Referral (Take 2)

What?  An actual post with adoption news?  We have adoption news?  Actual GOOD new?  Why yes, yes we do.  :)

We are happy to announce that a few weeks ago we accepted a referral for a 6 month old little boy from Ethiopia.  Of course, I can't post pictures here until we've passed court.  But let me tell you, friends, there are dimples involved.  :)  Just. Wow. Ridiculously cute.

We received our referral the day after my mother's surgery to remove a pituitary tumor.  I was spending the day in the surgical ICU with her when I got the call.  We opened our referral in the ICU waiting room at the hospital.  (We couldn't do it in the actual ICU because kids aren't allowed in there and we wanted Jena to be present when we opened it.)  My brother was in town for my mom's surgery so he was able to record it all for us, which was special.  And my sweet mother, in a lot of pain and discomfort after major surgery, was still able to "ooo" and "aww" at the precious little boy's face when I ran back into the ICU to show her.  :)  It was, like many of our experiences, imperfectly perfect.  And imperfectly perfect is what we do best.

There is a new game afoot in the Ethiopian adoption process.  They call it the PAIR process.  This essentially reverses the order in which documents move through the system.  (USCIS/embassy investigation first, then the Ethiopian courts.)  We are among the first families to attempt the PAIR process.  Therefore, no one really knows exactly what to expect as far as timelines.  Early estimates increased the wait time dramatically.  But recently it's looked a bit more hopeful.  We are submitting our PAIR documents today.  The first big step!  After that will be the birth parent or finder court date.  Then our adoptive parent court date when we will travel to Ethiopia see our little guy and appear in Ethiopian courts.  Last up is a second trip to Ethiopia to visit the US embassy and to bring him home.  So as you can see, we still have a lot of big hurdles.  We are likely still months away from our first trip.  But as always, we're hopeful.  

Some of you may be wondering what happened with the referral we've been waiting on for over a year.  Nothing happened with that referral...and that's the problem.  If you'll recall, we initially received two referrals.  We lost the first one 6 months later, you can read about that here.   The second one, was a matter of getting local court clearance.  This never happened.  Our agency lost confidence that this would be completed any time soon, or even that it would be completed at all.  We've asked them to let us know if this child ever becomes available for adoption with the release of the local clearance.  They've informed us that they don't expect that to happen for a year or years, if at all.  But they have agreed to inform us should that occur.  Through it all, we do have a peace about losing this child.  We continue to pray over him.  For his life, for his future, for his daily care.  We know his life story isn't over.

For now we're taking it one step at a time, praying that our PAIR documents move smoothly and quickly through our government, allowing for a smooth process through the Ethiopian courts. Feeling blessed and grateful as we move forward, we wait with bated breath on the edge of our seats to see what God will do next.  

Blessings & Curses

December was a month of things gone wrong.  Bad news was being hurtled at us from every direction.  Some of it public, some of it private, there were few that knew the extent of what we were dealing with.  Just after Christmas, a press conference took place in Ethiopia to address a politician's intent to end all international adoptions in Ethiopia.  It was at this point that I looked and Wes and said "OK.  I'm really starting to feel picked on."

In a moment of utter frustration I texted a friend to unload on her my "list".  It was the list of all the things that had gone wrong, all the fires I was working to put out, all the things that had me pulling my hair out going "enough already!".  A few more days went by, and a few more things went wrong.  While mentally adding these events to my growing list it occurred to me that I had been so focused on the little disasters...spending so much time taking inventory of the things gone wrong...that I was paying no attention to the things gone right.

So I turned my mental list into a physical list.  I wrote it all down.  Then I spent some time contemplating each situation, what could have been, and what comes next.  And then next to each item, I scribbled down the blessing.  In each situation, it was there...something to be thankful for.  And to my surprise, there it was...a brand new list!  A list of the ways that I had been blessed.  What a joy and wonder to discover that in this month where I had felt cursed, what I actually had been....was blessed.  When I felt abandoned and forgotten, I was cherished and remembered.  When I had felt lost and alone, I was actually found and held.  The things I had thought had come into my life in recent weeks to break my heart, were actually there to help heal it.  My life like a poorly healed fracture, there were ways that I needed to be broken anew in order to find true healing.

