I realized just before we left yesterday that the children may have been thinking that Katya was coming home with us last night. Woops!

Guess it’s good that they are prepared for our family to grow in an instant …

Here are a few pics of the beautiful homecoming for our friends:

Katya and mommy after a long flight:

Katya seeing her dad again after coming through customs:

The Finley Family, reunited (poor Katya looks exhausted). If you have a heart for adoption, but are wondering if you have room for one more –this photo is compelling evidence that you do :

And I think this is my favorite. Not because it includes my children, but because for a year+ we have been praying with the Finley’s (and others in our Wednesday night prayer meeting) for God to bring Eden, Caleb & Katya home. Here are my little American veterans as Katya walked through the doors … yet unknown to them: the bond which unites them to her. That’ll come…

This afternoon as I was listening to the CD we put the children to bed listening to through the baby monitor, my mind was brought back to our first days with them in Ethiopia.

Some of the sweetest moments of that week — that was a bit more chaotic than I’d like to remember — were at night after they were asleep. We all shared a room. Eden was on the bottom bunk and Caleb in a pack-n-play. Nate and I would put our heads together and debrief in hushed tones, hoping to not wake them. This children’s worship CD would fill our conversation breaks as we whispered like giddy children. God’s presence was thick. Joy was evaporating off our skin like the effects of rain on hot pavement.

We knew He was near. His presence was unavoidable.

Part of why I’ve been so drawn to adoption is because I have tasted the father-heart of God more, through this process, than almost anything else in my life — from the moment God first dropped it into my mind. Maybe this sounds selfish: we set out to rescue these two because, by doing so, we encountered God. Instead of seeing it basically as self-serving, I believe that God made me for encounter–just like this. He wired me to not just “intellectually assent” to this relationship we have — me and God — but to hunger … to thirst … for His breaking through into my daily life.

I mean we all want this, right? We memorialize stories where we had even a touch of the supernatural. Whether it was a piece of scripture that was sent to us by a friend–at the exact moment we needed it, a “chance” encounter with the person who introduced us to our next job, or even the lyrics of an old song that came across our radio which spoke exactly to where we were at that moment. We want to believe that God intersects the natural. That the ordinary really can be infused with the holy.

But the enemy of encounter is disbelief. And skepticism can so easily trump the childlike wonder that first drew many of us to God (or is drawing us now).

(All of this has been heavy on my brain as God has recently been using expressions of His power to break into my life-full-of-sippy-cups-and-legos. More on this later ..)

Tonight we are plopping the kids into the car for a 4-hour round-trip homecoming celebration. Katya – Kateryna – is finally returning to her home–via an arduous run by her parents through the Ukrainian government’s hamster wheel. All day long, as I’ve anticipated our trip, I’ve been choking back tears. In part because tonight we’re invited into the birthing room. We get to watch as God sets one of His lonely children into a family (Psalm 68:6). We get to see His promise in scripture fulfilled. And in part because my expectations are high. I know I will encounter Him. Adoption is heavy on His heart and He is doing a unique move in these days. And I’m going to drink deep tonight!

I’m finding lately that my hunger for God might very well take me to great lengths to find Him. It’s beginning to supersede my sense of what is practical.

So, 4 hours in the car with two larger-than-life toddlers … it’s nothing, compared to what we’re about to see.

(We have one extra seat in between their carseats that would fit a very small person with a high tolerance for noise and saliva –  drop me a comment if you want to come )

The children had their first experience at a wedding this weekend. They were awe struck with the bride (Martha was beautiful!) and tore up the dance floor afterward. In their short lifespan, it could possibly have been their most favorite night yet.

While we were in Tennessee for the wedding, a dear friend took these photos below.

(If you’ve looked at other photos on our blog and are wondering if this is their only outfit …the answer seems to be yes).

I’ve been holding it together for just about 4 months now. All that comes with raising two toddlers has taken precedence over absorbing what’s happened in our home. It’s had to. Survival-mode, as I’ve called it.

