...in his hands

Recently Marc and I had the opportunity to attend the Calvin Symposium for Worship at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan. It was a weekend away...cherished since we know that once our adoption is completed and we have the baby, we won't be able to get away just the two of us for quite a while, but it was also much more than that. Both of us are heavily involved in worship planning and leading at church and it was a time to be led in worship, to learn about worship, and to participate in worship without having to think about chord changes, choreography, words of welcome or announcements. It was good to be there.

1500 people attend this event from all aspects of worship: Pastors, paid worship coordinators, organists, musicians, dancers, actors, worship leaders, singers. People also attend from all over the world. We were excited to eat one dinner with a pastor from Mozambique and a pastor from South Africa. Of course we discussed, a little nervously, our approaching adoption from South Africa. We had heard that adoption is not very popular in South Africa, and that international adoptions are even less popular. No country wants to lose its children to another country, and we imagine that a black society who has suffered so much from the hands of white people in the past would be wary of white people adopting their children. We shared our story and the pastor encouraged us. I did ask him how well received international adoption was in South Africa and he agreed that there were definitely some negative emotions surrounding it. However, he also explained that despite the heavy heart with which South Africans see their children leave, they are also glad for the opportunities those children will have in life. Opportunities that they never would have if they remained in South Africa.

The multi-cultural aspect of the symposium was very evident in the worship services. We worshiped in French, English, Zulu, Portuguese, Japanese, Korean, Spanish, Lugandan, Swahili, Zulu, Urdu, Ngala, Dutch, Latin. Often the worship leaders who led these languages had those languages as their first language. The symposium also gave all registrants the CD "Global Songs for Worship" by the Choral Scholars. It includes songs from 25 different countries and is beautiful. Interestingly enough, Henry Kingma, a friend from high school with whom I acted and sang many years ago is one of the eight singers in the group. (For more information, contact http://www.thechoralscholars.com/)

There was also an abundance of resource material for worship, for music, and just for life. Of course, in our constant thinking about our future son, we were drawn to some beautiful portraits by Steve Prince of an African mother and her son. We purchased both prints and plan to frame them to hang in our home. For more on Steve Prince and his art, please visit http://www.1fishstudio.com/.

There were also dozens of gorgeous children's books with beautiful illustrations and wonderful stories. We purchased one book for each of our children. For Leah, often described as delightful, or a joy, we bought Karma Wilson's I Will Rejoice, illustrated by Amy June Bates.

It celebrates Psalm 118 "This is the day that the Lord has made, I will rejoice and be glad in it!". For Sara, who is beautifully loud and who takes such pleasure in noise, we bought Let's Make a Joyful Noise based on Psalm 100:1 "Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all ye lands." by the same author and illustrator.

And for our son, who we still have to meet, we bought He's Got the Whole World in His Hands by Kadir Nelson. A beautiful book with a black protagonist, a picture of a trans-racial family, and an incredible message.

He's got the sun, the rain, the moon, the stars, the wind, the clouds, the rivers and mountains, the oceans and seas, you and me, everybody here, everybody there, the WHOLE world, in His hands.

He even has the tiny little baby, our little baby, in his hands, and we are saving this book for that little one, our son, who waits on the other side of this huge world, far from our hands, but always in God's. We are so thankful for God's strong, loving hands.