And now in this new year, a time for new beginnings.  Moving ahead.  Praying for meaningful movement in our adoption.  But remembering as we go, the many ways that we have been blessed.  That we are loved, and cherished, and remembered, and held.  That when we focus so deeply on the curses in our lives, we may actually miss the blessing.

I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. So choose life in order that you may live, you and your descendants.
Deuteronomy 30:19

Desert Days

Well, hello there blogosphere.  It's been awhile.  It is time, I guess, to get back to it.  If you could see my unpublished list of blog posts, you would know that I've tried (several times) to write, over the past couple of months.  There have been many half completed attempts, some now deleted, some sitting half finished and unpublished.  I just couldn't do it, I couldn't finish.  I couldn't do it because the very simple and honest truth is that I have been sad.  Is it ok to admit that here?  I hope so.  Sometimes it is easier to admit that you are struggling in retrospect.  After you've conquered it and moved on, to say "hey, I was struggling there, but good news!  I'm better now!"  Maybe I was waiting for that time to come, or maybe I was just operating under the whole "if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all" principle.  I don't know.  But either way, I'm working to write now in the hopes that organizing some of this on paper(well...computer screen?) will organize it in my head as well.

Our adoption these days is at a standstill.  To recap, we received referrals last November for two little boys, an infant and a 2 year old.  We lost the referral for the infant in May.  Our adoption of the two-year-old little boy is sadly stuck.  He is in need of a document from the local courts.  It is a document that they have repeatedly promised to release "next week", but so far have not done so.  He is from a particularly difficult region, where these documents are hard to come by.  And while we wait on the courts to process this document, he sits and waits in an orphanage, as far as we know, unaware of us or how desperately we want him.  This is frustrating, and infuriating, and heartbreaking.  The Ethiopian courts are currently closed for the rainy season.  They are expected to reopen in early October.   We realized this week that all our immigration paperwork on the US side will expire again in February, and that unless things begin to move fairly quickly, we will likely need to redo our paperwork/fingerprinting...again.  Sigh.  We have been sad, and frustrated, and feeling very much alone.  We've spent more than our fair share of time asking "why?".  I am on a ferris wheel of emotion that cycles between angry and sad and hopeful and resolved.  Then back to angry and they cycle begins once again.  I'm starting to realize that's just par for the course at this point, and working to find appropriate channels to funnel the negative emotions through when it is their time to come.

The good news is that in the midst of these dark desert days, there have actually been many moments of grace, and hope, and sparks of pure joy.  At times it has been hard to see them through the lens of sadness that darkens and distorts the vibrance of life.  But they have most definitely been there.  And these are the moments in these dry days of waiting that must be amplified.  Because in the silence, in the waiting, still we can know You are good.  So in that spirit, here are a few of the highlights of the past several months:

You might remember the twin teenage girls that lived with us this summer.  They had graduated from foster care and were in need of a home and some help finding jobs and permanent housing.   They spent their summer in our home, working toward these goals.  I'm so happy to report that the girls now have their own apartment.  They have held jobs these past three months and are working hard to build a home for the baby that one of them is about to give birth to.  (Any day now!!)  They have come so far.  We are crazy proud of them.  They still have many challenges ahead, but I'm confident that they will find their way.  It is truly exciting to see how God is moving in their lives.  They are family now, we love them.  We had lunch today at the restaurant where they work.  We overheard one of the twins tell another waitress "I'll take that table.  That's my family."  We love that.  And we feel so honored to be a part of their lives.
Here is a proud mama moment of the girls with their keys to their very first apartment on lease-signing day:

Shortly after we moved the girls into their apartment we went to visit family in New Jersey.  We had an amazing time.  Jena had missed her cousins like crazy, and the three of them were inseperable throughout the trip.  We had the best EVER Ethiopian food in Montclair (Mesob) and saw the sights in NYC.

