How it all began...

Our second post is going to be something many of you have read before, but it is part of our first steps into adoption. We'd like to "tell it from the start". This is a letter that we sent out to some family and friends in our Christmas card in December 2008. It shares a little bit about our family as well as some of the thought processes that brought us to this point in our lives.


December, 2008
Dear Family and Friends,

Each evening after supper we light advent candles as a family. Although much of the moment is tense and even a little nerve-wracking (Sara and Leah like to light the candles themselves --“Leah do it!”), it is a special time nonetheless. Each night we read a different part of the creation-fall-redemption story and then sing “Come, Lord Jesus”. This moment is immediately followed by Leah demanding, “Blow out candles; Leah do it!”. Clearly the fire is the main attraction for our 1 and 4 year olds, but yet it is a time when we all anticipate something – the lighting of that last candle in the middle of the advent wreath. Leah calls it “Happy Birthday to you candles”, which shows her general confusion about the whole event, but at the same time makes a great deal of sense. As a good friend (Scott Post for those who know him) said over a beer the other night – when we celebrate someone’s birthday, we don’t celebrate who that person was on the day they were born, we celebrate who that person is now. We shift, then, from celebrating baby Jesus, to celebrating Jesus, King of Kings! We hope you have a great Happy Birthday party as you celebrate the risen Lord!

Speaking of Happy Birthday parties, our kids are getting older. Leah will soon be two years old and is already there behaviourally. That was a joke by the way – the terrible twos aren’t so terrible really. Leah is hilarious. She is exasperatingly independent (as is clear by the anecdote above) and not at all quiet or shy. She copies everything Sara does and they are a great team. Sara, who just started JK, feels very grown up about the whole big sister thing and plays a great game of hide and seek with Leah. Today, at lunch, Sara announced that she was going to be a ballerina and travel the world. I said that would be a great idea.

Sara has been challenging us philosophically and theologically. Who’d have known from a four year old! Just recently she asked us whether we were all dolls and our house was a doll house. She pictured giant creatures moving us around and manipulating what we do and say, “a plaything for the gods” to quote our friend Shakespeare. On the way home from church today she asked us “if I was holding something when I died would it go to heaven with me?” So, now she’s planning what kind of treasures she can store up in heaven. I love it.

Although the plaything of the gods idea isn’t maybe where we want to be going theologically, Marc and I have spent a good part of this year trying to figure out what God’s plan is for our family. Earlier this spring we were trying to decide if we should go ahead with IVF again in the hope of having another child. The financial, emotional and physical stress of IVF and pregnancy were daunting, yet we really would love to have another child. And our children would love to have another sibling: “Mom, everyone in my class has a brother except me. Can you grow a boy in your belly?” There you go, babies by peer pressure!

Last May, we attended a Starfield and Shane & Shane concert (if you don’t know these musicians, you should check them out because they are oh so great!) in Cambridge which had a social justice theme throughout. One of the statistics that came out of that evening was that there are 40,000,000 orphans in the world. If 8% of the church adopted one orphan, they would all have homes. Since May then, Marc and I have been exploring adoption. We are hoping to adopt from South Africa and have just begun the home-study part of the process. Most of the babies adopted from South Africa are orphaned because of the AIDS epidemic and it is expected that the number of orphans there will more then double in the next 7 years. As a result, by 2015, more than 10% of the South African population will be orphaned children. South Africa does not have the resources to care for all of these children and so have opened the doors to overseas adoption.

We think that God’s plan for us is to expand our family by using our financial, emotional and physical energy to adopt one of those orphans instead of undergoing IVF. It’s been a long process of prayer, discussion, and research, but we feel excited at this opportunity. We ask for your prayers as the process of adoption is just beginning and is a long journey.

Last weekend, Marc and I attended the Canadian National Youth Workers Convention in Toronto for four days. The theme of the conference was “Seriously Ridiculous” which is a conference title that only youth pastors would come up with. We were treated to incredible speakers (Shane Claiborne and Tony Campolo to name a few) and great artists (once again Starfield and friends). The first half of the convention completely wrecked me: the idea that to truly follow Christ requires us to be seriously ridiculous in our lifestyle. The decisions we must make with our money, our skills, our possessions are seriously ridiculous in light of our culture today. I was completely disarmed to the point of asking “How now shall we live?” all over again. Of course, the whole conference was focused for me on our adoption decision (which had only been made days before) and is a seriously ridiculous decision for us in many ways as well. But the second half of the conference explored the seriously ridiculous nature of God’s grace -- the ridiculousness of God coming as a completely powerless, naked baby -- The seriously ridiculousness of God as a human criminal, executed -- And the seriously ridiculous truth of his love for us.

May your Christmas celebrations this year be seriously ridiculous!

We love you all,

Marc and Renée, Sara and Leah