In honor of the children we left behind
Yesterday was a GINORMOUS day! Thanks to many of you for celebrating with us. As far as the United States is concerned three children orphaned by AIDS and extreme poverty have been given a family as if it never happened.
Today I want to encourage anyone and everyone who reads my blog, sees this post on Facebook or Twitter to watch this video and ask God if one of these kids, other than our three, is supposed to be yours. Ask for a dream, like I had, or simply just begin to pray for these children that moms and dads would bring them home. Contact Jill Baker at Promise Kids A Future if interested in joining us on this adoption journey, and maybe at this time next year we’ll be attending your celebration.
The Dream Come True
On Monday, as long as we find favor with the judge, three children will officially become Smiths. Over four years we have been on this journey, and there have been many significant moments in the midst of those four years as we have celebrated life and mourned death. We have expanded in some areas and retracted in others. We have simply become new, different, transformed people. We went from possibility to actuality.
In order to put in perspective what happens in four years here’s a short list:
I completed work on two Masters degrees.
We went from having four in elementary school to still having four in elementary school along with one in middle school and one in high school.
My 11 year old became a teenager, and my five year old became nine (lots of change there), and Kristi and I turned 40 (ouch).
My mother was diagnosed and the lost her battle with cancer, yet left us with a legacy of faith that will be impossible to forget.
Kristi’s grandfather lost his battle with age.
We went from adopting a boy and only a boy to a boy and two girls, from one to three.
We went from private Christian school to public school.
We went from three jobs to two, a working mom to a stay at home mom.
We went from four bedrooms to five, and from a minivan to a Suburban.
We went from none in diapers to one at night.
We went from times when the laundry hamper was empty to a perpetual laundry producing machine.
We went from having leftovers from dinner to barely having enough.
We went from three kids to six, two soccer teams to four, packing three lunches to six, from very little homework assistance to a lot, from kids who were at the top of the class to kids who are behind.
And I won’t even get into the change Kamri, Lucas, and Lilli have endured.
I stand in awe. How naive I was the morning I awoke to from a dream. All of this born out of the pursuit of a dream.
To God be the glory forever and ever, AMEN.
So how are the kids adapting?
This may be the single most frequently asked question I get since returning from Uganda with the three newest additions. I don’t want to discourage anyone from continuing to ask that question, but the reality is that the kids adapted within the first few hours of being placed in our care the day we arrived in Uganda.
Now, they still have their issues. I mean they are little, cute untamed balls of original sin, but that’s no different than any other child.
The question, or questions, everyone should be asking is, “How are you adapting?” “How have you been transformed as a person, dad, husband, friend, son, brother, pastor, etc.?” What work needs to be done in your life, Robert?”
When I got the call on a warm Southern California January morning that a third child was now in the picture I had all of the confidence in the world that Kristi and I would make it work. What I wasn’t prepared for was that I wasn’t prepared. I thought I was prepared, but the little things are what always sneak up and derail you.
I wasn’t prepared for the increase in noise, the worldview of our new children that they should be able to get anything that they want, bed wetting, and five soccer players on four different teams. I wasn’t prepared to discipline differently. I wasn’t prepared for the change of expectations for my wife and the struggle she would have with the fact that the laundry won’t always be caught up nor will the floors always be clean.
What about this one – I never saw a need for having a deep freeze, but if we want to quit going to the grocery store twice a week, then we better get one.
The good news is this…God is always in the midst of preparing me, and while I may never be completely prepared for life’s situations He will never fail to sustain me in my development as His son. I was a pretty confident Dad before February, and now I realize I have a lot yet to learn and that’s a far better place to be – unprepared and yet confident in the result.