We took a little road trip down to Guthrie, Oklahoma to meet up with my brother, Josh, and his wife, Anna, to attend the Gentlemen of the Road Stopover.  It was an amazing outdoor music festival in a hayfield in the small town of Guthrie.  (While Guthrie has a population of 10,000, there were 30,000 in attendance for GOTR, so the town was pretty much over-run with indie-loving music fanatics.)  Like most outdoor music festivals, attendance was a bit of an adventure in and of itself, with a sprinkling of some really great bands mixed in to add to the fun.  Anna and I are lovers of indie, so this concert was right up our alley.

The Stopover was headlined by one of my favorite bands, Mumford & Sons.  Their album, Babel, came out about the same time that we received our referrals last November.  On it was a song entitled "I will wait".  Yeah.  Can you think of a more appropriate adoption theme song for us?  Jena loves a good kitchen dance party to this song.  We have listened to and belted out this song on many occasions during the past 10 months.  We've sung it happy, we've sung it sad.  I've sung it alone in the car through gritted teeth and tears.  And on this night we got to sing it live with the band.

I will wait 

I will wait for you

Here's a sad, shaky little clip of it.  Ignore the "Woo's!"  I'm blaming those entirely on Anna.  :)

This past weekend we were able to attend an Ethiopian New Year Celebration here in Wichita.  They held it downtown at the beautiful Exploration Place.  We had a great time with some very kind Ethiopian families, and many of the families from our local Ethiopia adoption group.  They had a fashion show of Ethiopian clothing, traditional Ethiopian dancers, and delicious Ethiopian food.  It was really great, and really hard all at the same time.  I hadn't forseen how difficult it would be to be the only adoptive family there that was still in process.  While it was so fun to watch all those little Ethiopians running around, I have to admit that it was also painful.  We want our children home.  There were some tearful moments in the bathroom.  But there were also joyful moments, and in the end I'm glad we went.

So to finish out my long overdue blog post, I'd like to leave you with a song.  It is a song by Mumford & Sons called, The Ghosts that We Knew, that we had the pleasure of hearing live in Guthrie.  (You might need to be on a pc to view the video below).  This song is very personal to me.  It has been one of the most honest prayers of my broken heart these long months of waiting.   In those moments where the future seems uncertain, and the clouds of doubt and darkness threaten to block out the joy, there is this:  He has promised that We will be alright.  And we will, all of us, be alright...

So give me hope in the darkness, that I will see the light

Cause Oh it gave me such a fright.

And I will hold, as long as you like

Just promise me we'll be alright

Noonday

...and if you spend yourself on the behalf of the hungry 

and satisfy the needs of the oppressed,

then your light will rise in the darkness,

and your night will become like the Noonday.

Isaiah 58:10

This past weekend my sweet friend, Nikki, hosted a Noonday trunk show to support our adoption.  I've known about Noonday for awhile, it's pretty well known in international adoption circles.  In sharing in  my journey (and our mutual love of all things Jen Hatmaker) Nikki recently came across it too.  We'd both been drooling over their catalog for several weeks when Nikki decided that she wanted to host a trunk show.  When she learned that Noonday parties are often used to support adoptions (It's founder is an adoptive mother), she generously changed the focus of the party so that a portion of the proceeds support the Kirk Family adoption.  Nikki is my best friend from high school.  Ever the Lucy to my Ethel, we've found ourselves in a ridiculous number of very silly escapades.  Our husbands regularly eye roll at the things we cook up.  She is uniquely and unapologetically  "Nikki", there is no one like her, and I love her for that.  She is a champion of forgiveness, and a lover of the light.  I am better for knowing her.  

Holly, myself, & Nikki

The party itself was a lot of fun.  I was humbled by all the people who took time to support us by coming to the party or by ordering online. During the trunk show we heard about Noonday and their mission to partner with artisans in impoverished countries to provide a pathway out of poverty.  We met Holly, our Noonday Ambassador, and heard how she got involved with this company because of a desire to "do something" about extreme poverty and the orphan crisis.  (See that "Stuck" bracelet on her right hand in the photo?  It's the same one I wear everyday on my right hand.  It turns out we were at the same showing!  I love that she's still wearing it in support of families like us!)  We heard the stories of some of the lives that have been changed because of Noonday.  Obviously, I have an interest in Ethiopia.  I looked up the story of the Ethiopian artisans early on and instantly fell in love.  I had been telling this story to everyone I knew before the party, and it was this story that Holly chose to tell during the party.  For those who weren't there, or who haven't seen me lately, let me paraphrase it:

