An Epic Adoption Story – January 30 Update
We feel like we’re in one of those scenes from The Matrix where bullets are flying and we’re in super slow motion, at least our minds are while our bodies are definitely on their way to Uganda. But our minds are still stuck back in, “Is the day ever going to come God? Are we ever going to actually finish this deal?” After 3 ½ years of waiting and only three days to switch gears it just still seems like a dream.
Several times on the planes or in the airports Kristi and I just look at each other and shake our heads and say, “Is this really happening?” or “We’re going to Africa.” I’m writing this as we wait in a Starbucks in Amsterdam for the last leg of our trip for the union.
I want to call it a reunion. After all we’ve prayed for these kids every day for two years, but in reality it’s just a union…our first connection. Even as I write those words tears begin to well up in my eyes.
As we have dreamed about what the moment we see our children will be like. I never dreamed our first encounter would be at the airport. I have envisioned and romanticized it in my mind. It’s a hot day, around 2:00 pm in the afternoon and we show up at the orphanage and they run into our arms and we ride off into the sunset. Never in the midst of the chaos that is the Ugandan Airport, never did I think that this would happen at night, nor after we have been awake for 24 hours straight.
But if I have learned anything on this Epic Journey it’s that I am just supposed to be an actor in a play for which I know the character I’m supposed to play (Jesus), but the lines, the actions, the circumstances are all improvisational. Nothing is known, at least by us, except that God is God.
I heard Andy Stanley a few years ago say something that was profound enough to end up posted in my office. I read it almost every day, but it only recently seemed to be purposed for this moment. He said, “When it is time God will get you there.” I always applied that to ministry, but never to family. With Mom gone and now 3 ½ years spent toiling none of this has happened the way I think it should have. My new children were supposed to meet their Grandma Sharon, be here at the ages of 3, 4, and 5, and this might be the time when we’d think about coming back to Uganda for a visit. I know without a doubt that those plans were insufficient, and we could not see why this is THE time because “When it is time God will get you there.”
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