Overnight we’ve gone from long sits in the sauna, long soaks in the bath, long runs, long evenings to just sit and chat, long times sitting before the Lord … to military showers, early alarms, quick jaunts to dinner after the kids are asleep and the babysitter arrives, and bursts of prayer throughout our day.

The transition has required all of my mental, emotional and physical energy. While my legs haven’t hit more than 5 miles on the road, my calves are often sore from running up and down the stairs all day.

We have a new kind of normal.

In 5 days it will have been 4 months since we first wrapped our arms around Eden and Caleb and, but for the distinct differences in our family appearance, you’d never know it.

Now that I am sinking into a schedule and carving out the necessary time to process the loss of my Dad and the birth-into-our-home of these children, the gravity of God’s work is weighing heavy on my chest.

At night she continues to ask for one-more-big cuddle and he wakes up from his nap, only to be pacified by wrapping his legs around my waist and his arms around my neck. They’re wired for affection from mommy. Who could have given this to them? Did they learn this longing from being in our home … or were they waiting, hungry for cuddles and kisses, before we got them?

Then my mind goes to other places … Eden was severely malnourished when she arrived at the orphanage. Could she have made it much longer? Caleb was admitted to the hospital for a 3-week stay just after he arrived at the orphanage. Would he have survived in the great, big “out there” in this condition? Oh, God, what if they weren’t taken to the orphanage?

And then I think about us.

What if we had conceived a biological child just before beginning this adoption process? What if we had chosen the route of fertility treatments — instead of adoption (a tough decision that took months to wade through)? What if we had zipped through the process, as planned, and had received a referral for different children?

I’m living at the intersection of the divine and the ordinary. I’m cleaning up spills, doing countless loads of laundry and kissing ouchies … of children who–six months ago–had a bleak existence.

The secular world wants to look at me and Nate and say “wow, you did GOOD. what a marvelous thing you’ve done for these children.” And they do. I hear it almost weekly. And I cringe.

I have yet to come up with a brief response that illustrates the gravity of God’s work. We did NOTHING, but cry out to God out of our own (possibly selfish?) longing for a family, and for more of Him, and for His Spirit’s leading in our lives. And He cracked open His divinity and gave us a taste. And just this little sip is about enough to knock me over. Every day. When she says “mommy, stay here?” more times than I can count or he gives an unsolicited sloppy kiss followed by “I love you Mommy” I sometimes can’t breathe.

God, you let us play a part in saving them. You would have done it anyways — in one way or another. But you married our prayers–frayed around the edges–with their need.

Many have said adoption is addicting. And now I know why. I tell Nate that, at the moment, I am a dangerous woman. Because any hint I’ve had of a child in need, an orphan, tends to linger in my mind.

Where did this come from? When I was a kid, I never dreamed about being a mommy. And when I started to conceptualize married life, I would envision a family that was spaced-out in such a way that would interrupt my life and my dreams the least. Motherhood and me just didn’t seem to fit together. It seemed more of a necessary evil than something I’d actually enjoy.

Now, here I am, asking God, like a little child, when can we do it again?

This post feels like 20 others I’ve written, but I just can’t get over it. This is my testimony. The depth of the riches in God. The power of His Spirit to weave our lives with theirs. The intricate details that only He could maneuver. The beauty of aligning ourselves with Him. The sweetness of His redemption. The vigor of following Him. The reckless abandon it calls forth from me.

I keep hearing about families who have adopted older children whose children are now beginning to tell them about their home life and experiences in Ethiopia. I figured Eden, being 4, might have some recollection of her life even just 6 months ago. Now that she’s grasping more of the language, I thought it appropriate to start asking her about Ethiopia.

Well, I didn’t factor in that her 4 year old imagination is rampant and that any sort of leading question on my part could likely turn into an event in her mind. It seems that my peppering has only opened up a whole new fictitious playground for Eden.

Whoops.

Since I started asking her about Ethiopia — even just simple questions like “where did you sleep in Ethiopia?” and “what did you eat in Ethiopia?” — I’ve seen that whatever Ethiopia was to her before has now become the place where all little girls’ dreams come true.