There is a mountain range in Ethiopia outside of the capital of Addis Ababa, called the Entoto Mountains.  There are streams that flow through these mountains that have long been thought to have healing properties.  Individuals with HIV/AIDS have, in desperation, flocked to these streams, outcast from family and friends, in a last ditch effort to achieve restoration and health.  A small group of people, recognizing the overwhelming need, created an outreach program in the Entoto mountains.  They created social programs to improve access to medications.  Through Noonday, they also created a way for these people to have a sustainable income.  Now here is the part of the story that I love.  They collect artillery shells from the local farmers scattered from old wars and conflicts.  They take these shells and melt them down to create beads for beautiful jewelry.  Just. Amazing.  From the ugliness of war to the beauty of a new life.  From the purpose of ending lives to the purpose of extending them through life giving HIV medication.  From destruction to salvation.  Redemption.  Beauty from Ashes.

I purchased a couple of these Ethiopian pieces for myself.  They will remind me of the beauty from ashes in my own life, of the miracle of God's redemption, and of the way he's taking this world and making beautiful things out of dust.

You can find out more about Noonday here. 


p.s.
On the adoption front, there isn't a lot to report.  We are still waiting for our local MOWA letter before we can move forward.  Our son is one of many waiting to have MOWA letters released from this area.  It is likely that our new infant referral will come from this group of children in the same orphanage in Awassa waiting for their paperwork.  So our new referral will probably come at the same time that we hear of progress on our older boy.  They continue to say any day now.  We've been hearing that for awhile.  Friends have been asking me how they can pray more specifically.  This week we've been praying that the local MOWA officials' hearts would be burdened with the task of releasing this group of children.  That they would feel intensely that it needs to be done.  That they would be haunted with urgency until the task is completed.  But until then...we continue to wait.

Harvest

It's harvest time in Kansas.  Usually we think of harvest and it's metaphors in the fall.  But Kansas is wheat country, and around here the big harvest is usually in June.  We live what I like to call "country adjacent."  Though we live in a suburban neighborhood, the wheat fields are all around us, and I've been trapped behind a slow moving combine plodding down the street in front of me on numerous occasions.  It is a part of the culture here.  When I worked in a medical clinic in a nearby rural Kansas town,our clinic appointments would come to a stand still during harvest.  We'd keep suture kits out and ready, because we'd see plenty of harvest injuries, but not much else.  Our local newspaper ran this  as the front page story this week.  They took photo submissions for collections titled "Wheat Harvests" and "Wheat Harvest Memories".  Harvest excitement is palpable.

photo credit: Kansas Ag Network

In the midst of this massive harvest going on around us, these two non-farmers are fumbling around trying desperately to plant some seed. Many of you know that about a month ago we moved two 18 year old young ladies (identical twin sisters) into our home.  They had been in foster care and had aged out.  Because of a complicated number of issues, they had become homeless, and the place that they had been temporarily staying was no longer appropriate.  So we heard their story one day, met them two days later, and they moved in two days after that.  Just like that.
How is it going, you ask?  Well...

Some days it looks like this:

I feel like I want to be John Stamos in this scenario. Just...don't ask.  It might have something to do with that feathered and fabulous hair.  :)

(As a side note, you should know that I can sing that entire theme song.  Actually, I can sing the theme song to most sitcoms.   I am somewhat of a sitcom theme song savant.  For real.  It's a gift.  Want some WKRP in Cinncinati?  BOOM...got it.  Want some Family Ties?  Sang it to my husband yesterday.  Want the theme song to the original Bob Newhart show?  Well, there aren't words to that, but I can hum it to you.  But I digress...)  :)




Some days recently it has felt more like this:

I'm obviously Tom Cruise in this scenario.  You know...the one hanging on by "a very thin thread."




