11 years ago today...In the Beginning Part 2

For those who were not happy about my "to be continued" to In the Beginning, I am sorry!  I didn't intend to make you wait this long, but time just isn't my friend in this season, so this morning was my first time to really have time to sit down and finish the story!  And what a perfect day to finish it as it happened 11 years ago today!

Eleven years ago today I would hear words that would change my life forever!  It is one of the few snap shot memories I have in my life, but I can picture the room and see everything in it like it was yesterday.  We had just finished leading the youth and had our car loaded up ready to head back home to Odessa to spend the week with my parents before we jumped on a plane for a week long vacation on the beach between Galveston and Houston.  This was a vacation we had planned back in November.  This is a crucial detail of God's timing and sovereignty that even 11 years later makes me smile!  Debbie, my friend I described in part 1, always kept Callie while we did youth events.  It was her service to us.  It was a huge blessing and became a huge lesson in my life of how to allow others to serve you as you serve in your role or capacity.  I had protested at first when she offered because it was too big of an inconvenience.  She finally sat me down one day and explained that I was keeping her from a blessing by not allowing her to do what God asked of her to help us in our ministry.  She didn't say it, but God did...pride was keeping me from accepting her help.  That lesson has been invaluable to me in the years since.  Especially now when life is so chaotic that at times I would not make it without the assistance of my amazing friends who step in to watch a child while I go to a meeting or while John and I escape for a weekend!  Back to the story.....

We were done with youth and were picking up Callie from Debbie's in order to jump in the car and leave for our three week vacation.  When I walked in, Debbie was sitting in her rocking chair rocking Callie.  She smiled at me and asked, "how is the adoption going?" My response was less than energetic!  I explained my frustration with such a strong feeling that we needed to do something but at the same time having no direction.  She smiled and spoke words that would change my life forever! She said, "I know of a little black boy who is due July 21 and needs a family!"  I just laughed.  It was the only response I had.  Then John walked into the room. I asked Debbie to tell John what she just told me to which she declined!  Debbie was a teacher, and John was her principal. Debbie knew John wasn't exactly thrilled with the idea of adopting right now.  She wasn't going to be the one to deliver the news!  It still makes me laugh thinking about her response!  But we did fill John in on the secret and he just kind of shook his head.

We got in the car and headed out for the little over two hour drive to my parents.  On the way there, we talked about the possibility.  We really didn't have much information.  We decided we wanted to find out more and agreed that it would be good to talk to Debbie's sister who was the person who told Debbie about the baby.  Debbie's sister worked at a mission.  Noah's mom was going to the mission for services.  When we look back over the story, we both marvel at the fact that calling Debbie's sister is the only conscious decision we made.  Everything else just "happened" as we walked in obedience taking one step after another until we were walking out of a hospital with a beautiful baby boy!

We discovered from Debbie's sister that the baby had been exposed to drugs throughout the entire pregnancy.  She also shared that the birth father was unknown for sure.  There were several possibilities, but the mother was pretty sure the father was African American.  However as we learned more about the story, we knew there as no way she knew who the father was.  That was even more evident when Noah was born!  We also learned that the birth mother was bi-racial.  Her mother was Caucasian and her father was African American.  If the father was also African American, we knew we would be introducing our families to their first member with dark skin!  We didn't figure they would be thrilled about this idea.

I don't remember having lots of doubts.  We prayed about every step!  We didn't tell my parents because I knew it would be a battle with lots of questions and frustrations on both sides.  I wanted to avoid that if it turned out the situation didn't work out.  We were told there was possibly one other family considering adopting the baby.  It was not a for sure thing.....as we all know no adoption is, but this was our first experience and we were very naive about a lot of it!  We would find an excuse to leave the house and make phone calls to the mission director to gain a little more information.  During these conversations we learned that she was hesitant let a white family adopt her baby. Her mother had raised her, but according to what we had been told, she didn't feel like her mother had accepted her African American side.  She was afraid a white family would do the same for her baby.  I have to say that made me really angry.  Here was a woman who was doing drugs while she was pregnant, and she didn't know if I was good enough to be a mother to her baby because I was white?!  Don't worry, before this story ends, God would get a hold of me for my arrogance!  We spent that week trying to discover what we needed to do in order to pursue the adoption of this baby.  We talked to an attorney who explained the process of a private adoption to us.

