Bags and kids, matching t-shirts and tutu’s.
We open the double class doors and get stopped at security. We were not unfamiliar with security. A few days earlier, we were late for our airplane. We went through security with six minutes to spare.
Four nuns went before us, when the machine to check bags was put on fast forward. Security didn’t even stop to look. They trusted what nuns were carrying.
As a result, our scamper through security was faster.
Then, when we waited for a body scan at the airport, a man motions our whole family towards him. We rushed past, onto our airline with moments to spare.
God’s time is perfect.
So why did I question Him in the waiting? Wonder what He was doing, when the child we had cared for, for almost 2 1/2 years was taken from us?
His timing is perfect. He can stop the sun and speed everything up exponentially….
A lesson I have learned many times, over and over again.
We get through security at the courthouse and a flood of family and friends fill the hallways.
There, we see our six-year-old daughter’s teacher. She called in a sick day, just to be here and see this moment that would set forth a future of promise and hope and joy.
Our six-year-old’s therapist smiles as we hug her. We saw her the day before and although she was scheduled for a workshop in Seattle, she left a bit early just to drive almost an hour to see our girl for her adoption…
Some things are worth rushing for; worth the drive, the time, the wait and remembering all that God has done.
Then, there was Lisa. The lady at my Bible Study many years ago. I met her weeks before flying to China. We had our oldest of the three, as a foster placement.
I felt called to go to China, but still didn’t have anyone to watch our littlest.
Miraculously, I had prayed in the shower just that morning, “God if you want me to go to China, please help me find someone to do respite for our foster daughter…PLEASE.”
That morning, without even knowing it, Lisa, a licensed foster parent, tells the group she has adopted, but now she only does respite. A light bulb went off at the Bible study I attended that morning.
God answers prayers perfectly. In His time. Sometimes quickly…sometimes over the course of five years and eight months.
Lisa was our answer to prayer. She has done respite for us for the past almost six years and has become a kind of God-mother to my three angels in t-shirts and white fluffy tutus.
I see our pastors and start crying. People that have re-written in my mind what true leadership look like.
Pure servants. A husband and wife who take the last place in line to eat and serve faithfully each Sunday despite them having their own family and needs.
They love the church. They love people.
This journey has become possible simply because of the prayers of so many believers like them.
We see my cousin, my sister-in-law and niece who drove all the way from Idaho to come to our girl’s adoption.
My husband’s family stood there from Peru. And of course, the Preschool teachers who had reminded us of the reality of foster care.
“We want to be part of your family.” They tell me later. I would hear that often over the course of the next few hours/days.
“You are.” I inform them. “You are our PRESCHOOL family”. And what a gift to have been given…So many people who love so selflessly, our children.
Our littlest’s hearing specialist stands smiling with a card. My parents joined us. And there I see them…the social workers and GAL’s who unbiasedly served our children.
Their faces, a reminder of everything working in the system. People who work hard in a fractured system, not for pay, but because of their genuine love for children.
Their work is something I never could do. And I was reminded the twists and turns of a system are because laws were made to make sure children aren’t unjustly taken from their parents.
And laws are good. Rules are made to protect the best interest of children, even if…
Life can feel like a rollercoaster, one where everyone gets jolted along the ride.
Yes, there are good people, a hallway crowded full of them.
Each one of them reminds me of a path we could not have taken if they hadn’t joined us.
The next day there would be a house full more that would come when this process was over. Many the courtroom couldn’t fill, and we appreciate each one of them.
“It takes a village” they say.
And I am reminded of my own weakness and need for people. My heart floods with joy at the gratefulness for each face, each person….
Each heart and soul that loved each of our three girls on this adoption journey.
A photographer we paid snapped photos.
While our lawyer assures us, “all is good”. The judge had our paperwork.
It was time to move out from the hallway into a courtroom.
We were about to finalize three adoptions.
And after five years and eight months of waiting….of withstanding a hard, long journey….
We’d finally be a forever family…
Today.
(If you missed part 1, you can read it here)
