I had hoped to write about what happened sooner, but the first two days I had felt so emotionally drained. Then life went on as it does and days passed with homeschooling, filling out grant applications for our adoption, and loving little ones.
I really need to go back a bit and then I will be able to explain how blurry eyes can manage to see at all, let alone cause me to see clearly.
Last week our time at the Orphan Summit was so incredibly blessed. I have enjoyed many many times worshiping God through music, however something happened months ago when God spoke these children to our family. It is hard to explain, the words that are being sung now in praise reach even deeper into my heart ... At the Summit, I rejoiced so much in having the opportunity to sing praises in other languages and hear testimony after testimony from individuals that had been orphans and are speaking not from facts they found listed somewhere. They are speaking from their own hearts that spent nights crying out as orphans for someone to find them. One young man said very clearly that orphanages are dark, dangerous places... not a place for a child at all let alone a child without anyone to care for them or protect them. How can we argue with that? Having never had to wonder why I wasn't loved by just one person, never having to just survive everyday.... if a young man now on the other side of experiencing that his entire life stands there telling us how dark and dangerous it is...how do we not move at the description alone????
A few weeks ago we were blessed to attend a conference and listen to George Dennehy speak. As he sang the song How He Loves Us... the phrase "my heart turns violently inside my chest" stood out to me. There are times as adults we fill up seats and lift our arms up to our Savior, we sing praises to Him and maybe we feel something as we listen to a sermon. But I have heard about Christians in other countries gathering secretly just to pray together, walking sometimes for days.... I have read about tears that form puddles where they knelt to pray. That is the heart I think that song references.... the heart that turns violently inside a chest. Not the heart that hears and isn't moved enough to act, the heart that hears about children in dark and dangerous places and quickly forgets and thinks instead about how badly it would like a coffee or a nap, and not the heart that watches and changes the subject as families turn to everyone around them and asks for anyone to walk with them and help bring their children out of those places but the heart that is turning violently inside our chest.
This past New Year's Eve at a benefit concert for our adoption, there stood a young girl maybe nine or ten years old . She was looking at the pictures of the children we are adopting and pictures of other children that are waiting in orphanages. She saw the difference in a photo of a child's hungry little belly when first adopted and then just three months later having been fed and loved the way children are created to be loved... the photo of adoptive parents meeting their new child for the first time with so many children all around them that wanted to know a parent's love too, and a picture of a dad zippering the coat of his new daughter as three children that were being left behind as orphans sit on a coach and just watch refraining from any emotion though their hearts must have been screaming out not to be left behind. That little girl kept asking me questions about the children in the pictures. She bent down to look into the eyes of the children in each picture. Her hand stayed in her pocket as she talked with me. She asked about each and every child in each picture. And when she had finished talking, she reached into her pocket and gave me a handful of nickels, dimes, some pennies and maybe a quarter. "This is all I have, will you use it to bring your kids home?"...there aren't words that could describe the beauty in that moment. She just emptied out her pockets because she looked into their eyes and knew what she saw was not okay. And she didn't just empty her pockets, in that moment she emptied herself of herself. Whatever she could have wanted to do with that money, whatever she could have bought...she laid it down for God to do more with it! In that moment she gave it all with an understanding that whatever she could have spent her money on could not amount in any way to the need these children have to be loved and to have a family. Something in their eyes (Jesus) caused her heart to turn violently and it caused her not only to give but to give all she had in that moment.
At our last bake sale, a young girl stood holding a container asking for donations. On the container was a picture of a young man in Ukraine that her family has hosted and is trying to adopt. People were passing by her and she would ask them to help bring him home. One woman stopped and asked her what the donations would be used for. The woman read about the adoption, read about this young man, she looked into the eyes of this young girl that already considers this boy her brother. After she read about this boy that has spent 15 years as an orphan, she let out a big breath and starts laughing... then says no and walks away. The young girl goes through a quick range of emotions... she feels humiliated by this woman reaction, she feels anger that someone could look at a child that is orphaned and not only did she not care but actually laugh, she feels defeated and doesn't want to ask for anymore donations. She sat the container down for just a few moments. As she processed everything that had happened she stands back up..."I was an orphan and you didn't give up on me", she says turning to her mother. She picked the container back up with a new resolve. "I am going to ask everyone that comes through that door until we have enough." She would have had every right to feel hurt enough to give up...BUT her heart turned violently inside her chest and decided she could not give up because the cost of these children living abandoned is too great.