I have since learned from Eden that, in her 3 1/2 short years in Africa, she carried a baby in her belly (that she then breast fed), owned her own home, drove a car (her own), and had a cell phone just like mommy’s.

Tonight at dinner she said: “Mommy, Eden had quesadillas in Ethiopia.”

I might think she was referring to injera (a bread frequently served as the base of Ethiopian meals) if I didn’t already realize the damage my line of questioning had done to this impressionable little mind.

Unfortunately I may have squelched all opportunities to learn the real truth about Eden’s Ethiopia.

While other parents may field their child’s incessant requests to go to Disney World or the closest amusement park, I will watch as my child pines away for her experience in a nation she barely survived. All because she owned her own pink cell phone there … and probably because she isn’t allowed to touch mommy’s here.

This blogging thing is mostly selfish.

For much of my life I’ve wanted to have some sort of crazy artistic expression of what’s inside of me. I can’t draw to save my life and, although I’ve recently picked up finger-painting, my two year-old puts me to shame. I don’t let lack of skill prevent me from interpretative dance in my kitchen, but if I took it on the road I think I’d have about a five-year window before the children we prayed so hard to get would disown me. And, well, I’d probably lose friends too. Though invigorating for me, there’s not really a market for singing old show tunes.

So when I started this blog, I re-discovered writing. And even amidst the unforgiving schedule of being a mom, I somehow find time to write. When I write, I feel closer to God than I do most any other time of my day. I sometimes think He tells me to write.

I wouldn’t call myself a writer, I just am trying out this passion that’s been latent for some years. (Blogs are like open mic night for those of us who want an outlet for what we love. There’s a pretty low barrier to entry .)

But the only problem with allowing my newly-found passion to intersect with the world wide web, is that I am exposed. It’s sort of like standing in your skivvies before an audience of people and asking them to comment.

Well, after I published my post today, my editor (Nate) skyped me at my little getaway coffee shop to say “I think you should add some pictures to your post.”

Pictures of what? Me sitting by myself in a field, to go along with the descriptions of my encounters with God.

Of course he’s referring to the little brown people who have taken over our lives and have made both of us look way more attractive than we ever did before.

“Give them what they want,” he says.

My insecurity surfaces. Urgh …that’s right…I’ve made copies of the key to my diary.

I need pictures to make my post worth reading? I wish I just wrote always and only for the glory of God and didn’t ever think about who was reading this blog or what they might think. One day…someday, I pray.

Nate, when he reads this, will be grumpy because I’ve portrayed him as being a critic of my re-discovered hobby when in actuality he is my biggest cheerleader. He pesters me daily to write more.

So, since I couldn’t quite find pictures of the children that would fit with the last post, I will give you what you want now. Just in a different post.

All feels right to me when my life is organized. When my desk is clean, my task list has lots of lines through it and my inbox is empty, my heart is at rest.

I’m quickly realizing that I need to scrap this strategy.

I haven’t really had to have a planning session to come up with new standards for myself, they are just sort of happening to me. How nice that is.

If all the papers on my desk haven’t piled up so much that I can’t shut the doors (it’s an armoire desk), it’s “clean.” If my inbox only has messages from two weeks ago, it’s practically empty. And if I’ve been able to pull away from the house with both kids strapped into their car seats and remembered to brush my teeth and put on deodorant …I feel like I’m going to the prom.

Every time I get dressed in anything other than my nike sweatpants and zip-up workout shirt, Eden says “mommy leaving?” And I used to judge moms who wore jumpers. Those things are a step up from my everyday duds. I’ve started to do laundry twice a week just so I can get more use out of them.

Life seems to have wrapped around my ankle and pulled me along as if I’m hitched behind a pick-up truck.

And I think I love it.

In the midst of this seeming chaos, the Lord continues to remind me that I’m caught up in a work of His doing. This life can appear frayed around the edges, but when I step back for a moment I catch my breath …and remember. And when I remember I think, “Oh, Lord …don’t ever let me forget. Let me write this story on the walls of my life, tell it to my children and my children’s children. Let them know you as holy because of this.”

