Maranatha, Christ Come Quickly!

It's almost as if our anxiety about waiting hit a plateau once we received our approval from the ministry. Our file has been in South Africa for over a month and although it occasionally "flits" across our minds -- sometimes with an unexpected phone call (could that be our Social worker with our referral), most of the time we are relaxed about waiting. We know Robyn, our South African social worker, is on Christmas holidays and that she will have a backlog once she resumes her work in January so we know we won't hear anytime soon. It has been good to be busy with other activities.

We have been busy preparing for Christmas celebrations -- we've baked krentebrood, a family tradition passed down from my Opa who was a baker in Holland, we've also baked speculaas and made chocolate bark with a friend. We've bought and wrapped presents, and each night we light an advent candle with our girls and read a different Bible passage leading up to Christ's birth. Our anticipation for the arrival of our new baby is mirrored in the wait for Christ's birthday and indeed Christ's return.

When I read and reflect on all the suffering of this world, the groaning of creation, this week amplified by the climate change summit in Copenhagen, Denmark, the suffering in Afghanistan, Iraq, most of Africa, Honduras, and even the total depravity that I see in my children, so young and "innocent" until they are screaming at each other over who gets which coloured cup at snack time. We need a Saviour. I need a Saviour.

Yesterday I finally finished reading "The New History of South Africa". It was a challenging read, especially since I knew very little about South Africa when I began (I even drew a map of the different provinces and major cities to help me out). It was also challenging in other ways. So much suffering was endured throughout the centuries by so many people. "Some of the cruellest episodes in South African history -- the extermination of the San, the subjugation of the Xhosa and their national suicide, the suffering of migrant workers on the mines and the deaths of women and children in concentration camps during the South African War. During the 1930s the slums in the South African cities were among the worst in the world. Apartheid destroyed many tight communities and closed off career chances." And although the peoples of South Africa are "joining forces to attempt, against considerable odds, to forge a new nation from the bottom up...and are beginning to sing new songs and tell different stories in a fresh identification with their land, people and culture" there is still incredible suffering and inequality and progress is painfully slow (p, 437). What South Africa really needs, and Canada too, and the whole of creation, is the return of Christ. When all things will be made new and there will be no more crying or pain...Maranatha, Christ come quickly.

We're Approved!

Yesterday was a good day! We received notice at we have been approved to adopt a baby boy from South Africa! And here it is; the paper we've all been waiting for:
This piece of paper is the end of a long six month wait to be approved to adopt a baby. It is the result of the home-study, police checks, PRIDE training process that we were busy with at the beginning of this year. We are so happy that it is finally here. Although it is only one step closer, it is a pretty big step. Mission of Tears, our agency, mailed our dossier to South Africa yesterday as well which was also great news. Sometimes they don't send the dossiers right away because the South African social worker has enough waiting families already. We were hoping that our file could go immediately but were preparing for the worst. So...once our file is in South Africa, we could get a referral anytime.

We do know, however, that our social worker is taking time off around Christmas so we aren't expecting anything until February at the earliest, but it could be a long wait yet. Some people with Mission of Tears have been waiting for a year. Still, it's nice to be waiting on the right side of the ocean. At least our file is (or will be very soon) in Africa.

Since we heard three weeks ago that the ministry was working on our file, the wait has been excruciating. Every time we checked email or phone messages we were anticipating the news. Finally, after reading discouraging posts in our "Families adopting from South Africa" chat group about the long wait times, we decided to do something to make our adoption seem more real. We began searching for crib bedding. And then we bought some!


We purchased it online from the U.S. through ebay, so we had it shipped to my brother Paul's family in Boston. They will bring it to us at Christmas -- it'll be a nice Christmas present.

Once we are matched with a child, we will only have three weeks before we travel to South Africa. Our agency recommends that once our dossier is in South Africa we begin to prepare for the baby. We are not planning to set up the baby room until we receive the referral, but it is exciting to start planning and preparing.

Our kids are started to get excited about the baby. Leah speaks often about her baby brother in South Africa who is "littler" than her. When Sara heard that we were approved she announced that we needed to go out for supper to celebrate. And so we did. Praise God for small steps to Africa!

Making Friends...

We belong to an online group of families who have or are adoption from South Africa. It includes people from all over Ontario, and more recently from the Maritimes and Saskatchewan who have or are adoptiong from South Africa through Mission of Tears, our adoption agency. The South African program is only a few years old, so all families adoptions have been recent and all the children are about five and under.

