adoptive parents, but many do not. One time, after a child from the orphanage left with his new family, one little girl kept asking, "What about me? What about me?"

After living in an orphanage all summer, God has given me a huge heart for orphan ministry and adoption. Adoption is something that I have always talked about doing just because I thought it sounded cool, but now it means so much more. Orphans for me now have names and faces and smiles and tiny little fingers and toes.

There is something truly amazing and even holy about holding them in your arms and feeling their whole bodies rise and fall with every breath they take. There is something about feeding, bathing, and tucking them in at night that changes you entirely. I feel like I can never be the same.

Those babies and toddlers taught me so much about love. It is funny how those who have been abandoned, neglected, and broken by the world are the same ones who teach us so much about love. Those who should understand love the least may in fact teach us the most about it.

Love is welcoming the unwanted into your arms. It is changing stinky diapers and pulling thorns out of the bottom of feet. It is wiping tears from cheeks and then tickling tummies until they laugh again. Love is snuggling down into a lap and falling asleep, trusting them to cradle you tight and safe. Love is reaching your arms toward heaven to be picked up and held.

I look into the eyes of these beautiful, precious orphans and I see myself. I watch Latif interact with his parents, and I find my own story unfolding. I experience the love that fills the orphanage, and it is so familiar because it is the love that I feel from knowing Christ. All of this - orphan care, love, new families, and adoption - melts our hearts and transforms our lives because it is a part of who we are. We are adopted.

Don't you ever feel like the world has trampled all over you and broken you down? We have been abandoned and neglected by the world and because of it. We have been separated from God because of our sins and sinful nature. We were without a home, without a family, without a place to belong. We were lonely, hopeless, helpless. But God, in his great love for us, traveled a distance farther than crossing the biggest ocean. He went to the cross - to death and back again - in order to rescue us and claim us as his own. Jesus Christ paved the way for our adoption. And now, we belong to Him. The paperwork is finished and the judge has pronounced the completion of the case. We have a Father and a new family. We have a forever home and a love that real, unconditional, holy, and eternal.

What an amazing and beautiful story of adoption, and it is ours. It blows me away.

As I watch Latif's parents pick him and hold him close, I feel Jesus holding me, too. When they call him their son, I hear the Lord calling me His daughter. When tears well up in my eyes and I can't explain why, my heart knows that it is because of God's great love for me.

And for the little ones who are left in the orphanage, I pick them up and whisper in their ears, "Do you know how special and wonderful you are? You are fearfully and wonderfully made. Your forever family will come for you one day, and I hope it is soon.  But until then, know that you belong to Jesus, and you are precious and valuable to Him."