And in rare but frustrating instances it has looked more like this:

Not sure which one of the nameless fighters I am in the scenario.  But I know I'm not Chuck Norris.  There's only one Chuck Norris.  Chuck Norris doesn't wear a watch.  HE decides what time it is.  And Chuck Norris died 20 years ago; death just hasn't had the courage to tell him yet.  Chuck Norris counted to infinity...twice.  Chuck Norris took out two stones with one bird.   :)  Ok, enough with the Chuck Norris jokes.  :)



My point is that the girls aren't perfect.  And neither am I.  So we fumble through together some times.  If I'm not careful, I'm tempted to compare who I was at 18, and the decisions I made at 18, to the girls and their choices. But this is incredibly unfair.  Our life experiences to that point were night and day different.  A more fair comparison would be to imagine what I would have been like at 18 had I been through what they have.  I'm quite sure I would not have fared so well.

On those occasions where they make progress, I'm crazy proud of them.  And they ARE making progress.  Bonds of trust and friendship are slow to form, but we are finding our way.  I try to make a point of telling them that I believe in them, on good days as well as tough days.  Because I DO believe in them.  And it's important that they know someone does.  Every day.  No matter what their actions and attitudes are.  Before you give me too much credit here, you should also know that my attitude isn't always what it should be.  I get frustrated, and anxious, and angry more than I should.  But we're all working through it together.

I once read a quote that said,
"You come to find love not by finding the perfect person, but by seeing an imperfect person perfectly."

We are all sadly imperfect, but working hard to see each other through the eyes of grace.    


Farmers will tell you that a wet and messy spring brings about a fruitful summer.  Well, my spring was certainly wet and messy, as we lost the referral for a child that we'd spent 7 months thinking was going be ours.  But now,  as we work to plant our metaphorical seed the best way we know how, we look ahead with excitement to the promise of harvest.




p.s.  If you are looking for an adoption update...so are we.  Sadly no movement in our case.  We are perpetually told "next week".  It's going to be done "next week".  Always, "next week."  Eventually one of these "next weeks" it has to happen, right?  I sure hope so.  

The hard one to write

I've sat down to write this blog at least four times in the past week.  Each time, I've closed it out and walked away.  Not for the reasons you might think.  This is a sad segment of our adoption journey, and we have a lot of complicated feelings about it.  But being overcome with emotion was not the reason.  Sometimes you just get worn out by your own drama.  Sometimes you get tired of telling the story of one more way things fell apart.  The truth is that among the many things I'm feeling right now, the one thing inside my head that's shouting at me the loudest is this:  I'm exhausted.  Emotionally, mentally, spiritually, even physically, just beat.  But since this is an effort to document the good, the bad, the exasperating, of our true story, here it is:  The story of how we lost our referral for our infant boy.

We were on our way last week to our first Wichita Ethiopia Families get-together when we stopped to grab some food.  I checked my email from my phone as we waited in the drive-through line.  (If you've been around me in the past 6 months, you know that I am obsessive about checking my email.  This is because updates can come at any time, day or night, and I'm always so anxious for updates.)  In my inbox I found an email that said "Updates".  When I opened it I was shocked to find an email from our local coordinator, and also the director of the agency letting us know that we had now lost the referral for the younger boy.  He was no longer adoptable.  (The reasons he is no longer adoptable are another sad story.  One we are praying will eventually have a happy ending.  I'm not sure if it's appropriate to share those details here.)  In my shock I blurted it out to Wes in the seat next to me, not even thinking about the 6 year old little girl behind me in the car, who heard the statement as well.   And as Wes and I sat there open-mouthed in a state of shock, it was Jena's heart that immediately began to grieve.  The tears came quickly.

And then we didn't know what to do.  Do we continue on to this adoption get-together?  Meet all these new people for the first time with red eyes and tear stains?  Do we bring Jena along in this, or go home and try to re-group?  In the end we decided that if there was anyone in the world that would understand our complicated feelings, it was this group of Ethiopia adoption families.  There were to be quite a few other kids there, and nothing cheers the heart of an only-child faster than a big group of children.  So we continued on, having learned this new information just 10 minutes before we arrived at a party to celebrate Ethiopian adoption.  And it was a good decision.  Women I barely knew, and some that I had just met, held me and hugged me when I broke down trying to relay the story.  There was an understanding that existed there that we wouldn't have gotten anywhere else.  And Jena did have a wonderful time.  She made many new friends, and was quickly cheered by all the company.

