Those Still Waiting

As we drove up to the care center, my heart was racing. Kevin and I held hands. Neither of us could stop smiling knowing that we were only moments away from meeting our daughter. Somehow our feet took us off of the bus and we calmly walked into the building taking instructions from the social worker about where to go sit and wait. It was one of those strange moments where your heart is telling you to do one thing, but your intellect is telling you something else. Every part of my soul wanted to just run up those stairs, grab my daughter, and run for it. The grown up part of my brain won out and I just sat waiting for my name to be called.

Before reaching our daughter's room, we were first greeted by a crowd of toddlers all screaming out to us "Daddy, Mommy, Daddy, Mommy". We would soon learn that this was the greeting we would get from all of the children staying at the care center. Every two weeks another group of Americans show up at their home, every two weeks they wait to see if this is now their turn to go, and for some every two weeks they watch new children come as their friends leave to go to their forever home. Waiting for their turn, for the bus to pull up carrying a family who is all tears and nerves over them, to be scooped up and carried away.

Kevin and I thought that all of the children in this home had families coming for them....that they were all spoken for, and there were families in America praying for them and longing to bring them home. We recently learned that is not the case for all the children that we met while we were there. For some of the children, our agency has not found any families to accept their referrals. In most cases it is because the children are older, over 3 years old, and they are boys. So because these children cannot be babies again and they cannot change into a girl, they sit and wait and wait and wait.

We have all seen the websites, tv commericals, and flyers showing orphaned children around the world in need of love. These pictures have always tugged at my heart. About a month ago, we were contacted by our agency about getting involved in praying and finding families for waiting children. They sent us some information in the mail including a listing of their current waiting kids. As we turned to the page showing children from Ethiopia my heart just broke. There was a little boy who had captured our heart while we were in Ethiopia. You want all of them to find homes, but this precious child was one that we had commented so many times that we were happy that he would be going home soon. The thought that he is still waiting for a family brings us to tears everytime. This beautiful child has opened our eyes. The waiting children that you see online or in a brochure are not just a picture on a page. Each one has a story, each one is a person longing for love, longing for a family.

Kevin and I are praying about the next steps for our family and what God is calling us to do. Would you also consider praying and seeing if God has called you to adopt? Or maybe you are being called to sponsor an orphan through your finances or aid another family in bringing home their children? We are all called to pray that these children find forever famlies. Some of these children have never had anyone pray for them. Can you imagine having no one to pray for you? There is a great organization, Show Hope, where you can sign up to pray for specific waiting children both here in the U.S. and overseas. Not all of us will be called to bring a child into our home to be a part of our family, but we are all called to do something.

When you hear these stories and see the pictures and feel sadness, empathy, heartache but do nothing it is meaningless. Let your passion move you to action. "Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth." (1Jn 3:18)