Discouraged, but encouraged

Yesterday morning was a bit discouraging for me. As I posted yesterday, we found out that the birthparents chose the other family because the other family didn't have any children. (I'm assuming that means they can't have biological children, although I could be wrong in that assumption.) We completely understood why they would want to give their child to a couple who can't conceive. We were disappointed for ourselves, but happy for this other couple. And although I would have loved to adopt this baby boy, that wasn't the main reason I was discouraged. When I found out we were "competing" for this baby boy with a family that can't have biological children, I was very confused and felt like our adoption process had lost its original purpose.

When we decided God was leading us to adopt, we wanted to adopt where there was a true need for orphans to be adopted. That is the reason why we're adopting: we want to fulfill the Biblical command to take care of orphans and bring a child into our family who has no one else to care for him/her. That was our purpose (and still is!) in seeking to adopt a child. When we began this process, we were looking into adopting from Ethiopia or China until we heard of the need to adopt minority infants here in the U.S. We decided if there was such a need to adopt children right here in our very own state, we didn't have to travel elsewhere. So we began the adoption process, eagerly filled out our paperwork, completed our homestudy, and thought we would be bringing home a baby any day. We got two or three calls about potential adoptions before we were even done with our paperwork! Surely it wouldn't take very long before we got matched. Right?

Well... here we are seven months later and have not been matched with a child. Our adoption agency said they had a real dry spell over the summer with birthmothers placing their children for adoption, so we just thought that was the reason why our wait was taking a little longer. No big deal, we thought, this might just take a little longer than we had anticipated. We were very excited when this potential situation came up with this little boy a couple weeks ago, and really thought this might be the child God had for us. At the same time, we also knew it might not be God's will, so we tried to guard ourselves from getting too excited. But when we found out yesterday that the other family had been chosen because they don't have children, one phrase kept ringing through my mind, "Where's the need?"

I was discouraged and frustrated because I don't want to be "competing" for babies with families that can't have biological children. That is not why we signed up to adopt. We want to adopt so we can bring home a child that can't find a home, not a child that has families on a waiting list in order to bring him/her home. I just haven't seen the need to adopt minority children that we thought was there when we signed up for this process. With this news yesterday, I felt like our purpose in adopting had gotten off-track and wondered if we were really headed in the right direction.

Thankfully, my husband isn't quite as emotional as I am and he had a much more rational mind yesterday while I was dealing with all this discouragement and frustation. He assured me that he thinks we are still on the right track and that maybe this conference he is attending this weekend is yet another one of God's smiling providences on our situation. He was excited to talk to others from ministries such as the Micah Fund and ABBA Fund and get their insight into our situation. Although I was having my own doubts about our adoption process, I decided to trust Luke's leadership and judgment and wait and hear what he would learn at the conference.

This afternoon Luke called me between conference sessions and told me that he has been able to make some really good contacts with people from other adoption ministries. He has learned that there are certain areas in the country (mainly the South) where there really is a huge need for families to adopt minority children. He spoke with a woman from Georgia who said they rarely find families in Georgia to adopt their minority children, and that most of their children get adopted to families in Minnesota through the Micah Fund. I was excited to learn this; that this need we had been hearing about really does exist. I was also amazed, once again, at how God works things out. We found out we were not chosen for this other adoption about fifteen minutes before Luke left for this conference. If we had not had that experience, he wouldn't have been prompted to ask these questions of these other ministries. This was such a good reminder for me that God is in control of all this, and I need to not get so impatient and discouraged.

I'll get to talk to Luke more in-depth tonight (he only had a few minutes to talk when he called earlier) and get to hear more about what he has learned. I am so thankful the conference was scheduled this weekend, and that Luke has been encouraged and edified through it. I'm sure he'll have lots more to share when he gets home tomorrow.

So...what started out as a very discouraging weekend has been turned into an encouraging one for both of us. God is always faithful, and I'm learning to trust Him more and more through this adoption process. I know someday when we look back on this adoption process, we'll have an amazing story to tell of God's faithfulness and blessings in our lives.