So I guess as an act of remembrance, I want to go back and write some of the pieces of our story that were too raw to include while walking through them. Consider this “Part 1.”

Remembrance: Part 1

Today we had our first post-adoption meeting with our caseworker. When she asked about the children’s birth dates, I remembered.

Though not the first time I remembered, I think I absorbed it this time. What I’m about to share hasn’t even been uttered to some of my most dear of friends, but for some reason today it feels right and fitting to tell this as a piece of our story. His story.

In the Spring of 2005 I had a moment — followed by a few other moments — where God broke in. It wasn’t mystical, in fact it felt very natural. God spoke to me, not audibly but as a resounding sense in my spirit. As far as I could tell He said to me You will conceive a child this September.

Now while I believe in the voice of God speaking today, I also am wary of what I know even more intimately – my flesh. I can hear things I want to hear and my imagination at times might be just as clear as what I perceive to be the voice of God. So I asked Him for confirmation. Lord, if this is you …confirm it, not once but twice.

The details of His confirmation are extraneous to this story, but they were enough for me to believe with as much of my being as capable that Nate and I would be parents the following summer, 9 months after September of 2005. I thought He was gracious in preparing me, one who might benefit from having more than the typically allotted time to carry a baby. At that point in time we had no idea the challenges awaiting us with fertility. I’m not sure what came as expectation of the Lord and what was the expectation that most all newly marrieds have about getting pregnant. I like to believe it was more the former.

Leading up to this month, I knew that I knew that I knew that I would be pregnant. I had heard from God other times, but never this clearly and never did it carry the grace that this particular message did to spur my prayers on in faith. I wound up thanking God for what He was about to do more than even asking Him to do it. It was going to happen.

In early October I realized that what I had carried with such expectancy, didn’t happen. I was less disappointed at the prospect of not being a parent than I was at my own mis-guided expectations. I didn’t doubt God, but deeply questioned my own ability to hear. God wasn’t unfaithful, I just couldn’t hear Him correctly …I thought. More reason to exercise even more caution than I already did when hearing from the Spirit, I thought.

This month of disappointment grew into 4 years of disappointment. Insult to injury was that it wasn’t just that September that I didn’t conceive, but many fruitless Septembers, Octobers and Novembers followed.

By the grace of God I did not grow bitter. Most of my evaluations of that encounter with Him led me believing that I just didn’t hear Him right. I chalked it up to my humanity against His perfection. We’re bound to “miss” sometimes, right? But there was a very small part of me holding out hope in the mysterious God. I so wanted to one day make sense of that promise. It was a promise, I thought.

Fast forward to March of 2009. We received our referral for two children from Ethiopia after an arduous two years in the hamster wheel called adoption. One of the children was a little girl named Meskerem. We discovered that day that the name “Meskerem” meant September and our Ethiopian sources told us that with the significance Ethiopians placed on name meaning, we could be confident that this one was born in September.

At that moment, sort of grasping at straws, I thought …this had to be it. You see, I could not forget those encounters with God as they were as real to me as the grass on the ground.  I heard “you will conceive a child this September” in 2005, but really God was probably saying I would conceive a child with the name September. I didn’t hear quite right, but it was in the ballpark.

It was as if I needed to make provision either for myself and my fleshly inability to really here, or at a deeper level for God who can’t really speak today because that speaking would require hearing and the very humans He created just can’t be trusted with hearing. But He wanted me to hold out. The phrase that came to me that Spring was so clear and so specific.

Then, just after we passed court in June of 2009, we received little Meskerem’s birth date:

September 25, 2005

While a mother on one continent gave birth to a child, that same child was conceived for another mother, halfway around the world. Little Meskerem’s birth was this adoptive mom’s conception. The day she was begotten on this earth, she was destined to be mine.

Months before our referral I specifically asked that the Lord would give us confirmation that these two adopted children were ours. He knew before I asked and gave me confirmation, 4 years earlier. Prepare. Wait. It will be a long gestation, but you will give birth. Your conception lies at the hands of another mother’s birth.

