Out of the Mouths of Babes...

This morning Sara and Leah were playing "adoption". While Marc and I pretended not to eavesdrop, they carried their dolls around and talked of their baby's birth mothers who "couldn't take care of their babies anymore". They leaned over their doll stroller to adjust their babies' blankets and spoke of how sad it was for the birth mommies who were sick, but that they are happy to have the babies to take care of and they love them very much. It was a lovely moment, a treasured moment for Marc and I, who have been trying to help them to understand this long, stressful process and are never really sure how much they comprehend.

It amazes me how Sara and Leah are handling the journey of adoption. They speak of "our baby" daily. We'll be talking about eye colours. Daddy and Leah have brown eyes and Sara and Mommy have blue eyes, and Leah will ask "What colour will the baby's eyes be?" Or we'll be sitting at the table for supper. Everyone has their spot. And Sara will ask, "where will the baby sit?". Today when Leah and I were painting at the kitchen table, she decided to make a picture for everyone in her family. Daddy, Mommy, Sara, Leah, and Eowyn (our cat). Then she grinned and said "...and this one is for our little baby!" She let out a beautiful giggle.

Last week the girls and I went on an adventure. We took the city bus, a first for the girls, and went to the Stones and Bones museum downtown. We had a great time; there was so much there to see. Afterwards we decided to get a family membership. When they asked us the number of people in our family...I said five! Likely for most of the year, we WILL have five people in our family. Sara realized what I had done and we had a moment of excitement together.

Leah is happy because she will no longer be the littlest in the family. She walks carefully up to the dresser and puts her sippy cup up as high as she can. Then she looks at me very wisely and says, "so that my baby brother can't get it".

Once in Walmart, Leah told a stranger very solemnly that she was going to have a baby brother soon. The woman looked at my belly and raised her eyebrows questioningly at me and said, "are you sure?"...Leah said. "Yep, he's in Africa. Mommy and Daddy are going to get him and bring him home." The woman smiled and told Leah she'd make a great big sister. I agreed.

Sara has a friend who was adopted from Haiti a few years ago. This concrete introduction to adoption has definitely helped with her understanding. In fact, when Sara kept bugging us to "grow a baby brother in Mommy's tummy", we replied, well remember, that's not the only way to have a baby. Remember Samuel. Sara's eyes lit up and she said "yes let's do that!" I'll never forget how wonderful it was to hear our dream of adoption affirmed so emphatically by our child.

We hear from Sara's teacher that Sara talks about her baby brother at school sometimes. Especially whenever anything international comes up. And when we watched the opening ceremonies of the Olympics, we cheered for Canada, Holland and South Africa when they entered the arena. Sara loves our children's CD of South African music, Gift of the Tortoise and just this week was singing the Zulu confidently (Why do kids pick up languages so much easier than adults?)

The only struggle with adoption that Sara has shown came after her interview with our social worker. During our homestudy, our social worker wanted to talk with Sara about being a trans-racial family. How would it feel to have a brother who had brown skin instead of white. Sara had several friends with brown skin in her class at school and I don't think she'd ever really noticed. She definitely had not thought of it as an obstacle. Our social worker asked her how she would draw her family if one of them had brown skin. What colour crayon would she use? She asked Sara to draw a picture of our family with our baby for their next meeting. Sara freaked out. We had a week before the next meeting and Sara refused to draw the picture. She was worried that she'd do it wrong, that it wouldn't be good enough. In the end, I drew the picture instead while Sara watched and she coloured the background. She talked about the picture with our social worker and all was well.

It took a long time for Sara to feel comfortable again with colouring pictures. I coloured with her quite often and we chose all sorts of colours for people, green, purple, peach, brown, red, indigo just to take the pressure off a little. Then, when she started SK she began bringing pictures home with kids with all different skin tones again (no longer greens, purples). She seemed comfortable again. This past Christmas she made a beautiful card for us. A nativity scene with Joseph, Mary and baby Jesus coloured midnight black. It's absolutely beautiful!

Sara has also shown some hesitation to the adoption because she knows that Marc and I will be gone for a whole month to pick up our baby. She is excited by all the sleepovers she will have, but she has a better understanding than Leah does about time and she knows a month is a long time to not see her Mommy and Daddy. I must admit, I share Sara's feelings. My heart aches just thinking about it. We are both reassured, however, by things like postcards and Skype.

With our children, we wait for our third child. Leah hopes that he'll come soon, before we run out of our chocolate chip cookies. "Can we save one for him?" she asks. Denying all of our explanations that babies can't have cookies, she says, "Well I'll feed one to him!" It's so great to see our kids already falling in love with their little brother. They already look out for him, already protect him, already include him in their play.

But as Leah said at two in the morning the other night. "Mommy is our baby still in Africa?" "Yes", I replied. "It takes a long time Mommy."

Yes it does.