As God would have it, we were set to fly into an airport that following Friday that was only an hours drive from the birth mother's town.  The mission director agreed to drive her to us, and we made arrangements to meet for dinner.  With what we had heard throughout the week, I was very nervous to meet her.  In fact, I told John, "I am not going to say much or we will never adopt this baby!" I was really angry about some of the things I had heard.  I didn't want that anger at the birth mom to come across as we talked.  We walked into Olive Garden.  We found the mission director who said the birth mom was in the bathroom.  When she walked out, my heart sank.  She was beautiful, but the effects of her difficult life were all over her face.  She was a small woman with a precious baby belly!  A belly carrying what was possibly my son.  But when I introduced myself to her and shook her hand, it was shaking.  This young woman was scared to death. Immediately all my judgement of her washed away!  Before me stood a woman who was in a place in life I could not even imagine standing.  Yes, some of it was because of her own choices, but those choices were made primarily because of the life she had lived as the child of a drug addict living on the streets.  God would speak to me then and many more times throughout the evening about my view of this situation.  He kept reminding me that I looked at all this very differently through my middle class raised, educated eyes.  If I had lived her life, I would see things in a much different way....they way she was seeing them.  And then the lesson that has repeated itself through all my ministry, but by the grace of God would it be me in her shoes too!  I did nothing to deserve being born into a middle class, Christian family who loved me and provided me with all the opportunities I could possibly want!  We all sat down and began with awkward small talk.  But over the course of the next two hours, we would learn much about her life.  This was her 6th pregnancy and she was only 26.  She had placed two others for adoption, but the other babies were not so lucky.  She had 3 abortions.  We would later learn that she had planned to abort this baby as well, but her mother had just accepted Christ and talked her out of it. My gratitude for that can't be put into words! After a couple of hours, John just came out and said, "We would really like to adopt your baby if you are ok with that."  She agreed that after meeting us, she felt we were the right family for her baby boy.  She also shared that she had dropped and was beginning to have contractions.  This put us in a pretty weird place!  If she delivered the baby that week, we would get off the plane when my parents picked me up with one more child than we had left with!  And they knew nothing about any of this at this point.


I made a decision to call them and let them know all that was happening......


More to come!  I promise before long! 

In the beginning.....

The reason you have so many blog posts tonight is I can't sleep!  I have spent my time with Jesus to make sure there are no issues to deal with causing my sleeplessness.  I don't want to work...so I'm blogging! But the fact is, 11 years ago right now, I was probably not sleeping either!  But instead of blogging, I was probably looking at photo listings of children in orphanages around the world and crying over each one as I read their circumstances.  Or I was reading posts on African American hair care because we were kicking around the idea of adopting from Haiti - not because we had sought that out, but it was the only thing we thought we could afford.

It was the beginning of a journey so much larger than I could ever have imagined back then!  If you would have told me then what the next 11 years would look like, I would have dropped right then of a hart attack!  It's why God doesn't let us see the future, I am quite certain!

As I have pondered that beginning over the past months, I realized I have never really told that story in my blog.  So here goes!

Around May of 2001, God put adoption on my heart in a way that literally consumed me in a way nothing had before or has since!  I literally could not eat or sleep for the need to learn more about adoption.  Callie was probably neglected (at least in my terms of the attention a 15-18 month old should receive) for that time.  John and I would talk.  I would share with him that I was certain God was asking us to do something, but I didn't know what!  We had talked about adoption almost from the first date, I think.  We both wanted to adopt at some point, but had planned to have our children we wanted biologically first and then adopt, you know, because at the ripe age of 27, I wasn't getting any younger and needed to birth babies while I was still young.  Ha!  God proved what he thought of that! But John was still trying to adjust to having Callie.  He truly didn't know if he ever wanted any more children - adopted or birthed.  God proved what he thought of that, too! :)

John would come home from work and I would be sobbing over photos.  He would look at me trying to understand, but really just thinking I had lost my mind and wondering if the professionals needed to be called in, I am sure!  I remember one conversation when he came home one day for lunch after I had been reading profile after profile of children needing homes.  I said something like how can you look at these faces and not know that we need to adopt?  I don't remember what he said, but my response was, "you mean everyone who looks at these pictures doesn't feel the way I do?" He assured me that he  they did not! I guess that was my first glance into adoption as a calling on my life...I just didn't know it yet!

