Why Is There Poverty?

“Sometimes I’d like to ask God why He allows poverty, famine, and injustice in the world when He could do something about it…but I’m afraid God might ask me the same question.” ~Anonymous

Redemption

I’ve started restoring furniture as a way to bring in some extra money for our adoption.  I’m working on my third table right now, and Father has been showing me some very interesting parallels.

Before

I scour Craigslist for someone giving away a broken, beat up table.  This table, unwanted and unappreciated, a nuisance that no longer serves its intended purpose, is transformed through hours of careful work.  It is examined for its unique areas of need.  What will show the value of this piece the best?  The broken legs are mended.  The scratches and stains are sanded and repaired — or sometimes highlighted as a point of beauty.  And once smooth, the table is refinished with a fresh coat of paint or stain.  It’s now a brand new piece, a valuable and functional table that someone is happy to pay for and display in their home.

After

Before

In many ways, it feels very appropriate to redeem a table in this way.  It feels a lot like the process of redeeming an orphan.  Like searching for the one without a home or a family.  The broken and the hurting.  The scarred.  

Waiting for someone willing to come for them.  To take the time to really know who they are and what they need to grow to their greatest potential.  To mend the brokenness and heal the scars with unconditional love.

Not so that the outside world would look at them and say what a fine man or woman they’ve become.  But that they might be able to step into their God-given destiny and fulfill their purpose in the Kingdom.

After

But I see even more in this process — I see the work that Father God does in each of us.  The preparation process, the sanding and stripping away, is absolutely necessary for the finished product to look new.  Repairing the broken table leg.  Sanding down the layers and layers of scratched and gouged paint and finish, the mismatched stain.  Filling in the holes left by ill-conceived attempts to fix it.  And yet it takes twice as long as the creative process, the building back up and making beautiful.

Do you see it?  The feelings of worthlessness and shame?  “But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ — by grace you have been saved.”  (Ephesians 2:4-5)

Do you see it?  The layers of disguise you’ve built around your heart?  He’s taking the time to strip them off, one at a time.

Do you see it?  The giant rift in your heart you thought you’d repaired?  He’s pulling apart your solution and making it right.  Really right.

Do you see it?  That removing the old identity takes the longest.

That under the damaged surface, some wounds and scars will remain.

But then the rebuilding.  The Carpenter holds a vision for you in His mind.

The right stain is applied — the blood of Christ.

“In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses according to the riches of his grace.”  (Ephesians 1:7)

The imperfections are not masked, but highlighted — no longer damage but character.

The grain of the wood, its true nature, is enhanced.

Sealed with the varnish of the Holy Spirit.

“In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit.”  (Ephesians 1:13)

Usefulness and purpose are restored.  And once again, what was once ugly and broken has become beautiful and whole.

“For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.”  (Ephesians 2:10)

What will this one become?

We Are Broken

With all the tragedies we’ve seen this week alone, it is clear that we live in a broken world.

We Are Broken – Paramore (RSS readers can view the video here.)

“We are broken
What must we do to restore
Our innocence
And oh, the promise we adore
Give us life again
Cause we just want to be whole.”

(Disclaimer: The political message at the end of the video is not my own.)

Why We’re Adopting from DR Congo #1

This is a bed in a Congolese orphanage. Forty children sleep in 10-15 bunk beds like this. There are a few torn up old foam mattresses, but most just sleep on the slats.

From The Mouths Of Babes

My children amaze me.  I’ve always thought it was my job to teach them about the Kingdom of God, but they’re constantly teaching me with their enormous child’s faith.

When we first started seriously considering adopting, I took each child aside separately.  I explained as simply as I could that we were thinking about having a new brother or sister, but that he or she would probably not come as a baby, but as a little kid.  I asked Elliot, our rocket scientist 5-year-old, “How would you feel about a new brother or sister?  Do you think you’d like that?”

He responded, “Oh, well.  We should get a brother for me and a sister for Audrey.”

I smiled politely and said that was an interesting idea.  Later I took Audrey, our dramatic diva 3-year-old, aside and asked her the same question.

And she responded without hesitation, “We should have a brother and a sister.”

“Why?”

“Because I love brothers and sisters.”

Melt.

I SWEAR to you I said “brother OR sister”, and I SWEAR to you they weren’t influenced by the other child.

I called Cedric and told him we were in serious trouble.  We are no match for that kind of faith and confidence!

And this vision flashes across my mind…

One afternoon, Elliot started hounding me to order pizza for dinner.  I told him we were making chicken noodle soup, and he started to bellyache.  Then I told him that we needed to save as much money as we could to bring home his new brother or sister, because it was very expensive.  We started talking about the things we wouldn’t buy, like pizza, so we could save more money.  He suggested that we really didn’t need any more toys.

Then he wanted to know how much the adoption would cost, and I told him most adoptions cost around $30,000.  He gave me a totally blank look…  So I gave him context: “That’s more money than we spent on our car.”  That’s when he fell on the floor.  (And then Audrey laid on him. Obviously.)

