Adoption is not always easy ... but neither was our spiritual adoption

Some of you have heard this shared before. It’s from Russell Moore in his excellent book Adopted for Life. His story is different than mine, and every child is unique, but I like the spiritual application he brings out from the adoption process of his two sons from Russia:




‘Leaving them at the end of each day was painful, but leaving them the final day, before going home to wait for the paperwork to go through, was the hardest thing either of us had ever done. Walking out of the room to prepare for the plane ride home, Maria and I could hear Maxim calling out for us, and falling down in his crib, convulsing in tears. Maria shook with tears, and I turned around to walk back into their room, just for a minute.

I placed my hand on both of their heads and said, knowing they couldn’t understand a word of my English, “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.” I don’t think I consciously intended to cite Jesus’ words to his disciples in John 14:18; it just seemed like the only thing worth saying at the time. [Phil’s note: I can relate to this part hearing Matteus cry in September when I left him, and Didier helped me to say those words to him from Jesus in Swahili]

… We loved them. We claimed them. And it didn’t matter that for the next several weeks they’d still be called “Maxim” and “Sergei.” The nameplates hanging on the wall of their new room in a faraway country read “Benjamin” and “Timothy.” …

When Maria and I at long last received the call that the legal process was over, and we returned to Russia to pick up our new sons, we found that their transition from orphanage to family was more difficult than we had supposed … We nodded our thanks to the orphanage personnel and walked out into the sunlight, to the terror of the two boys. They’d never seen the sun, and they’d never felt the wind. They had never heard the sound of a car door slamming or felt [what must have seemed] like they were being carried along at 100 miles an hour down a Russian road. I noticed that they were shaking, and reaching back to the orphanage in the distance …

I whispered to Sergei, now Timothy, “That place is a pit! If only you knew what’s waiting for you: a home with a Mommy and a Daddy who love you, grandparents, and great-grandparents and cousins and playmates, and McDonald’s Happy Meals!” But all they knew was the orphanage. It was squalid, but they had no other reference point. It was home.

We knew the boys had acclimated to our home, that they trusted us, when they stopped hiding food in their high-chairs. They knew there would be another meal coming, and they wouldn’t have to fight for the scraps. This was the new normal.

They are now thoroughly Americanized, perhaps too much so, able to recognize the sound of a microwave ding from forty yards away. I still remember, though, those little hands reaching for the orphanage, and I see myself there … [Phil’s note: the orphanage my son comes from is much better than this story, but the application holds true: as spiritually adopted children of God from a far worse place spiritually than this Russian orphanage, we sometimes] don’t fully believe that our new Father will feed us, so we hang on to our scraps and long for the regimented schedules of the orphanage. And when our Father pushes us along to new tastes, we pout that he’s not good to us …’



Ephesians 1 tells us we were not left as orphans, as Jesus promised in John 14:18 to His followers. We’ve been called by a new Father and adopted (Ephesians 1:5), brought into His family, and Paul prays that calling would give us hope in v. 18. We don’t need to recoil at where our Father takes us, even if we don’t understand it at the time, we can trust Him. His children don’t need to reach back to where they came from, as the children of Israel did while God was taking them to the Promised Land (or like the Galatians were doing with their old ways or like Lot’s wife). My son struggles to understand his dad’s new speech and all these strange places he’s been taken the last several weeks and several days, and does not always have a good attitude about it, and is sometimes scared and upset – and I see myself in relation to God as I look at my son. I am so thankful I have such a patient and gracious and loving Father, and I’m thankful He is giving me insights into my own soul, and causing me to pray and cry out for His wisdom that I so greatly need and lack (James 1:5-7).


I am so thankful the Greene family was willing to take me back to their home this weekend. The guest house was fine, but Matteus was having a hard time being in the small room so much of the time, and he does much better when there are many people around and things going on (and so does dad when his son’s happy!). Plus the one store in safe walking distance from our room was closed for several days and the embassy recommended Americans don’t walk alone downtown in general, and in particular there was a riot threat this weekend on the boulevard so we needed to stay inside. So I was looking at a long weekend where I couldn’t communicate with anyone in English and where I would have to be mostly indoors for over 100 hours before the next appointment I have to do, with a little guy who is having a hard time with all the adjustments and who has a dad who can’t speak more than 15 words in his language (Swahili). I can appreciate how hard it must have been for my friend Craig without his wife in another African hotel with his adopted kids for weeks and for my friend Stuart in Kinshasa with his 2 girls. And I’m encouraged to see how well their kids are doing now in their families in America and I long for the day when our family will be altogether, in a couple weeks.


I praise the Lord for His kind providence bringing me back to the Greenes Friday evening through their neighbor Mr. Ward who works at the embassy. Matteus has done a lot better the last 24 hours here, and the Greenes and the other missionaries and people here have been a God-send. I had a brief but encouraging talk with a parent last night who did foster adoptions for years in the States before they adopted their daughter, and was encouraged that the difficulties I’ve faced last few days are normal. Didier also called me last night and encouraged me along the same lines and gave me some new things to say in Swahili to reassure a crying little one. I’m not sure how much of a difference the new phrases made tonight, but at least I was able to communicate a little more in his tongue, and he fell asleep on me when he got too tired of crying tonight. Most of all God has encouraged me through the spiritual truths of His Word and of His relentless Fatherly love that I’ve come to understand in deeper ways in recent days.


Here are some pictures of the guest house, town, and then back at the Greenes today.



Goats at the guest house. Matteus actually does a pretty good goat sound and rooster sound, too (Swahili word for chicken is “koo-koo”)

View from top of guest house. Across the river is Brazaville Congo (different country than the Democratic Republic of Congo, D.R.C.). The D.R.C. was known as the Belgian Congo, then later Zaire, then D.R.C.

 Another view. My son’s American brother would have been excited to see the trains, cranes, tractors, and boats. Matteus was too distracted commenting on every “moto-car” he saw on the road.

                                        



 It’s good to see construction and development taking place downtown. In Addis Ababa (Ethiopia’s capitol) there are countless dozens of unfinished buildings with no sign that they will ever be completed.

View from roof from front of guest house facing downtown Gombe. The embassy is just to the right, only a few hundred yards from the guest house entrance.

Nap with pap last day at guest house waiting for pickup ride to return to the Greenes for the weekend

Me and Paul, a seminary student friend of Didier who helped me get the passport for Matteus Wednesday (his dad works at the office). He is dressed very nicely while I am, as the Congolese say in Lubumbashi, “dressed like an American”

Much happier guy now that he’s not stuck in a small room with just dad, for most of next several days

First time on scooter with Moise (Moses, silent “e” at the end in French). He is one of the neighborhood boys that Mike ministers to who has become like a part of the family and him and Matteus hit it off great.

First bike ride for Matteus