We would pray about what we should do.  And we would decide we would have another baby then adopt after that.  Great! That's settled!  Then we would go to bed - and I would toss and turn and feel an uneasiness.  Let me interject here that at this point in my spiritual journey I was just beginning to understand that Christianity meant more than just accepting Jesus as Lord and knowing you would go to heaven when you died.  God was taking me on a journey of learning who He is - a journey into the joy of intimate relationship with Him!  A journey I am still taking!  But my ability to "hear" God was almost non-existent at the time.  It was more peace versus unrest that guided me through this process.

Through all the tossing and turning and hours and hours on the internet, I discovered much about adoption that now amazes people.  First of all, the cps system assured me no children under the age of 5 would be available because they hardly ever had cases before they went into school or they were in sibling groups with school aged kids.  So that was out since we had a one year old and were not going to disrupt birth order! And once again God would prove what he thought of that too!  Also, would this be a good time to mention that in my family planning, I would NEVER have a need of a double stroller because all my children would be at least three years apart.  Anything closer would be radically unfair to the children. You can stop laughing now!  

Another fact about adoption at the time is that you had to prove infertility with many adoption agencies to even apply for their adoption programs.  Yes, that was only 11 years ago!  We weren't infertile!  At least we didn't think we were....we hadn't tried!  We just felt a tug that God had a child we needed to find to bring into our family.  Through my calling and researching, God would take me on, in hindsight, an amazing journey of facts and information that perfectly prepared us for Noah!  I literally marvel even 11 years later at how he mapped out those events in those three months.

We had finally settled on adopting from Haiti so that we would start the process January 2002 in order to bring home a baby around the first of the year 2003 (yes, Callie would be three in January...remember - no double strollers, children at least three years apart!).  I had joined a yahoo group (do those even exist anymore?!) for families adopting from Haiti.  I was soaking in all that I could from these families who had walked the journey.  I was so excited.  Looking back, I don't really remember the struggle to get to where we were ok with adopting a black child.  I knew from early on I wanted children from every continent (sorry, I know that is offensive to many adoptive parents...I promise, I mean it with a most sincere heart!), so it really wasn't an issue for me.  We did know it would be a stretch for our families as well as for the very small, very West Texas farming community we lived in.  John was the principal and we were the volunteer youth leaders for a very traditional southern Baptist church. So I really talked to no one, literally not another human being except John about the whole thing....initially!  It was lonely and overwhelming!  That is why I have such a passion for walking with people through the adoption process!  I have not forgotten those early days of gathering information.  I was so tired of people telling me to read their pamphlet or look at their website.  I wanted a voice!  I wanted another human, flesh and blood being to flesh out what I was thinking and answer the questions that raced through my mind almost faster than I could get them out.  

Through the Haitian adoption yahoo group, I met a lady who probably never knew the impact she had on our journey.  She sent me an e-mail one day and said she had read a comment I made about how we were not interested in the typical Caucasian baby girl that so many were seeking since we could have biological children.  (I don't know if this is still true, but then, typically, baby boys waited longer in orphanages than girls because people requested girls almost 2 to 1 over boys).  She asked if we had considered adopting domestically since African American boys in Texas were the hardest to place babies.  Well, we hadn't really thought of it for a lot of reason.  First, we were scared of the horror stories of biological families coming back and gaining custody of children who had been adopted.  Second, we thought international adoptions were safer...go ahead, you say it this time..God proved what He thought of that!  But most importantly, we didn't have any money.  But her comment intrigued me.  I have no idea where she got her information, so don't quote this as gospel, but she told me that at that time, the majority of African American babies in America were being adopted in Canada because white families in America would not adopt them.  I was mortified!  Not that Canadians are bad, but the fact that Americans would not be willing to adopt these babies when so many people were wanting to adopt simply because of their skin color made me furious.  So I started researching domestic agencies.  I printed the list of adoption agencies in Texas to begin my phone calls, and I lost count of the pages that printed!  I was overwhelmed!  But I began a the top and started calling.  I quickly found that most agencies had reduced fees for African American or bi-racial children.  I can't even begin to tell you how even now that makes me angry.  An African American baby's life is just as valuable as any Caucasian!  And if you can process an African American adoption for that fee, you can process that Caucasian adoption for the same fee..stepping down off my soap box!  But even the reduced fees were more than we could possibly afford.  And one other major difference in adoptions then, no one loaned you money or raised money for adoptions!  At least not anyone in any of our circles!  