Confessions of a Mother Bear

One of the many camping trips enjoyed with my family while growing up was a week long trip to Algonquin Park. My sister and I were in the later years of elementary school and were excited at the prospect of seeing lots of animals. We were hoping to see moose and bear (our normal trips to the Pinery allowed us only small animals like raccoons and deer).

Imagine our excitement when in the middle of breakfast a baby black bear wandered through our campsite. Karen and I, missing the concern on our parents faces got up and tried to get the bear to come to us, holding a breakfast sausage out as bait. We were almost as startled as the bear when my father began clanging pot lids together behind us, and my mom started shooing the cub away. My parents ignored our request to "just take a picture first". They knew that the only thing more dangerous than meeting a bear face to face, was meeting a baby bear face to face with the Momma bear looking on. After the bear had fled, presumably back to it's watching mother, my parents explained about the mother bear instinct. Mother bears will do ANYTHING to protect her cubs.

I am a high school English and History teacher. I'm not sure if it is due to my subject areas or just because it happens, but the subject of race is a topic often raised in my classroom. Teaching novels like To Kill a Mockingbird, and Of Mice and Men provide important avenues for discussing race issues with students. Teaching about residential schools, the holocaust, and the Japanese internment during World War II also serve as excellent springboards to honest discussions about racist attitudes. Since my first semester of teaching, I have been appalled, dismayed, and finally resigned to the fact that even today people carry racist baggage around. For some reason, in my classroom, this baggage seems to get unpacked, it's contents spewed on the floor around me.

I've taught the novel Night, by Elie Wiesel, a first hand account of a concentration camp in a classroom where one student's grandfather had been imprisoned in the camp while another student's grandfather had been a guard. I had a Korean-Canadian student ask for a seating plan change pointing out that in my history class he was seated between a Japanese student on the right and a German student on the left. I've cringed while one student ignorantly asked my guest speaker, an Ojibwe, what "Indian tribe" he was from, and then apologized on his behalf to the offended speaker. I've struggled with students who openly admit "I just don't like Indians" and then seeing my shock correct themselves saying "Sorry, I just don't like First Nations people" (because that's so much better!).

Over the years I have developed better strategies for dealing with race in the classroom. Outrage does not work. Calling an opinion racist upfront only leads to defensiveness. Patiently demonstrating how their word choice can cause pain to others, creating lessons that present the flip side of the situation helps students to think about people of colour differently.

One strategy that seems to work well is to talk about race showing three different positions. I write the words "Racist" and "Non-Racist" on the board and discuss those terms. Someone who is racist is someone who discriminates according to race, makes racial slurs, or tell racist jokes. They are engaging in racist behaviour. Someone who is Non-Racist does not discriminate according to race or make slurs. When racist jokes are told they feel uncomfortable and may even want to leave the room. Many of my students share that they are in this second category. They feel uncomfortable when they hear a joke and don't really know where to look when someone says something negative about someone because of their race.

I challenge them, however, demonstrating that unless they actually say something in response to the jokes, their silence is interpreted as approval. By not challenging the person telling the jokes, they are sending a message that they too, agree that the joke is funny. Simply being a non-racist is not enough. Non-racists contribute to racism without even meaning too.

We are called, instead, to be anti-racist. That means speaking out whenever and wherever racism is met. When a joke is told, or a comment made, we must ask the speaker to please refrain from making them. We must stop racism and fight against it.

I have tried to live as an anti-racist. I have asked our doctor to remove some ancient children's books from his office that had inappropriate illustrations of people of colour (they had been donated by an elderly person after her grandchildren were too old for them. He quickly apologized admitting that he hadn't even looked at them) . When older people from my church or community use language that is no longer politically correct, words like "coloured" or "negro", (which they use, not as put downs, but because they think it is nicer than saying "black"), I patiently correct them and explain the reason why those words are no longer appropriate. I have even spoken to a well-meaning pastor after a church sermon who, in his effort to illustrate a Bible text used inappropriate language about Canada's Aboriginal people. I have always found myself able to confront racism in a patient, loving way that while correcting the person, still maintains their dignity and shows my respect for them as people.

Until now.

Recently, in the exact same types of situations described above, I find I can not seem to remain composed. Where I was once able to remain professional and calm, I now become passionate, to the point of tears. Comments hurt me deeply, and personally. Even when people are speaking broadly about race labels and debate, simply because they enjoy the discussion, I take it personally. For me, it is no longer an academic discussion, or a case of political correctness. I'm not advocating on behalf of "people of colour everywhere", I am speaking for my son.

Although I have not even met him, my mother bear instincts rise up in my heart and soul and pour out passionately and even angrily on the unsuspecting victim who simply out of ignorance, is holding out a breakfast sausage or two in my direction. I can no longer deflect comments with humour or with patience. Instead, I'm ready to pounce and fight and do anything to protect my son from words and ideas which could hurt him.

