The Lord never said it would be easy. John 16:33 says, "I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world." Jesus told us we would face trials. He never said it would be easy.
When we talked about starting the adoption process we knew it wouldn’t be easy. Niel and I knew we were being called to adopt. He never said it would be easy...
It was part of our original plan. Have one biological child and then adopt. So many children need a family. We knew we wanted more than one child. We started talking about it again in December. We were thinking we would adopt here in Hong Kong. We were told the process wasn’t that difficult and since we are residents here, it wouldn’t cost a lot either. After a phone call to the Social Welfare Department we knew we did not qualify. We did not make enough money. The door seemed closed to us.
When asked what one thing I was hoping would happen for this year that I would need His supernatural enabling, I said “adoption.” The doors seemed to be closed and we needed Him to open them.
We started to look into international adoption from China. We thought we didn’t qualify for that either since we didn’t own a home. A friend of ours recommended an agency and I sent off an email asking if we qualified. To our surprise we did. We knew that most of the kids being adopted from China had special needs. We were very open to this.
After our initial inquiries to the agency, we joined their waiting child Facebook page. We looked at many pictures and read stories of the children with special needs from China that needed a home. Many of these children moved us and I would pray that their Dads and Moms would find them.
Then a little two year old boy popped off the screen. I saw his smile and large forehead and it reminded me of Ellis. I knew there was something different about this boy. I was drawn to him. I showed him to Niel. In fact, I showed him to Niel for many days after this. We started to talk about whether or not we could handle this boy's special needs. It was a need that we knew so little about. We began to read about it online.
When we sent in the application to start the process, I did it with this little boy in mind. After we sent in the application fee, we asked to see his file. We sent it to doctor and nurse practitioner friends of ours to have the medical portion reviewed. The agency had had this boy's file for a long time and no one seemed interested. We did not think we had to make a quick decision. We wanted to make sure we were prepared and could give this boy the care that he would need.
To make a long story short, last Friday we woke and and there was an email from our agency stating that another family had sent in the paperwork to lock in this little boy. They had reviewed his file months ago and decided that day to pursue him. We were told that there was nothing we could do because they were further along in the adoption process.
Niel and I were both shocked. We were just waiting to talk to our social worker before deciding to commit to him. We had scheduled to talk to her that morning. It was too late. I cried... a lot!
We did talk to our social worker that day. She said that a mistake had happened and that someone at the agency had thought that we were no longer interested in this boy. We had never said that, in fact we had written just the opposite so were surprised by this. Our social worker apologized on behalf of the agency and said that if we were still interested in him, we could write a letter and it would be taken before a committee to see whether being placed with the other family or being placed with us would be the best for this little boy.
We did write the letter. Our social worker (who has been wonderful through all this) wrote a letter advocating for us as well. We had already opened our hearts to this little boy. We knew that no matter what his special needs were, we would be able to give him the care that he needed. After all, we already saw him as a Haggmark. We knew we had to go for it...
Friday night we did not sleep. The committee was meeting on Friday U.S. time and they would decide one way or another. They met for hours and had questions to ask the other family. No decision was made that day as they waited their answers.
We waited all weekend long. Amazingly the Lord gave me a verse. “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit,” Romans 15:13. He did give us a peace and joy as we trusted in Him over the weekend.
Monday night we did not sleep again. I kept checking my phone to see if we had news. Eventually it came. They thought both families would be a good placement for him and since the other family was further along in the process, they placed him with them. Our hearts broke.
The Lord never said it would be easy. Our hearts are broken. We are grieving. It may seem strange to some that we could grieve something we never had. We do. We saw him as our son. The Romans verse still applies. We long to overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. It would be easy to lose hope, to say it is too hard, to give up. Thankfully we have His help, the very One who overcame the world.
Please pray that He would give us joy and peace right now. Pray that we would be able to grieve this loss. Pray that our hearts would stay soft to Him in this process. Pray that we would be able to forgive. Pray for us over this next year as we continue on this difficult adoption journey.
