And now for the rest of the story...

Now for the story behind UnAbandoned 7/19.  All of us have a story, but mine, as well of many of you reading this, centers on an adoption experience.  If you are like me then maybe you have also experienced a second adoption.  We will talk about this more in a moment, but right now I want to share with you my story which begins long before my birth…

Mine begins with a young teenage girl, who I hope will not mind me sharing her story (or at least what I think I know of it) because it truly is beautiful and I commend her for her faith.  The beginning is familiar to far too many girls. Hers begins in the beautiful country of Venezuela. She didn’t always have the strongest father figure in her life, and when a young man came along with smooth words she gave in to his leading. Shortly before her fifteenth birthday she learned of her pregnancy, and upon telling the father of her child this he left the scene. There she was. Alone on a scary path that (if she is anything like me) she probably wasn’t really sure how she got on.  Fortunately she was blessed with a mother who had a strong faith in the Lord, and a desire for her daughter to have a future based on more than raising a baby she couldn’t truly care for. With her daughter’s best interests in mind, they moved in with a friend of hers and her son who lived in the capitol city of Venezuela. So began a search for adoptive parents.  Somewhere along this journey the young girl came in contact with the Father, and experienced her first adoption. She was adopted by the King and became His.  No more loneliness. No more need to be ashamed. She was made clean, and redeemed. After this experience the need to find godly adoptive parents became even more crucial, and she shared this with a local pastor.

Serving in the same city was a missionary family from the United States.  They had two teenage daughters, but wanted more…Funny thing. Out of the whole story, this is probably the part that is most mysterious.  I never really learned why the couple wanted to adopt—and I never asked. I was just so glad they did, I never questioned it! They were looking to adopt a baby boy, and had begun the necessary paperwork and investigation into doing so.  Through a work than can only be described as divine, they were connected with the same pastor who knew of a young girl looking for a godly family to adopt her unborn child.  The young girl was due roughly a month later (maybe a little more), and the couple agreed to seriously commit the matter to prayer.

Two weeks following their meeting with the pastor they received a phone call from him saying that the girl had had the baby, a girl, earlier than anticipated. In her bravery, she did not want to see the child, because she knew if she saw it she wouldn’t be able to part with it.  I have not yet experienced the joy of having a child, but I can’t imagine going through the 9 months of waiting and growing close to the child inside of you and then having to distance yourself from it completely, forever. What strength that must have taken.

Here is where I entered the scene. Now I was alone. I was helpless. I was completely innocent of the circumstances surrounding my birth. I didn’t know it then, but looking back this must have been the darkest point in my story. I didn’t have a hope or a prayer, and time was running out for me to be “claimed.”

Now comes my favorite part.

This is the climax where the hero/heroine come in and save the day.  But not all heroes wear capes. If you are an adoptive parent this is the point in your story where you came in with all of your anticipation, excitement, and nervousness--not as a wannabe hero, but just looking for somebody to love.  And as the adoptee, this is the point where we are pretty much the innocent bystander looking for somebody to save us. My heroes came just in the nick of time. They came into the nursery where I laid, and the medical staff asked them “Who was going to take the baby?”  It was time for the mother and baby to be discharged, and I had nowhere to go.  They saw the need. I stole their heart (as children do). They made me theirs.

And now for the rest of the story.

The young girl left the hospital that day feeling sad and discouraged at the loss of her precious one.  But God works in mysterious ways.  Remember the friend and her son that she and her mother went to stay with in the city? Well, the son turned out to be her Boaz.  He stayed with her during her pregnancy and they became close friends.  He accepted her for who she was, where she was in one of the most difficult times of her life.  A few years later they married, and now have a beautiful family together. God showed her what a real love relationship was meant to be like, and twenty-one years later He allowed her to finally met the one she had given up so difficultly.

The family took me home and was never the same! We moved back to the US and I was able to grow up in a loving Christian home, receive a solid education, and receive the best physical and emotional care possible just as the girl had wanted. Most importantly they led me to receive my second adoption, by the same Father that took in the young girl. He also made me His, and I will never be the same.

 I have gone over this story so many times in my mind, and not a single birthday has passed where I didn’t think it.  I have been so blessed. Many adoptees will never know the back story behind their birthday that I have now become fairly familiar with. Many had to wait longer than two days for their heroes to rush in and save the day.  They can still remember the agony and longing of wanting someone to say, “You are mine.”  And so very many are still waiting…wondering…wanting.

Some will argue that adopting a child will not feel the same as having your own, and I would have to agree to a certain point.  My husband and I can’t wait to have our own children, but we have also dreamed and prayed about the day when we can be the heroes. The day when we can give a child a name, a home, and unconditional love.  I don’t about how it is for my parents, and I know many families have adopted and experienced various struggles and difficulties, but for me I don’t think I could love my family any more if I was biologically related to them.  I’m pretty sure they feel the same way. If adopting is something that you are considering or struggling with, I would say you can neither give nor receive a greater gift.  You may not think you have much to offer, but what you have is so much more than what that child does. If you are on a waitlist to adopt a child, or going through all of the red tape involved, don’t give up!  Some things are worth the wait, and “unabandoning” someone is definitely worth it. You will never be the same.

Yesterday I celebrated my twenty-third birthday…

..Tomorrow I will celebrate the twenty-third anniversary of being unabandoned. So. Thankful.

“I have called you by name, you are mine.”
-Isaiah 43:1-

Born in the USA?

