A couple of weeks
before Christmas, I was sitting at my desk at work, and I noticed that I had an
email from our agency. I was so excited. We hadn’t heard from them in weeks, and I was
relieved to hear something, anything.
Although adoptions in process were moving along in Haiti, ours wasn’t. Our dossier was, and still is, sitting on a
desk at IBESR, which is the Haitian version of social services. I heard the chime of the computer, looked,
and there it was. I rushed to open it
and began reading as fast as I could. I
read to the end, wanting so badly for there to be more. Basically, the email was to inform us that
the fees were changing, and we would have to pay $500 more dollars to IBESR. It wasn’t even about the money. The timing was just very bad. I am so glad I was alone. I acted like a fool. I screamed out loud and wanted to throw my
computer through the window. I was angry
and frustrated. Then, I cried.
After that, I pushed
the adoption to the back of my mind. It
was too hard to think about it, so I didn’t.
Finishing the first semester of school, basketball games, and getting
ready for Christmas kept me busy enough so that I didn’t have time to
think. Don’t get me wrong, it crossed my
mind several times a day, but I moved on to something else before I allowed
myself to process it. Before I knew it, it
was the Sunday before Christmas. I sat
there in Sunday school class listening to our teacher talk about the lesson and
about Christmas. Then, I heard the words, “I wish every little boy and every
little girl had a mommy and daddy that loves him”. CRASH!
I became a heaping pile of mush.
For once, I was glad to be sitting on the front row with my back to most. All the emotions that I had repressed came
flooding out. My mind went straight to
the orphanage, and I couldn’t escape it this time. I learned a valuable lesson that day. It’s much better to cry a little every day than
to save it all for a one time episode.
We went to
Christmas party after Christmas party after Christmas party. I couldn’t help but wonder about the kids in
the orphanages, not just in Haiti, but around the world. As Kynady and Elijah’s anticipation for Santa
grew, I couldn’t help but think about what their little brother or sister was
doing. I wondered if the kids in the orphanages
would celebrate. Our agency works with
Christian based orphanages, so I hoped that at least the little ones would know
that Christmas is a special day. Santa
showed up in a big way at the Thomas house, and I have never felt so blessed in
my life. Then, I opened our gift from Caterina. It was a book of photos of Haiti by Jared Leto, and the front
cover is intense. I’ll post a picture
because there are no words to describe the photo. It’s a picture of a boy or a man, and his eyes
are indescribable. When I picked up the book,
I felt like this person was looking back at me.
I flipped through the pages and the realism portrayed by this
photographer was overwhelming. I felt a
blanket of reassurance as I poured over picture after picture of the
devastation and hardship in this impoverished nation. Haiti is undoubtedly and officially the
poorest country in the western hemisphere.
The reassurance was from that
still small voice of my Lord that said, “Yes, this is what I want you to do”. I cried again.
Shortly
after the New Year, we finally received word from our agency. They
sent us a bunch of pictures of the kids at the orphanage and their Christmas
party. I can’t relate to you the relief
I felt knowing that my baby was able to celebrate Christmas. Then we were told that IBESR would be
choosing adoption agencies to process adoptions in Haiti, and that decision would
be made on Jan. 10th. I was
so nervous. I checked my email about 50
times that day, even during basketball practice. You can ask my husband: basketball practice is my time to be cut off
to the world, but I couldn’t take it. I
had to look. The decision that we were
waiting for was originally supposed to be made on October 30th, so I’m
not sure why I was so certain that this would get done on January 10th,
but I live in a world where deadlines are a big deal. Well, Haiti is not that way, apparently. The
email came, and it said the decision would be postponed until January 15th. Now, I am traditionally an optimist, but I
wasn’t going to hold my breath this time.
I’m glad I didn’t because Jan. 15th came and went without a
word. Nothing. Not a yay or a nay or a maybe or a wait. Nothing.
That was hard for me, and I still don’t understand it. A simple email saying, “we still don’t know”,
would have been enough. I’m not proud of it, but I became bitter. Near the end of school on Jan 17th, we
finally heard the good news. Our agency
had been chosen, and we could move forward.
PRAISE GOD! What a relief. It was such good news, yet I felt a lot of
guilt. I didn’t really give up, but I
felt like I had lost faith and grown a bit cynical about the process. Then, God led me to a piece of scripture that
was very comforting. I was actually
searching for some motivation for my basketball team when I came across Matthew
8:23-27. Jesus is in a boat with his disciples when a huge storm comes up. They are running around crazy, going nuts,
and Jesus is asleep. They wake him up,
and he’s like, “come on guys, have a little faith”. He gets up, rebukes the
storm, and probably goes back to sleep. I
guess if those guys can lose their faith with Jesus in the boat with them, then
it’s okay for me to forget from time to time that I am not in control, He
is. You know, when we have Jesus in our
boat, why do we worry so much? He is
able to get up at any moment and calm the storm. He’s that powerful and mighty. Why do I run around in such a tizzy all the
time? He’s got this, and he’s in my
boat! What more do I need? Thank you
Lord!