We revisited the subject, briefly, again at bedtime prayers.  The tears began to flow once again.  She asked us not to take down any of the pictures of him that we have around our house.  "I want to be able to remember him", she told us.  I'm thankful for her sensitive heart that can so furiously grieve the loss of a brother half a world away, who doesn't look like her, or know she exists, and who, in fact, she's never even met.   There will be a time for acceptance, and that time hasn't come yet for her.  But grief is a process, and I know it will take her some time.

For Wes and I, I can tell you that the emotion of the ordeal is a lot like the emotion of a miscarriage.  It's grieving that unrealized potential.  It's being so close to having something, dreaming about it, planning for it, and then watching it all slip right through your fingers.  Except that I don't have the closure of a change in my body.  With one email, that's it, he's gone.

Our agency plans to eventually provide us with a new infant referral.  I think we want that, but it is really hard to wrap our minds around right now.  We've spent the past 6 months falling in love with this little boy.  He feels irreplaceable.  He IS irreplaceable.

Further complicating our feelings is the fact that we don't feel great about the way in which we lost the referral.   We know that this child's future is uncertain, and he is a little boy that the three of us will wonder about for the rest of our lives.  I've made attempts through a couple of different avenues to see if there is any way that we can help to improve his situation as he remains in Ethiopia, so far with little success.  The increased scrutiny on International Adoptions makes any contact on our part with him or his family grey area at best.

So this is where the self-doubt could set in.  This entire process has been an uphill battle for us.  Nothing so far has fallen perfectly into place.  If we aren't careful, we start to wonder if we've misunderstood the calling.  Is this what you want from us, God?  Why is it so hard?  So painful?

In these times of questions, when answers seem scarce the thing that I'm learning will heal me, the thing that seems vital, is to give thanks.  Because "Eucharisteo always, always, precedes the miracle." (Thanks Ann.)  So in that spirit, here are some things we are thankful for:

First:  Because of our ultimately failed attempt to adopt him, this child has spent a good part of his early life in one of the best facilities for orphans in Ethiopia, our agency's foster care.  (Seriously, I keep hearing how quality it is, and how amazing the nannies are.)  Away from parents, he wouldn't have gotten that kind of care anywhere else.  

Next:  I'm thankful that this child now has a group of people in America who will be praying for him and thinking about him for years to come.  This is a child that Wes, Jena and I will wonder about, think about, and pray for the rest of our lives.  In fact, the Kirk/Randels/Eddleman families will continue to think about and pray for this child.

Next: I'm thankful that God can redeem the sad and uncertain parts of this child's future.  I'm believing for him that this will happen. 

Next: I'm thankful that my daughter has the capacity for a giant kind of love that stretches across continents, and cultures, and colors of skin.  I'm thankful that she was so capable of this big love, that she now grieves his loss, as we all do.

Next: I'm thankful for an amazing support system of family, old friends, and new friends.  I'm thankful for a well-timed visit from one of my closest friends, the one who understands failed adoptions, and the longing for motherhood...because she's lived it too.  I'm thankful for a new friend who is forging this messy uncharted territory of international adoption with me, and the ways that feeling like you aren't doing it alone seems to make such a difference.    

Lastly: I'm thankful for the peace that's washing over us.  That when friends ask us how we're coping, I can say: "We are processing, but (emphatically) we are ok."


And so giving thanks for these many blessings, we press on.

Watch your back, Spielberg

We had a great time hosting the showing of the documentary "Stuck" this weekend.  Some great friends and family came out and gave up their Friday night to watch it.  We are well aware that most who came were there as a sign of support and solidarity to us personally, and we just can't tell you how much that means to us.  Before the showing of the film, we played this little mini-movie about us which we made this week.  It tells a little of our story.  My public, (i.e. my grandma) has been asking to see it, so here it is.  :)

No new updates on the boys.  It's been about 10 weeks since we've seen anything on the baby.  We were supposed to have some movement last week on the older boy, but haven't heard yet if that happened or not. Since no news has generally meant bad news, I'm guessing not.  Praying for good news and updates for both this week...