In all my calling there was one conversation in particular that was an annoyance at the time, but God would use in a mighty way later!  One lady I spoke with at one of the agencies started telling me her personal story.  I don't mean to be rude, but it didn't apply to me!  She had given me the information I needed about her agency, and I already knew for reasons I can't remember that it was not a good fit for us.  I just wanted to get off the phone so I could call the other million agencies on my list to be told to look at the website that I had already looked at and found to be totally useless for the information I was seeking!  But she kept talking.  She told me about the daughter they had adopted from the foster system who had been drug exposed and had withdraws for the first few weeks.  Let me stop here and say, we had our "list"!  And her story was totally irrelevant for three reasons on that list!  One, we weren't going through the foster system because we had been told you couldn't find babies to just adopt and I could never foster or adopt older children (yes, God would prove what He thought of that also....seeing a pattern here?!).  Two, she said drug exposure.  We were not doing drug or alcohol exposure.  Period.  Three, her baby had an unknown father! Nope! Too risky!  But she told me her story anyway, and I did have enough tack to not hang up on her, so I heard her out.  She made a statement that would later be a game changer.  She said, "do not let drugs scare you! If you remove a child from the environment where they were exposed to drugs and intervene, then drug exposure doesn't have to mean life long consequences."  Her daughter was two at the time of our phone conversation.

So back and forth we would continue to go with our "planning".  Still researching domestic adoption, but really not finding any realistic options with fees still being $20K plus even with it reduced for African American programs and many agencies requiring infertility...yet I didn't really have peace about Haiti either..and John still wasn't sure he wanted another baby period!

At some point in my insanity I did share my struggle with a dear friend, Debbie.  She was a widow left to raise 4 children when her husband who had been the pastor of the church there had died of brain cancer.  Her oldest daughter had become and to this day still is like a sister I never had!  They lived in what was once a Church of Christ church, and we live in the parsonage across the "parking lot"...remember I said a very small farming community! She was the only person I knew at that time that I knew wouldn't think I was certifiably in sane for starting a sentence with, "I think God is telling me...."  I'm not saying there were not other people in that community that believed in the power of the Holy Spirit to "speak" into your life, I am just saying I hadn't heard them talk about it! We had already caused some ripples because we played the music with the youth on Wednesday nights really loudly and we played contemporary music...I sure didn't want word to get out that I was hearing voices!  

to be continued.......

Heck of a week!

So after Ava's MRI on Monday, we went to Crane to be with family because John's Aunt Linda passed away. While we were there, Noah tripped over Toben and broke his right arm...two bones, totally bowed....went to the Crane ER..made John promise me to NEVER take me there if I am really sick!

Friday we put our second child under anesthesia in one week...doc was able to set it without cutting it open. Thank You, Jesus! So now we are in a cast and have to go have it checked next week.

In case you are counting that is three broken arms in the P-tree family in about 8 months..Ava, Callie and now Noah. I'm pretty well done with broken arms! The orthopedic doctor should NOT be programmed into your phone!

I love this boy!

I had one of those wonderful moments with Noah last night where I want to stop time! Callie was spending the night at a friend's house, so we let Noah stay up late. Little ones were in bed, John was watching TV in our room, and I was laying on the couch watching the DVR of the final Batchelorette. Noah would come in off and on to cuddle with me. During a couple of those cuddle sessions, this is was the conversation:

Noah: "So when I am 77, how old will you be? (NO pause here) Oh, yeah, you will be dead."

Me: "Thanks, buddy!"

Second conversation occurred after the poor Bachelor that wasn't picked was giving his speech in the limo as it takes him to the airport. He is looking at the ring he didn't get to put on Jillian's finger....

