If you know me very well, you know that by nature I am not a super organized person. Since I have been married, with the encouragement of my husband, I have made an effort to become more organized. Sure things in my house have a place, and some things drive me crazy if they are not where they belong, but I don't need the towels to be folded a certain way and don't spend my entire day following my kids around picking up the trail that follows them. However, when things are important (ie this adoption!) an odd OCD trait comes out. I have spent the past few weeks creating what I affectionately call "The Monica Binder". If you watch Friends, you will know exactly what I am talking about! It has tabs, folders, copies, and paper clips with colored tabs that are neatly labeled. It is ridiculous...ridiculously important.
My binder is waiting for our 2010 taxes and a reference letter. Then we can move on with our home study! I'm trying to remember this is the least painful waiting I'm going to have to do.
One of my favorite songs is "Something Crazy" by Steven Curtis Chapman. Our blog is named after it :) "...it's crazy when love gets a hold of you, and it's crazy things that love will make you do....you don't know love at all until it's making you do, something crazy..." Some might call what we are doing crazy. But God sent his son to die for us because he loved us so much. We want to have that kind of crazy love!
So we decided to adopt and love orphans from Ethiopia for a few reasons. One we decided to be open to adopting older children, as in not a newborn. Adopting a toddler in KY requires going through the foster care system and fostering a child before they are able to be possibly be adopted. While I believe this an important job and a great way to care for orphans, we want to adopt a child, to make them a Jenkins forever. This is not always possible in fostering. Also, children in the foster care system in the US still have opportunities when they grow up to go to college and have a great, long life. International orphans, if not adopted, will in the vast majority of cases, become homeless, possibly be kidnapped and made servants or prostitutes, and likely die at a very young age. I'm not at all trying to downplay the importance of foster care or domestic adoption. But these are things we considered when deciding that in this season of life, it best fits our family to adopt internationally. Between the few countries that we meet all of the requirements to adopt from, Ethiopia is the fastest, least expensive, and currently the most stable in their adoptions. We also know several families who have adopted from there. We like having the ability to hear about their experience and gain some wisdom!
So I'll keep waiting and praying! Hopefully our home study will be this week or next. Then we can start fundraising and get our dossier submitted. Thanks so much to everyone who has already helped us with paperwork and recommendations! Also, we REALLY appreciate those of you who have passed on your kind words of encouragement and prayers. So thankful for our family and friends!
Sunday, February 20, 2011
Sunday, February 13, 2011
Why oh Why?
So the most common response we are getting about adopting is "Why"? Why are we adopting when we are obviously able to conceive biological children?, why from Ethiopia?, why right now?, etc. So in my very first blog post (ever!) I am going to attempt to answer that to the best of my ability without making this too lengthy.
My first trip to West Africa was spent in Burkina Faso, at that time it was the 3rd poorest country in the world. I was slapped in the face with the reality of poverty, death, and orphans. You don't have to even pay that much attention or be that intelligent to know that there are people living in such dire circumstances. And if you are one who pays more attention than most you could spout off some statistics about it, such as the fact that 26,000 children die every day, yes I typed that correctly, every day, due to startvation or preventable diseases. Or maybe you know that Ethiopia alone has over 4 million orphans. But if you're like me, on most nights, I could turn on an Everybody Loves Raymond or Friends rerun, laugh, and go to sleep on my comfortable bed and sleep like a baby without a single thought of those statistics. But something in my heart changed that summer. David Platt puts it so well in his book Radical, "Suddenly those numbers on a page came alive in our hearts....We learned that orphans are easier to ignore before you know their names. They are easier to ignore before you see their faces. It is easier to pretend they're not real before you hold them in your arms. But once you do, everything changes." So that's when my desire to adopt began, when I first held an orphan in my arms. Together, Dan and I have had the desire to adopt since we were dating. He had his own experience loving on orphans in South Africa.
But the desire comes from more than just our experiences. God adopted us. That changes everything as well. "Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God." John 1:12 God loves adoption and is pretty clear about it in the Bible. James 1:27 says "Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world." We want to be a family who is after God's own heart.
So what are we going to do about what we believe? We love being parents. Children are a blessing from the Lord. And we want more children. This is a perfect way for us to expand our family and we are thrilled about more kiddos! You know how I told you before that at night I could watch a little comedy and go to sleep. It's not so true now. Now when I lay down and close my eyes I think of my kids. My kids are sleeping in an orphanage tonight. I don't know their names or how old they are, I don't know if they are hungry or cold, dirty or sick. And I can't wait to get them home and know that they are upstairs, well, in a warm bed, with clean clothes, and were tucked in with hugs and kisses. I know that they are not "mine" yet. But soon they will have the Jenkins name, they will be co-heirs with Bella Kate and Claire. And I want them home as soon as I can get them here. So stay tuned for our journey to bring them home.
Oh, I'm afraid I'm going to have answer the "Why Ethiopia?" question another time...but I will soon!
My first trip to West Africa was spent in Burkina Faso, at that time it was the 3rd poorest country in the world. I was slapped in the face with the reality of poverty, death, and orphans. You don't have to even pay that much attention or be that intelligent to know that there are people living in such dire circumstances. And if you are one who pays more attention than most you could spout off some statistics about it, such as the fact that 26,000 children die every day, yes I typed that correctly, every day, due to startvation or preventable diseases. Or maybe you know that Ethiopia alone has over 4 million orphans. But if you're like me, on most nights, I could turn on an Everybody Loves Raymond or Friends rerun, laugh, and go to sleep on my comfortable bed and sleep like a baby without a single thought of those statistics. But something in my heart changed that summer. David Platt puts it so well in his book Radical, "Suddenly those numbers on a page came alive in our hearts....We learned that orphans are easier to ignore before you know their names. They are easier to ignore before you see their faces. It is easier to pretend they're not real before you hold them in your arms. But once you do, everything changes." So that's when my desire to adopt began, when I first held an orphan in my arms. Together, Dan and I have had the desire to adopt since we were dating. He had his own experience loving on orphans in South Africa.
But the desire comes from more than just our experiences. God adopted us. That changes everything as well. "Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God." John 1:12 God loves adoption and is pretty clear about it in the Bible. James 1:27 says "Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world." We want to be a family who is after God's own heart.
So what are we going to do about what we believe? We love being parents. Children are a blessing from the Lord. And we want more children. This is a perfect way for us to expand our family and we are thrilled about more kiddos! You know how I told you before that at night I could watch a little comedy and go to sleep. It's not so true now. Now when I lay down and close my eyes I think of my kids. My kids are sleeping in an orphanage tonight. I don't know their names or how old they are, I don't know if they are hungry or cold, dirty or sick. And I can't wait to get them home and know that they are upstairs, well, in a warm bed, with clean clothes, and were tucked in with hugs and kisses. I know that they are not "mine" yet. But soon they will have the Jenkins name, they will be co-heirs with Bella Kate and Claire. And I want them home as soon as I can get them here. So stay tuned for our journey to bring them home.
Oh, I'm afraid I'm going to have answer the "Why Ethiopia?" question another time...but I will soon!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)