Everyday when we check our email there are six or seven (often more) messages from families undergoing the same process as us. There are book clubs relating to adoption or South Africa, birthday reminders, information about South African films or news events, discussions about citizenship processes, school issues, medical information, as well as pictures of united families and children who have recently been adopted. It is an excellent resource and although we don't post often, we follow the discussions regularly.

The group also gathers socially throughout the year. Sometimes as a whole, but usually according to regions. We have been getting to know some of the families in the London area and attended a gathering last month.

The gathering was relaxed and casual with lots of good food. My parents came along which was nice because Marc had to work. It was good to meet some other waiting families and to meet people who had already adopted. Some of the families knew each other quite well and their children were friends -- it was neat to see chidren who were together in the baby house in South Africa continue a relationship here in Canada.


The organizers brought some activities for children, a parachute, bubbles, colouring and toys. Sara and Leah quickly made friends and enjoyed the event.

One of the highlights of the day was the performance of an African storyteller. Originally from Ghana, she now lives in Guelph and has made a career of performing traditional stories and songs from many different African countries. Her daughter accompanied her on the djembe and together they entertained all of us (event the babies were riveted).


Sara and Leah were entranced. They loved the repetition throughout the stories and the story teller was excellent at including her audience in the story telling. Sara even now remembers the songs and sings them easily.


Afterwards she stayed for refreshments and conversation.


Another neat part of the day was a Zulu class. A Zulu speaking family from Zimbabwe treated us to a mini lesson. They helped adoptive parents say their children's South African names properly and gave the meanings of the names. They also attempted to teach us how to click. The Zulu language has many different clicking sounds. It is amazing to hear. They tried to teach us how to do the "X" click as in the word "Xhosa". But I must admit we were hopeless.

It was great to finally put some faces to the friends we were making online and to glean advice about our trip to South Africa. It was encouraging to meet families who had already adopted and it made our adoption plan seem more real.

And now for something a little different...

My brother Paul is a professor of Political Theory and Political Science at Gordon College in Boston. His main interest in political theory is the relationship between faith and politics. At the same time that we were choosing South Africa as the country from which to adopt our child, Paul was, coincidentally, choosing South Africa as his focus for studying the relationship between faith and politics. In the past year, South Africa has become a special place in the lives of both our families and has taken on special meaning and significance.

This June, Paul traveled to South Africa with a group of academics from Canada and the United States to meet with African Colleagues. They learned from each other and from prominent South Africans for several weeks and are currently working on publishing projects together.

The Brink family camped together in July and Paul shared pictures and told stories of his experience in South Africa. It was great to hear about his experiences and to catch a glimpse of the incredible scenery in South Africa.

Some of the places Paul visited were historically significant. I had brought along the New History of South Africa that I was reading and it was interesting to see the context of the pictures in a historical light.



Paul also gave this gorgeous piece of cloth to Marc and I as a gift from South Africa. We use it as a table cloth over our dining room table. The colours look beautiful with our dark piano and orange curtains.

The table that it covers is a significant one. It is the one piece of furniture that my Opa and Oma DeRaaf brought with them when they immigrated from the Netherlands in 1953. When my Oma died, I inherited the table. Slowly our Dutch Canadian culture is beginning to blend with a new South African one. We look forward to many happy memories in our transracial dining room!


One of the most moving experiences in South Africa that Paul shared with us was when he and his colleagues attended a church service in Gaguletu, a poor township outside CapeTown. That Sunday they witnessed the baptism of 32 infants, a joyful day (Thankfully, many in Paul's group were ordained pastors and could participate in the baptism ceremonies). The sad part of the experience was that only two of the 32 babies still had their birth parents. All the other babies were being raised by grandparents, aunts and uncles and others in the Gaguletu community. Paul wrote an article about the church in Gaguletu for The Christian Courier and Stillpoint which he has given permission for me to include in our blog as well.

This Church Has AIDS

Our morning began as most of our other mornings had begun on this extraordinary trip. Up at 6:30, murmurs of greeting to my roommate, Chris Byaruhanga, and then a quick inventory of what we might need for the day: water, cameras and notebooks. We dressed perhaps a little more formally than other days—we were going to church after all—though little could be done to disguise the fact that we were visitors. Somehow professors always look like professors, even if they hail from more than half a dozen different countries in North America and Africa.

Breakfast, as always, was a lively and friendly affair; shared meals are generally good for community. A brief outline of the day was provided by Bob Evans, our team leader from Plowshares International, and in very short order, we were headed for church. This Sunday it would be the J. L. Zwane Memorial Presbyterian Church located in Guguletu, a poor township outside Cape Town.