I've come away from these encounters amazed at myself. What is happening to me? Why such an emotional response? How come I can't remain composed?

And then, I had an epiphany.

I have changed. My son whom I've never met has changed me. I have already attached in the most primal and instinctual way to the son I've never met. This boy who is not born from me, but is a most remarkable gift, is already my own little bear cub who my mother bear instincts will do anything to protect.

And that fills me with joy. A painful joy as I think of the uphill and constant battle that is before us as a trans-racial family, but a joy all the same.

"For I know the plans I have for you..."

Marc and I prepared this testimony for church this morning...

Just over two years ago, Renée and I heard the voice of God, calling us to adopt. It was a very clear, very surprising call, to both of us. We had talked about adoption before, but not until then did it seem obvious; for our third child, we were to adopt.

It took some time to sink in. We did a lot of praying and a lot of researching. We took our time with the decision, were overwhelmed often and took breaks. It took two months to get the courage to call Children’s Aid for a three minute phone call about adoption, and then took another two months to recover from it. Then we started looking into international adoption which was also overwhelming. What country? What agency? Where do we even start?

And so, we started checking it out. And the more we searched, the more we realized that South Africa was where we were to go. And the country of South Africa has become very important to us, and to our extended family in surprising ways.

Early on in our adoption journey, we began praying for our baby and for his birth parents. We created a painting, a portrait of an African woman pregnant with a baby. And we chose a verse for our son. From Jeremiah 29:11 For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.

We chose this passage with the faith that God holds our baby in his hands; that although we don’t know who he is or where he is, God knows and God has plans for him. God has plans to give him hope and a future. We also chose it for his birth parents. They are in the dreadful position of having to decide to relinquish their child. They are also in God’s hand and he has a plan for them too. We pray that God will be very present in their lives, a source of strength, and comfort for them.

We didn’t choose this passage for us. It never even really crossed our minds really. But it seems that God also has plans for us and it has become so evident to us in the last few weeks.

When we were deciding to adopt, there was one major hurdle that stood in our way; one problem that we could not see a way through. This problem was money. If you’re not aware, adopting internationally costs a lot of money. Not only are there travel costs, there is the cost of lawyer’s fees (in both countries), social workers fees (in both countries), agency fees, court fees and home study fees… and it all adds up! We were once again overwhelmed. How in the world would we manage the costs? We looked into taking the money out of our mortgage and began looking into bank loans. We recognized that if this was God’s calling, he would provide, but (to borrow the words of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego), even if he didn’t, we would be willing to take the financial hit, and follow through with God’s call.

So we started. And each financial deadline we have met. With support from family and friends, with a few months of a crazy two-income family lifestyle, with EI, and with the blessing of God, we have so far managed. We are now waiting for the phone call from our social worker with a proposal of our child. We are waiting. And waiting. And it has been amazing to see how, with a bit of extra work and the care and support of our family and friends, we have seen God’s hand of blessing in this adoption. Until recently.

We’ve started to look at travel and hotel costs. It turns out that what we were originally told will be a three week stay will now likely be four (perhaps more), and it seems that hotels are starting to inflate their prices in anticipation of the Soccer World Cup games. What we had originally budgeted for our trip is now looking to be double. After all this, how are we going to get past this one? We had a few hours of panic. Crazy panic.

And that’s when God did far more than just show his hand of blessing. God directly intervened, and showed us that this is his plan, and he is taking care of it. We received a call, just a few hours after doing the number crunching, that we had received a $10,000 grant. $10,000! We won a draw held by a charitable organization that assists families who are adopting internationally!

While we were panicking, God was making our name get pulled from the hat. For $10,000 towards our adoption fees. It’s like God said, “Don’t worry, I’ve got this one.”

“For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”.

Can you ask for better affirmation to a call than your one hurdle being removed, and in such a dramatic way.

We’ve been frustrated that the wait has been so long. We were expecting to have our baby right now. Here’s the thing. If we had our baby already, we would not have qualified for the grant. They won’t award it retroactively. Had we actually received a proposed child earlier, we would have lost the opportunity for the grant. It’s like God said, “Don’t worry, I’ve got this one. Remember though that things work on my clock, not yours.” “for I know the plans I have for you…”

We are overflowing with rejoicing in God’s providence, and God’s guidance, and even in God’s timeline. And we are incredibly grateful to all of you, our church community for your support and prayers so far. We covet them as we continue to wait for our son and then travel to South Africa to meet him. And we ask you to pray us all the way through, our return, the first few days at home, the first few weeks, and then months. We believe in the power of prayer.

We give God all the praise and glory for taking us through this journey so far. In many ways, it already feels like it’s been a huge journey, but we know that it’s barely started. Most importantly, we are again aware that we rest in God and we wait on him and in his plan.