It is a little known fact that one of my favorite holidays is the 4^th of July (second only to Christmas).  Around Easter I start thinking about where I can go and watch fireworks that Independence Day, and by Father’s Day I know what combo of red, white, and blue I am going to wear.  I don’t really know why I love it so much. There aren’t any gifts or big family gatherings (sometimes, but not annually).  I don’t have any immediate family currently serving in the military, though my grandfather served in WWII and will always be one of my heroes.  Something about the bright colorful fireworks against the dark summer sky, the people arrayed in the deep colors of the flag, and the spirit of the patriotic songs.  One of my favorite things to do is to go to Stone Mountain Park in Atlanta, and sit on the great big lawn to watch the laser and fireworks show.  You can take people from all walks of life and put them together there, and I promise you by the time it gets to the part of the show where “I’m Proud to Be an American” starts playing they will all be cheering and screaming.   Why? Because our patriotism unites us.  We all can celebrate freedom. We all are Americans. 

I was raised to love this country from “sea to shining sea.” I was taught to respect the flag, to honor those who serve in our military, and to appreciate liberty.   But there is something else my parents did that was so key that I hope adoptive parents who have children from other countries will take note of it.  They didn’t let me forget my Venezuelan culture.  You see Venezuela, with all of its beauty, was my past, but the United States of America is my future.   I was so blessed that my parents had served as missionaries in the country of my birth.  They didn’t have to pretend to know about it because they lived it.  In fact, if you ask the nationals there they would tell you that my father is American on the outside, but his heart beats Venezuela.   We often spoke bits and pieces of Spanish at home, and my mother cooked (still does) Venezuelan food all the time because it was one of my favorite meals.   Our home was filled with artwork and artifacts native to the people there.  They did such a fantastic job of educating me in the culture that I came from, and in turn making me feel a part of the society and country I was now a citizen of.   I would probably be the opposite of my father: on the outside I am Latina, but my hearts beats for the USA.

Just a side note on this, I don’t have time for unpatriotic people.  I have been blessed to travel to many places much poorer and restricted than we are here.  If you are just going to complain about where you live and burn flags and mock military personnel, I would like to personally put you on a plane to North Korea and let you find out if that suits you better. OK, end of soapbox!

There has never a time in my life where I didn’t want to be an American, but there have been moments when I didn’t want to be Venezuelan.   I was homeschooled through eighth grade, which basically means I was not a minority.   But when I would go to church I quickly noticed that I was: all of the other girls with their slight frames, pale skin, and blonde hair.  My hair was unruly coal black.  I was shorter than everyone else, and my frame was a little thicker.  This was the first time it began to bother me, though my father always told me I was his "Venezuelan beauty queen” (another little known fact of the day for you – Venezuela has had more Miss Universe’s than any other country).  Next came around High School when I did attend public school.  I began to have to fill out forms for various testing and college applications in which I had to choose a race. This still bothers me today when filling out forms for doctors’ offices—I may be Hispanic but does that make my anatomy different?  I grew up in a Caucasian family isn’t that close enough?  People began to ask me what I was, Mexican or mixed.  “Neither!” I would politely snap back, though many times I wanted to say, “Alien, what’s it to you?”  More recently it began to bother me when people would refer to mine and my husband’s relationship as “interracial.”  Not that “interracial couples” bother me, I just don’t like to be labeled.  Some have even asked if we will put “Caucasian” or “Hispanic” on our children’s birth certificates when they are born.   I may just put “eskimo” for the heck of it! 

The time that I most despised being Venezuelan was in the past couple of years following the reunion of my birth mother and I.  You would have thought that connecting with someone who looked like me, and wanted to bring me into a family of others who I resembled and fit in with would have made me feel better about myself, but it didn’t.  It had the exact opposite effect.  I didn’t want to see Spanish, or speak to my birth family there.  I loved taking Zumba fitness classes, but soon the Latin style music began to irritate me so much that one class I just walked out in the middle of a routine and didn’t come back.  I hated my big hips, dark skin, black hair, and brown eyes. I just wanted my fairy godmother to come along and magically turn me into Cinderella.  Then I would physically fit into the family (and the country) that my heart had belonged to my whole life.  It wasn’t worth it, nor did it make sense for me to for me to physically fit into a family that my heart had not belonged to.

Adoptees: your identity isn’t defined by your race. I feel so encouraged to think that my identity is found in Christ. It is only in Him that I found peace in this area of my life. Ultimately, my citizenship is in Heaven, and I am so far from home. I pray that you too have this same confidence. I have to constantly remember that He is the one that created me. I was fashioned on purpose by His hands, and I am His masterpiece—olive skin, curves, and all.

Please hear this all of you who are adopting/have adopted outside the US.  I never once was made to feel like an outsider by my family, but that doesn’t mean that I didn’t feel like one sometimes.  Not one person in my family has brown eyes, dark hair, or is shorter than 5’7”.  Don’t think I didn’t notice when we would go into a grocery store and I looked more like the Latin family on aisle 3 than my Caucasian sisters.   Being raised in the US helps because it’s such a melting pot of cultures and people, and your child will love you because you love them no matter the difference in skin.  Just don’t fool yourself into thinking that it isn’t ever going to be an issue for them, because I assure you it will. 

Honor their past. Give them a future.   Celebrate being Americans.  Unless you are a Native American, then we are all immigrants in some form at some point in our history! 

Enjoy the fireworks y'all.