This was our second week in South Africa, and by now, we were prepared to expect the unexpected. After all, post-apartheid South Africa is a country that confounds predictions and upsets expectations—often tragically, but occasionally wonderfully. But none of us were quite prepared for the particular unexpected that is J. L. Zwane Memorial Presbyterian Church. Partly this was due to the tremendous welcome we received from the congregation. Partly this was due to the remarkable beauty of the church building, especially given the poverty of the community. But this was true especially because J. L. Zwane Church has AIDS.

I knew this, first, because of the big sign that said so. Even in a country where nearly 20% of the adult population is HIV-positive, and where infection rates are far higher for women than men, the stigma surrounding HIV and AIDS remains pervasive. Accordingly, as is true for so many other uncomfortable realities the church must confront, the first great challenge has been to create space for ministry. Very deliberately, J. L. Zwane church has confronted head-on the prejudices and the judgments inflicted upon the victims of this global crisis. Announcing to all who enter the building and proclaiming to the Guguletu community at large that the church identifies and shares in the suffering of those with AIDS was crucial to the church’s ministry and to their identity as members of Christ’s church.

Besides, the church really does have AIDS. No church member can remain unaffected: family members fall to the disease, or family sizes increase as new orphans arrive. Rev. Spiwo Xapile, pastor of the congregation, himself has lost five family members to AIDS. The pandemic forces congregations to deal with the reality of human suffering in ways that the North American church only dimly appreciates. Rev. Xapile’s words stopped us short: “we are dying.” His weekend activities support his statement: Sundays are for worship; Saturdays are for funerals.

But Rev. Xapile also made clear that the church suffers in hope. Indeed, conditioned as it is by hope, perhaps it is the suffering of the church that supports both its warm welcome to strangers and its concern for beauty. Hope amid suffering also is what sustains the church’s HIV/AIDS programs: support groups, counseling services, hospice care, education programs, medical care (in the church lobby after Sunday services!), and care for orphans. The work of the church in the larger Guguletu community is particularly inspiring—and challenging.

We met Priscilla, an elderly grandmother who has accepted AIDS orphans, one by one, into her small home, and now is “grandmother” to twelve. J. L. Zwane church has become a crucial lifeline to Priscilla and other similar de facto social service organizations.

But perhaps the greatest sign of the solidarity of the church with the suffering has been the integration of HIV/AIDS into the very liturgy of the Sunday morning service. Corporate worship—the time when God and his people engage one another most directly—surely is at the very heart of church life. And at J. L. Zwane, the topic of HIV/AIDS is very much part of that conversation. Each Sunday, as the choir and congregation sing “Bambelela—Never Give Up,” someone who is HIV-positive rises to tell his or her story of what it is to live with HIV/AIDS. Prayers are offered, difficult questions are asked, and the scarcity of answers is confronted. In the very heart of church life, the good news of the Gospel is brought against the bad news of disease.

After the service and a generous lunch, our group reboarded the bus, but much more quietly than when we had entered—some sobered by the extent of the disease, others encouraged by the church’s response to it, but none unchanged. For me, the implications of what I had experienced were extremely challenging. These Guguletu Christians are my brothers and sisters. And if J. L. Zwane Memorial Presbyterian Church has AIDS, then surely the body of Christ—of which I am also a member—has AIDS. Does my own church reflect this reality? Does yours?

Our Adoption Profile

We're back!

Our blog has been silent for over a month. We have been busy in summer and are just coming down from a busy vacation to Boston and camping with the Hoogstad family in Sandbanks. Life is starting to get a little more routine. We’re getting ready for school starting for Sara, planning activities for the year and gearing up for the busy schedule of September.

The summer has flown by, which has been nice. We’ve been waiting and waiting for our documents to be returned from the Ontario ministry. What was at first expected to be a six week process has been dragging on into its fourteenth week. We’ve heard that some have taken as long as eighteen weeks but that soon the process should speed up again.

The distractions of summer have been good. We’ve been packing, unpacking, repacking, wet packing, and back yard unpacking and packing. We’ve been beaching, sight seeing, splash padding, hiking, biking, wonderfully summering.

In all this, although the adoption process is always present, it has been further in the back of our mind. And that has been good. Now that we’re returning to normal though, it’s right back there at the front and particularly now I’m feeling the pain of separation from our baby.

What sparked this feeling? We just got an email from a couple who, after waiting for over a year have received a referral. Their new baby, Benjamin, whom they will meet in just 3 short weeks was born June 1^st. He weighed 7 lbs. On Sept. 9, he will officially be their little baby boy. Our hearts rejoice with this couple, whom we’ve met but hardly know, and yet our hearts also feel a little tender; when will we hear about our little boy. When will it be our turn?

