Suffering Gives Way to Compassion and the Search for Justice

For just as the sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives, so also through Christ our comfort overflows. 2 Corinthians 1:5

I began working in orphan care and adoption before I was ever married.  And although my motivation for joining this kind of work was based primarily on a general sense that God was calling me into it and secondarily based on my interactions with street children in Russian and Brazil as a college student, I was not motivated by something as personal as having adopted a child into my own family as so many others are.  

Actually when I was single and working at the adoption agency, I had talked to so many families struggling thru the pain and loss of hope that comes with miscarriage, infertility, or death of a live child, that I had started to become convinced that suffering in childbearing was more the norm than actually being able to conceive a child that would live.  I had also become pretty convinced that the best cure for infertility was adoption because so many of the people with whom we worked would in fact conceived just after committing to adopting or after having brought their adopted child home. It seemed to me as if God was "holding out" on placing a child in their womb, out of love for a child who was waiting for them somewhere else in the world. I used to actually picture orphans around the world praying that God would make room in families for them and then I would picture God trying to console these couples struggling with childbearing with the idea that God was seeking to use them as an answer and fulfillment to the hope and prayers of these little children.  He wasn't trying to take their hopes of children away, but rather send them on another path to receiving them. No matter how skewed from reality this perspective may have been or still may be, I have found myself very grateful to have had it because when I had my first miscarriage I knew that I was not alone an that there is more than one way to build a beautiful family. Although it didn't make take the pain of the loss of my first daughter less at the time of the loss, it did lessen the pain of feeling as the only one who'd lost the hope of having a child and helped in the area of hope.  And it also caused me to go immediately to God and ask if He now planned a child through adoption to be placed in that place and to make me completely open if He had. Scott and I have told the Lord over and over again, "We are willing, please lead us."

What we had not anticipated was that after our second loss, the death of Isabella, that God would call us to care for and work most diligently on behalf of children in countries where adoption is not working well and where there are long lines of legitimate families waiting to receive referrals for children.  The first was when He sent us to China back in May and now the second is this trip here to Central America. When I was first asked to go on this trip to El Salvador and Honduras, I had a number of reservations.  But most of these reservations stemmed from the issue of having lost my precious isabella and the heartache which would inevitably come in holding abandoned babies and knowing that apart from "working"the system I had come to try and fix, I would not be able to adopt any of these children.  Knowing that these two countries in a practical sense are not really open to adoption, I was certain it would be a little bit more difficult for me on a personal level to be with these babies. And it was!

There are over 400 foreign families in El Salvador whose dossiers are waiting at the central authority to adopt children, but only a few dozen children who have been available all year for adoption.  It isn't that there aren't children in the institutions who need to be placed in a new families because there are - many; rather it is that the legal paper work is not complete on these children and as a result these little ones remain "stuck", languishing in the institutions.  There is also a long line of families waiting in Honduras and only a handful of children qualified for adoption for some of the same reasons as in El Salvador:  social workers don't have cars or gasoline or even sometimes the sheer will to transport themselves out to the orphanages to gather information on these children.  Each time the governments change over here, the heads of the government institutions which oversee the different parts of the process here also change, and it is is like starting over in many senses.  Some of the private nonprofit organizations don't really want "their" children to be adopted because their donor support depends on these children remaining in their care, which makes it very difficult to get information on the children.  And on and on and on the reasons innumerate. 

 

I can say that we did in fact make positive headway in so many areas on this trip.  We were able to evaluate and support the good work that is now trying to complete the children's paperwork for the purpose of permanency (in both countries) so children can return home or be adoption domestically or internationally.  We were able to promote a public census to determine an accurate number of children and their ages and life situations in government care.  We were able to see that prospective adoptive families who began waiting to be "matched" with children nearly four years ago, will begin moving closer to being "matched" with children, Lord willing. And that if the changes we came here to see made are in fact implemented properly, then more children will find forever homes and waiting families will have children in their homes at last. And this is all good news for these children and the families currently "in line". 

But for me personally it does not make my family story much different (at least not today). If I were to join the process right now, I would insist on being placed at the end of the line just like most everyone else has to do. This choice is not because I would not be tempted to do otherwise, I am human and temptations come to all.  But because I could not and would not strive to manipulate in this way because this is NOT the place of God's blessing.  And I so need God's blessing and grace in my life.  This world is too broken and painful to risk trying to "work" human systems for selfish ambition and then have to go it alone when the consequences for my actions come knocking.  

When I held this one little infant girl today, who was probably six months old, with beautiful curly black hair, and as I felt her warm skin up against my cheek while she held my finger so tight and would not let go, my heart broke even more than it would have in the past. All I could think about was how much I would love to just take her home with me. My Isabella had curly jet black hair also and for some reason this made it all the more difficult.  Lord, it feels like we have two giant "holes" in our family for children to fill and that too few people care or are motivated enough to get this little girl's paperwork out of the dark abyss of a political system that is still so very broken.  Where is the justice Lord?  I know you are here, Lord, please comfort me so that I can continue to work. And of course my faithful God began to comfort me while this child was still in my arms. First he reminded me that she is not a number to Him and that He created her and that He loves her.  Second, that although it looks like a dark abyss to me, even the darkness is like light to Him and that He knows exactly where her paperwork is and what her future will be. 

"Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you! Isaiah 49:15 

I also understood from the Lord that although I hated how painful this has been for me, that it really is good (in kingdom sense) that my heart ached so deeply for these children and for the waiting families because it was now my own losses which were helping compel me even more strongly than in the past to "fight" for these little ones to be placed in families just as God intended. And I also sensed that God was calling me to not underestimate the power of my prayers over the little girl or my obedience to come and be open to love even though it hurts a little bit more.

So, again, thanks for your prayers for our trip and for my heart.  Bless you!  

Comments

[Ann]

Kerry,
So sorry it was a hard trip, but so glad God used you. Please know I continue to pray for you. Thank you for your love and compassion for these little ones.
Praying--Ann

[Diane]

Hi Kerry and travel buddies:)

Welcome Home!!! I, again, just want to shout out a big THANK YOU ALL for sharing your journey with all. I have truly felt your hearts and love for the children you were witnessing to. I pray God use your days with His children in a mighty powerful way....I'm sure He will!!!

I want to say thanks so much for going to the effort of blogging while on your journey. I believe it is through your sharing, the retelling of your days with the orphan that those who may not know or understand may catch a glimpse into what the day was like. I can only tell you thank you for sharing so much of yourselves on this journey.

I was also moved by your description of landing the plane, I believe it may have been on the side of the mountain....uh, YIKES!!!!!....but, you all still got on that plane even though the fear was present. Thanks so much for walking right through that nasty old fear!!! You guys are the best:)!!!!

Again...welcome home, enjoy your time with your families....how very blessed we are to know the love of Family !!!! Thank you for sharing with the orphan that they stand TALL in the Family of Christ....

[Sweet Joni]

Thank you for taking the time to 'explain' the issues that surround orphans there... I'd had no idea! And thank you so much for allowing God to work through you providing a link to "Love Link" Each new day seems to bring me closer & closer to 'my calling' if that is God's Will...

Your sharing is such a teaching/learning experience! :-)
~Joni

[Patty Smith]

Kerry,
Praise God for you and people like you who are willing to step out of the comforts of home and defend the fatherless. What an amazing and exhausting trip.
This story reminds me a bit of my friends who a few weeks ago was in China adopting a 3yr old. They visited the orphanage of one of the other families children and lets just say it was overwhelming what they saw. The dad said he looked around at all these children and for a moment thought "Lord which one of these children do you not care to save?" but in the same thought was remembering that God loves and cares for ALL of them, not one of them is unknown to God and it is our job as christians to do God's work in this, He has a plan for the orphan---WE are the plan for the orphan. It can be so overwhelming if you look at the entire scope of the issue, but one by one we truly can make a difference.

And don't worry for a second about Maya's regressing in the potty training!! In the overall scheme of all the parenting you will do, this is such a very small thing. She'll get it eventually. I keep saying this about my almost 6yr old..........who still doesn't sleep all night.....she can't possibly do this forever?!!!

[Caroline Salehi]

Thank you Lord Jesus, who is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us. Thank you Kerry for obeying and living His call. I pray the Living Word bears fruit of its kind in my heart. Love Caroline.

[Claudine Thompson]

Thank you for allowing the Lord to work so freely in your life. Every time I read one of your blogs or, at present, one of your "Show Hope" devotionals, I think you've been living in my heart all these years. I didn't even know there was a God until my senior year in high school. It took five years of God's drawing until I responded. I truly was so ignorant spiritually. I didn't even know Genesis was a book in the Bible -- only a rock group. The Lord immediately put missions and orphans on my heart, but He also placed babies in my womb. I've never been on a mission trip or started an orphanage as I had hoped. My mission field was and is at present w/in my own 4 walls, w/ my husband & 4 children. I've had 3 miscarriages so I anticipate a wonderful reunion one day. Your contentment blog really hit me. Am I again still longing for those "other fields" more than the precious one I'm already in? I could literally comment on every blog, every devotional, but, as you can see, it would be quite a lengthy process. From these words of yours though and the brief talk we shared at SH in Nov, I feel like I could just pull up a chair & share & pray & talk for days @ the Lord, His Word, & His heart for "the least." You have truly impacted my life. I am 4ever grateful. Blessings always to you & yours. "Now to Him who is able to do exceeding abundantly MORE..."

[Tricia]

Dear Kerry - I have prayed for you often over these days. I pray that God will comfort you in your pain adn that your sorrow and mourning will flee away. I know that since we have adopted two children, God has ripped my heart out for all those who remain orphans. It has become so much a part of my heart and very personal. Thank you for being willing to experience sorrow on behalf of these least. You are indeed so very close to the heart of God as you walk in these places. Tricia

[Stephanie]

Thank you so much for sharing your heart. We are one of those families in the "dark abyss" of a complicated adoption process, not with El Salvador but with Haiti. I appreciated your godly perspective on something so very difficult, and especially this reminder when "in the flesh" I sometimes find myself wishing otherwise:

"But because I could not and would not strive to manipulate in this way because this is NOT the place of God's blessing."

God bless,
Stephanie
http://iansadoption.blogspot.com