Noah: "Did she tell him no?"

Me: "Yep, he got turned down."

Noah: "Well, I would take the ring back and get my $100 back!"

Is this a sign...

....that we have lost control??!!!

I promise he has not seen this around here! :)
And here is the fact that hit the tree!

My Noah

There have been so many things lately that have reminded me of what I would have missed had fear of unknowns and fears of people's reactions kept us from taking in a little boy 7 years ago!

Callie has always been a VERY spiritually in tune little girl....very serious and deep! But Noah, "he is take is for what it is" man! He has made several comments lately that just make me know for sure why God says we should come to him with the faith of a child!

He played football for the first time this year! He loved it! On his last game there was a huge rainbow in the sky. When Noah got in the car after his game, he said to John's dad, "Granddad, do you know why that rainbow is there?" Granddad: "No, why?!" Noah: "Because God missed my first game, and he wasn't going to miss the last one!" How priceless is that? At 7 years old, he takes God so personally! There were 6 football games going on, but that rainbow was there for HIM! :) I pray he never loses that!

Then on Monday when I took Callie and Noah to school, we were talking about how this is the first year that they both go to school as believers. God gave me the verse for them for this year out of Matthew 5. I was loosely quoting it saying that God calls us to be a light on the hill for the world, to be salt and light so that the world can see our works and glorify God in heaven. This little voice from the back seat interrupts me and says, "Mom, Can I be the light?" Mom: "Well, God says we have to be both salt and light." Noah: "Thank you, Jesus, that I get to be light!"

Then last night we were coming home from a friend's house who has a Wii. Noah says he asked "him" for a Wii, xbox 360, and a few more things I didn't have a clue what were. I asked him who he asked for those...he said he asked Jesus to tell Santa! Maybe there is a little issue that he thinks God talks to Santa for some who don't "do" Santa, but just the fact that he would be asking Jesus for his desires makes my heart sing!

What a joy it is to watch my children grow in their love of the Lord and take Him at his Word! I learn so many spiritual truths from my children! I guess that is why I would love to have more! :) Hint, hint, John! hee! hee!

Was I in an orphanage? Part 2

Well, Noah didn't forget about the pictures and yesterday, with John and I, he saw his sweet bio mother's face for the first time. He teared up and got sad because he says he misses her so much. I of course became defensive! I hate that feeling! I am an adult! Why does a child's emotions about a mother who gave him life bring that out in me?! Anyway, John, the ever loving, non-emotional man that he is, offered to put the picture in a frame in his room. What?!!!! You want to put the 'nother mother in his room?! I wanted to deck him! Ok, I will admit John had the "right" response, but I still wanted to deck him! Luckily, God was gracious to me even in my jealousy and Noah just said he wanted the pictures in his baby scrapbook that he LOVES to look at so tha the can see them when he wants to! Ok, now I feel better! :)

It is crazy that I would get so defensive. But he is MINE! I am the one who has had to deal with the anger, who wipes the hiny and the tears! I am the one who has to explain why he is living with us instead of the mother who grew him in her tummy. I have to say that I used to have no sympathy for bio mothers. I know it sounds like I still don't! That is not true. Just a mommy trying to deal with a sons questions that bring up fears and scary thoughts of life later. Just dealing with my own insecurities as a mommy (thank you all for your kind comments in part one of this post!).

Honestly, God taught me so much when I met NOah's birth mom. There were some things that made me really dread meeting her. But when I met her, I was overcome with love and compassion! Here sat a woman who lived life the only way she knew how. God taught me so much in that moment about my world! It was the beginning of lessons I would need to work in Liberia, West Africa. I cannot look at everyone through the eyes of my middle class, white, American world. No, the choices this young lady made did not make sense to me. But as I sat adn visited with her, I realized that in her world, they made perfect sense! They were all she knew!

So the pictures will go in the Scrapbook and Noah will know that a precious young mother mad the most selfless decision she could ever make and gave him a life that she could not. He will know that God ordained him for our family and we are so thankful. We pray for his mother. We will always pray for her. And one day, if Noah feels the need to know her, I will stand beside him as we find her and welcome her into our family as God welcomed me into His!