It’s twenty after midnight as I type this, and I can’t sleep because I’m longing for contact. I miss feeling the kicks of expectation. I miss having to get up to pee three times in the night. Although these pregnancy inconveniences are frustrating, uncomfortable and irritating, they are contact. They are life inside you. I think of our son lying in his crib in the baby house, or even yet in the womb, and I long to feel his existence. His presence. His life. I want to touch his skin. I want to kiss his little forehead. I want to hold him tight against me.

We wait in hope and expectation and think of a time when dreams will become real and longing will become relationship.

Our South African Social Worker

Earlier this month we had an opportunity to meet with Robyn Shepstone, our South African social worker. Robyn came to Canada, accompanied by a woman who runs a South African baby house, to meet with families in the process of adopting, as well as to be reunited with families who have already adopted from South Africa and with the children in who's lives she played such an important role. The first part of the day was allotted for families who were in the process of adopting. It was good to meet some people whom we had met at earlier seminars, one couple even from the very first seminar before we had officially decided to adopt.

It was really wonderful to meet Robyn and hear her speak about the process of adoption from her end. She begins already with the birth mother, discussing options about her pregnancy and her child, and then leads that child all the way through to his adoptive parents. Over the years she has carefully built and maintained relationships with all areas of bureaucracy which sounds like a very difficult task.

Robyn patiently answered all of our questions (we came armed with a list of them) and it was very reassuring to see how competent and efficient she is.

The second half of the day was geared towards families who have already adopted. This reunion was wonderful to witness. Robyn showed clear joy at seeing each family that she had united, and couldn't take her eyes of the children. Impressed with the personal investment that she had made in the lives of each child, I commented to her that it must be very exciting to see the children again. She responded in clear agreement, picking up a child and saying, I watched this little girl get born!

We are so grateful for Robyn, that she will be there, loving our son from the very start. May the Lord bless her!

Happy 91st Birthday Madiba!

Today is Nelson Mandela's 91st birthday. In honour of him, I've posted this picture and article sent to me by a yahoo group made up of families adopting from South Africa with which we're connected (sorry no source) . Sometime today, raise a glass to this man who led the way to a new South Africa.

Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela (born 18 July 1918) is a former President of South Africa, the first to be elected in fully representative democratic elections. Before his presidency, Mandela was an anti-apartheid activist and leader of the African National Congress and its armed wing Umkhonto we Sizwe. He spent 27 years in prison, much of it on Robben Island, on convictions for crimes that included sabotage committed while he spearheaded the struggle against apartheid.

Among opponents of apartheid in South Africa and internationally, he became a symbol of freedom and equality, while the apartheid government and nations sympathetic to it condemned him and the ANC as communists and terrorists.

Following his release from prison on 11 February 1990, his switch to a policy of reconciliation and negotiation helped lead the transition to multi-racial democracy in South Africa. Since the end of apartheid, he has been widely praised, even by former opponents.

Mandela has received more than one hundred awards over four decades, most notably the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993. He is currently a celebrated elder statesman who continues to voice his opinion on topical issues. In South Africa he is often known as Madiba, an honorary title adopted by elders of Mandela's clan. The title has come to be synonymous with Nelson Mandela.

Our South African Education

Recently I have begun learning about South Africa. Through university studies and through South African friends, I have had a casual acquaintance with South Africa. I read a few novels by Nadine Gordimer and J.M. Coetzee (both South African authors) during a Post-Colonial Literature course that I took in university. And when we lived in Toronto, we had good friends who immigrated to Canada from South Africa, and introduced us to bits of South African culture, some of the highlights including banana on pizza, and the South African love for a briar, or a barbeque. A few months ago I began to ease a little deeper into South Africa with the aid of Zakes Mda's novel The Heart of Redness. I chose it as a novel for my book club. It proved to be a challenging read but led to great discussion. I also began to familiarize myself with South Africa with a map, and general statistics, (thank you Wikipedia).

A few weeks ago I visited another South African friend, Elsebé and had a wonderful afternoon with her. We drank Rooibos tea and she spoke tenderly of the country where she grew up and from which she emigrated three or four years ago. She showed me beautiful books on South Africa, some in English, some in Afrikaans. And lent me South Africa The Beautiful as well as two children's books Looking at the Xhosa and Looking at the Zulu. The country and the people truly are beautiful and it was great to familiarize myself with them a little more.