And the morning of the bake sale, hours before I would even arrive I seen it all through blurry eyes. I seen beyond what my eyes could see! The night before I was up baking for the fundraiser. At some point in the middle of the night I could not find the peanut butter. One of my daughters was still awake and I asked if she had seen it. "Yeah, it is in Adante's bed." "What?", I asked. "Why would it be in his bed?" She as casually as if we were just chit chatting said, "He has lots of food up there, he is planning on going on a trip to spend time with God." I am thinking it was almost two in the morning, it sounded like some odd thing that the boys would come up with and I thought he probably had it up there snacking out of it. "Go get it all and bring it down", I told her. There were 6-8 cans of vegetables, 8-10 bottled waters, the peanut butter, cheesies. The kids were sleeping out in the playroom for the night, I thought I would talk to him about it in the morning when he woke up. I finished getting ready for the bake sale around 5am went to bed and got back up at 7am to get everything ready to go. My sister in law just dropped off her baby for us to watch. I turned to where the kids were sleeping and saw a piece of paper. I ran to it.... "Dear Family" it read "If you are reading this I am already gone".... I don't know what happened, I screamed I think... I started running to my husband with the paper in my hand shouting "He's gone...He's gone". My husband is telling me to calm down, he grabs the paper and reads the rest of the note. "It's okay", he says. "He says right in the letter he didn't run away he just wanted to spend time with God. He couldn't be far." "I don't care what it says", I am pretty sure I was still screaming "he is gone". I ran into the yard and down to the shed looking to see if he had gone there. I ran back inside, the children each start explaining that they all knew about this "trip he was taking to spend time with Jesus"...they didn't think anything was wrong since it was time with Jesus and he had apparently said he would only be gone for one night. We told Celita to watch the kids and we left.
Where do we even start!?! We got in the van and my husband looks at me and asks, "What has been going on while I am at work?" "Nothing, nothing, I don't know, everything has been fine", I am answering through uncontrolled sobbing and tears. I am trying to make sense of it all in my mind. We drove to an apple tree that we take walks to as a family. "How do all our kids think it is okay to go away as long as it is to spend time with God and they don't tell us about it?".."I don't know", I answer through tears. We drive down a dirt road that the kids like to take walks on. I am remembering that a week prior he was asking me questions about no trespassing signs and the trees along that road are covered in them. It seemed like we would never get to the end of that road. Next we went to the park where he has Boy Scouts meetings. It was almost time for his Saturday meeting, but he wouldn't be there. I am his mother and I didn't know where he was, only where he wasn't. I took off one direction through the woods running and Adam took off another. I ran and ran. I could barely see and could feel the trees scratching me as I ran through the woods. I remember stopping at one point... there was just no way of covering all the forest. I wanted God to just give me one glimpse..just one where he would take the trees away and let me see what He could see....everything that was beyond what I could see. I wanted to sit down and cry. The pain that he could be gone wasn't something that I wanted to know at all. I made my way back to the park, we had drove for almost an hour, ran through the woods for another hour.... we ran into one of the scout leaders and Adam explained briefly what had happened and asked that he call us if he saw him. His reply?? "Is something going on at home?" What?? NO! This is my agreeable one, this is the son that helps easily, that laughs and jokes. NO, NO, NO I want to scream, there is nothing going on!! I just want my son home! We head back to the house because Celita had said the baby was crying. The kids keep repeating that it is okay..."It's okay, we told you, he just wanted to spend time with Jesus...he said he would only be gone one day." I am trying to explain that it is never okay to leave without permission. Adam leaves again, Celita takes her dog and goes to look too. I post asking for prayer. Maybe another 30 minutes passed. It is approaching three hours since I first picked up the note he left.... I know we will have to call the police soon to help find him. The interstate is nearby and I pray he didn't go near there...if someone would have taken him how would we ever find him? The phone rings... it's Adam. Celita found her brother! When he gets home he walks up to his room and wants to be alone. I gave him the space... I still needed time to process everything that had occurred. Eventually he came downstairs... he walks over to me and we both have red swollen eyes from crying. "I'm sorry", he said. "I really thought that when I came home in the morning and told you all about the time I spent with the Lord and the things He said to me you would be so happy to hear about it. I didn't think about any of the other things." We hugged each other and held on tight for a little while. I don't know what I should have been feeling but I started thinking as I stood there.... my son, he just wanted to spend time alone with Jesus. He knows you can talk to Him, you can hear Him!! He knows how precious that is and wanted to be alone with Him!! I cannot grieve that, I cannot be upset with that. It is what I pray for my children! For them to experience Jesus in their own relationship with Him, for them to seek Him, and to walk with Him. My son's heart had turned so violently in his chest to go off and spend time alone with Jesus that at 12 1/2 he had been saving food in his bed to set off on a journey with God! (A friend at church reminded me of Jesus doing the same when he was 12 and staying behind at the temple. I can only imagine Mary running in search of Jesus... maybe it looked a lot like me running through the forest that morning.)