This week, we’re talking about responsibility and how, if Elliot broke something, he would need to use his own money to replace it.  That gets him thinking.  “Mama, I have a thousand dollars.” (He does not.) “If you ever need any money, you can just ask me.”

I say, “I need a LOT of money for our adoption!”  We all laugh.

Quiet time rolls around.  It’s that blissful time in the afternoon where the children retire happily to their rooms to play quietly alone, resting in a blanket of peace that envelopes the entire house.  Every day.  Like magic.

Sure it does.

Elliot asks me to get down his piggy bank, so he can count his money.  “I’m going to give you 60 cents for the adoption, Mama.”  He earns a big kiss and my exclamations of what a big help that would be.

I hear them chattering together in the same room.  I don’t have the heart (or the energy) to split them up.  They sound happy anyway.  I hear someone patter into Audrey’s room and the rattle of a piggy bank running back down the hall.

A half hour later, they come running into my room where I’m reading in bed, as is my afternoon ritual (yeah, right).  Elliot holds up a ziplock bag full of coins.

“We’re giving you all our money for the adoption!”

My heart explodes.  What can match this incredibly selfless act?

I’m told kids are barely aware that other people exist at this age, and my kids’ general lack of empathy reflects that.

But this?

“I’m giving you all my money, because I want the adoption to go faster.” Elliot says.

Me too, buddy, me too.

For The Children (Part 2)

(If you missed Part 1, read it here.)

I’ve made a huge mistake.

I looked at a waiting child list.

In the uncertainty of Haiti, we started exploring other countries, drawn inexplicably to Africa.

And before I knew it, I was staring into three sets of the deepest brown eyes you will ever see.  A dear little boy, with the weight of the world written on his face, and his two precious little sisters from the Democratic Republic of Congo.

I show their pictures to Cedric.  Collective gulp.

I see their little faces in my mind every night.  We can’t stop thinking about them.

I’m so torn.  I still feel so deeply for Haiti.  Should we hold out?

Cedric hears God speaking the Congo.  I hear nothing but my own confused chaos.  Are we being swayed only by two powerless pictures of some random children?  Maybe it doesn’t really matter what country we adopt from.  Maybe this is a decision we have to make.

And so I go back to where it all started.  I’m sitting cross-legged on the floor, worshiping, bathed in His Presence.  And I’m suddenly aware that I haven’t expected God to speak about this.  Painfully aware.

“I renounce the lie I have believed that You won’t speak to me.”

Tears.  Silence.

“What is the truth?”

“That I will speak…Congo.”

I’m startled for a moment.  He didn’t even wait for me to ask.  He just spoke it.  Like a warm breath.

And then it seeps in.  And my entire body relaxes from an unknown tension.

Congo.

I call Cedric to tell him what I heard.  Naturally, we do what any thinking person would do when faced with a huge life decision: we take time to think and deliberate and consider before doing anything rash.

For at least 15 minutes.

And then we filed a preliminary application with the kids’ agency.  Obviously.

For The Children (Part 1)

We heard the call — love my children.  We felt the ache in Father’s heart for His little ones.  Our hearts resonated “yes!”

But what does that mean exactly?  Children’s ministry?  Praying for sick kids in the hospital?  No, something more.  Foster care?  Closer…  But can I love them and then let them go?  Not for now.

What then?  Adoption?  Hmm…  Domestic, perhaps.  Heaven knows there are so many kids right here in the US that need love.

Or maybe international adoption…

I peek curiously through that door, open just a crack.  It takes my breath away.  Children lying on a hard board in a crib in Bulgaria their entire lives.  (If you didn’t look at this blog before, go now.)  Kids in Uganda sleeping 20… 30… 40 to a room, eating one meal a day.  I’m weeping again.  Whole orphanages of children traumatized, living in tents after the 2010 earthquake in Haiti.

Haiti.

You can find beauty in Haiti by Greta Van Susteren

I’m drawn to explore Haiti.  Such breathtaking beauty.  Such ravaging darkness.  Such a warm, loving people, committed to deep family bonds.

A place where extreme poverty is one of the primary causes for children to end up in orphanages.  Relinquished by parents who cannot feed or care for them.  Poverty and darkness undermining their core values.

And how can we stand by?

Cedric says adopting is no longer a good idea.  It’s imperative.

Haiti’s adoption process is in turmoil.  The earthquake in 2010 wreaked havoc on everything.  Parents have been waiting 4+ years to bring their kids home from Haiti.

But positive changes are in the works.  Steps are being taken to come in line with the Hague Convention that governs appropriate practices for international adoption.  Steps to protect children from unethical entities.  Steps to protect parents who thought they were just giving their kids an education.  And steps to allow more legitimate orphans to find loving families.

We need one of those steps to qualify — a new law that would lower the minimum age to adopt from Haiti to 30 from 35.

We find an agency that says the law will pass in no time.  We sign on.

A week later, a phone call — nevermind.  The law may never pass.  Haiti’s government agencies are already under too much water.  They’re slowing down the number of families they’re processing.

Now what?

We pray.  For the new law to find favor.  For wisdom.

Over and over, friends and family convey the same message from God.  You heard my voice.  Be steadfast.

…to be continued…

(Read Part 2 here.)