Elsebé also lent me a huge book The New History of South Africa which I have begun to read ambitiously from cover to cover. The book starts pretty much at the beginning of time and I'm already at mid 1700s! I'm only on page 67 of 437. I'm enjoying reading it. I find it interesting to compare to Canadian history, the African people there and the First nations here as well as the process of colonization.

One of the most striking things in my reading is the attitudes of the Dutch colonizers towards the Khoikhoi and the Xhosa people, the first African people that they encountered in South Africa. In many ways it is similar to the treatment of the First nations people here in Canada by the French and the British. However, I somehow feel less at ease in reading about the actions of the Dutch colonists (later the Afrikaaners) in South Africa. The reason for my ill ease is my own ethnic background. My parents and my husband's parents are immigrants from the Netherlands. When reading Canadian history, I can "tut tut" at the treatment of the British and French towards our aboriginal people, but when I read about the actions of the Dutch in South Africa, I identify more with them. Dutch Protestant Christians, just like me, committed these atrocities.

I'm sure this struggle will continue as we learn more about South Africa, its history, and the inequalities that still exist there. I imagine it will be a struggle we deal with as we travel around South Africa with our new African son. And I wouldn't be surprised if it becomes a continual prick in our hearts the rest of our lives.

I was very impressed with the manner in which Elsebé spoke of the process of colonization and of apartheid. I admired her humility and honesty in talking about the evils of apartheid, and her refusal to gloss over the horrible treatment that occurred at the hands of her own people. She spoke of good good people who fought hard against apartheid, but was clear that still today there are many people who broach the subject of race with hatred and hard hearts.

Elsebé also lent me some South African movies and CDs. We are familiarizing ourselves with The Drakensberg Boys Choir, Randall Wicomb and Helmut Lotti to name a few. It is neat to hear some traditional South African songs like Shosholoza, Tula Tula (a lullabye) and Nkosi Sikelele Afrika, the South African National Anthem. Nkosi Sikelele Afrika is beautiful song, an interesting national anthem. Its lyrics read more like a contemporary praise song or a prayer than a National Anthem.

It is an easy anthem for me, a Canadian learning about South Africa, to sing (and pray) with my whole heart.

Nkosi Sikelel'i Afrika (Lord God bless Africa)

Maluphankanyisw'uphondo Iwayo (Let its fame be lifted up)

Yizwa imithandazo yethu (Listen and hear our prayers)

Nkosi sikeleli, Nkosi sikelela (O Lord God bless)

Nkosi Sikelel'i Afrika (Lord God bless Africa)
Maluphankanyisw'uphondo Iwayo (Let its fame be lifted up)
Yizwa imithandazo yethu (Listen and hear our prayers)
Nkosi sikeleli, Thina lusapho Iwayo (Oh Lord God bless us, we children of Africa)

Woza moyo (Come Spirit)

Woza moya woza (Come Spirit come)

Woza moya (Come Spirit)

Woza moya woza (Come Spirit come)

Woza moya oyingewele (Come Spirit, Holy Spirit)

Nkosi sikelela (Oh Lord God bless)

Morena boloka setjhaba sa heso (God bless our nation)

Ofedise dintwa le matshwenyeho (and stop all wars and sufferings)

O se boloke (And bless it)

O se boloke morena (And bless it Lord, Oh God)

Setjahaba sa heso (Bless our nation)

Setjhaba sa Afrika (Our nation, Africa)

Nkosi sikelel'i Afrika (Lord God bless Africa)

Maluphankanyisw'uphondo iway (Let its fame be lifted up)

Yizwa imithandoazo yethu (Listen and hear our prayers)

Nkosi sikelela, (Lord God bless us, we children of Africa)

Nkosi Sikelel'i afrika (God bless Africa)

Family Pictures

One of the projects that we need to do for adoption is to create a profile of our family to send to South Africa. It needs to include pictures of our family, our house, our pets and little write ups about us. We send nine copies to our South African Social Worker and she distributes them to babyhouses there as well as shows them to potential birth mothers. Birth mothers are shown several different profiles and selects one family to adopt her baby. So...the family profile is a pretty important document. We are creating our profile this week.

Our friend Sonja is a photographer and she offered us her services for a morning to photograph our family. We went to Canatara Park, a favourite of our family. We often come for picnics on the beach and enjoy the playground, walking trails, and especially the animal farm. We had a great morning and Sonja took some gorgeous pictures.

We ask that you please do not print these pictures as they are under copyright. If you would like to have copies, email us and we'll put in an order with Sonja. Thanks Sonja, for all your hard work!