I still went to the bake sale hours later than I had planned. I was still numb from all that had happened but I know the other numbness I feel everyday for my children that are waiting in an orphanage for us to come. My son is home now he is safe, but I have another son and three daughters that I can't hold yet - I have no idea if they are safe. That night as I prayed still trying to make sense of everything...I saw that young girl that gave all her change, I pictured the other young girl that was asking for donations at the bake sale, and I saw my son who had just that morning gone off on a journey with Jesus. And this is what I know for sure.....
IT HAS GOT TO BE more than a song, more than lifting our hands in praise and taking our seats when we are done. We have got to be moved like those children, to empty our pockets .... because people matter - children without families matter. We have got to remember like the children to stand back up, even when we are laughed at or mocked to have a greater resolve even in the midst being misunderstood that these things are important to God and should be important to us. These aren't causes - families are crying out for help to get their children home and we can't look away and let them abandoned to places that are not meant for any human being let alone children that are meant to be loved and protected. And we need to want Jesus more, want what He wants so much so that we are desiring to spend time with Him listening to what He is asking and doing it. Not just a song but our hearts being moved violently inside our chests.
That is what I learned on what seemed like the worst day of my life. That it has to be more than a song...and I learned it from children. There is so much more for God to teach me through my children... he uses them everyday. I look forward to the lessons that are still to come through the children we are waiting to bring home also.
..................................................................................................................................................................
From Kisses from Katie pg 84 "I didn't believe it was possible to tell a child about the love of Christ without simultaneously showing her that love by feeding her, clothing her, inviting her in. If a child has never known what love is, how can we expect him to accept the love of his Savior until we first make that love tangible?"
pg 91 "The truth is that the 143 million orphaned children and the 11 million who starve to death or die from preventable diseases and the 8.5 million who work as child slaves, prostitutes, or under other horrific conditions and the 2.3 million who live with HIV add up to 164.8 million needy children. And though at first glance that looks like a big number, 2.1 billion people on this earth proclaim to be Christians.
....................................................................................................................................................................
Did you catch that math in the last quote? 164.8 million needy children versus 2.1 billion proclaiming Christians!
Seriously, there is no other way, we need to take our hands down and use them....that will be the most beautiful song we ever offer up.
This is where we are at right now.
I have three children waiting across the ocean in orphanages having never experienced the love of a family. We have a fee of $10,000 due with our dossier in just weeks. We currently need $4,000 to have that total available for that fee. I don't know each of the 2.1 billion proclaiming Christians personally.... but if you are reading this, chances are I know you and you are part of that 2.1 billion. And if I don't know you, then maybe I know you in the sense that we are serving God as sisters or brothers in Christ and you are part of that 2.1 billion as well. I need you to come alongside our family to bring our children home. They need you to be a tangible love that will cause God's love to be real to them!
There are many ways to be that love right now! Our fsp donations with RR cannot be released for dossier fees, so we need to raise the last $4,000 separate from our fsp link above. You can donate via our paypal praishm@hotmail.com or through our agency with a note that your donation is for our family's adoption. You can walk with us is by donating towards our dossier fee. We have a $2300 matching grant (I jumped ahead and included the $2300 in the total we are counting as raised for the $10,000). Each dollar you donate now through 5/22/14 will be matched up to $2300!! That would only leave $1700 needed for our dossier fee!!
Another really easy way to give is by donating your gently used shoes to our shoe drive that will raise $5000 when we have collected 300 more 25lb bags of gently used shoes. You could hold a shoe drive for us at your church or by asking family and friends for shoes. We currently have a hoagie sale going on. And at the end of the month we will have a Mother and Daughter Tea. You could also hold a fundraiser of your choice to help bring "Alonzo", "Sophia", and "Mary Ellen" home. And you can pray, God does so much through your prayers!
So where was my son when he was found? Just a little ways from that apple tree we first went to. He didn't hear us as he was sleeping with all his boyscout gear under a tree... just resting with Jesus! When I told him people would have thought he ran away he protested, "NO WAY, I love my life". Then I explained that some people would have quickly thought that the adoption was too much for him, and even more adamant he says, "NO! This adoption is the best thing that has ever happened to me! I would bring my brother and sisters home sooner if I could. I just like spending time with Jesus"! I praise God for the heart He knit within my son. And for a house full of children that sit with me and spend time drawing near to Him. We recently read the Strength of Mercy together and are reading Kisses from Katie now. Both books tell the stories of young people listening to God in radical obedience. This may have something to do with the fact that all our children found it completely reasonable to go on an adventure with God unannounced! Keep drawing near to them Lord I thank you for each one of them!
No comments:
Post a Comment