And today when our caseworker asked me for Eden’s birthday, I remembered. As she asked the question, Eden was crawling from my lap to Nate’s, dress around her waist and bum in the air, just as if no time had been lost between my conception of her and her arrival into our home.

The mystery of God hinges on pain and wonder. The first a cause for greater reception of the other.

The children are learning new words every day. Nate–gone for just 5 days on business–came back to a bevy of new expressions.

“Sho [sure]” is Caleb’s most recent response to most everything. Pretty much sums him up — ready and game for anything–and a man of few words alongside his verbose big sister.

I’m wondering if Eden’s prayers should be a litmus for what these kids are absorbing from me. Her prayers are like a linguistics parade. Does she understand that prayer is talking to God …or is this just early evidence that she’s a verbal processor like her mommy? (God help Nate.)

Tonight this is what she prayed: Jesus, thank you so much Jesus. Thank you for Daddy and Mommy. Mommy’s on the phone. Eat your salad. Timer going off. Two minutes. Six minutes. Seven minutes. Amen.”

She’s getting her numbers. Don’t you think?

Thanks to Eric Carle, my children know intimately the animals on the endangered species list. They may not know what number comes after five, but they know that Xolo starts with “X” (what the heck is a xolo anyways?). Yesterday when I was asking Eden what she was making with her play dough, she quickly responded “A bed for my boa constrictor.”

Oh, of course.

She still points to the sink and says “please turn on the water in the wash-your-hands” but yet she knows those animals–asking me if her pink shoes were the same color as a flamingo. (Maybe I should have followed the earlier advice of a speech therapist: to label everything in my house.)

Hard to believe, watching them make “smoothies” with their legos or perform mini-concerts for their bears that they’ve been on American soil for just under 4 months.

At night when Eden drills me with the same questions, in the same order … “Mommy, stay here? Mommy sleep here? Daddy sleep here? Eden and Caleb sleep and then wake up and Mommy and Daddy here? And then Mommy and Daddy and Eden and Caleb cuddle time?”…I wonder if this is like every other four-year-old, getting a grasp on their schedule, or if this line of questioning is driven by fear of more loss.

Regardless, I assure her, Eden, Mommy and Daddy will stay right here. We sleep here. Mommy isn’t leaving.

We’re just crazy about them.

Every once in a while I look back at the pictures we received just after we learned of Eden and Caleb as a reminder of how far they’ve come.

Here’s from early April. At Sele Enat orphanage.

And today. On our back deck.

This post should more appropriately be titled “Daddy and Caleb Are Boys” as it seems that birthdays in our home have taken on a whole new meaning.

As you may have read in an earlier post, we decided to celebrate the childrens’ birthdays, which were 2 weeks apart, on one day in-between both birthdays. The combination of an entirely new concept (they don’t celebrate birthdays in Ethiopia), gaps in the language, and gifts that could/would be attached to a specific child (rather than communal) made us decide it was best to kick this first birthday year off without much tradition.

(I should also add that we were initially incorrect about *exactly* when Caleb’s birthday was. We read “6-10-07″ as June 10th…when it was actually, October 6th. Hence, this post–now not quite accurate Oh, and in that post we mention that his birthday was the same as my Mom’s…no longer true of course. But it IS the same as our sweet niece, Mimi.).

We still wanted to make the individual day special for each child — with special prayers, birthday songs and cards. We just left the presents and “cake” (e.g. banana bread) for the joint gig.

Well, the morning of Caleb’s birthday, just before we went in to wish him Happy Birthday, we learned that my father passed away. Since the child didn’t really know one day from the next anyways, we figured we wouldn’t add to his current birthday-confusion by having “mommy twying” (crying) all day be associated with his birthday. Instead, we celebrated it the next day. (I suppose all of this only adds to my grand plan to have a few birthday weeks each year, rather than just one day to celebrate me ).

Now, I can barely keep up with all the clauses and addendums we made to our birthday plan, so I can’t blame the kid for seeing birthdays as some sort of gender assertion day. Each time we said “Happy Birthday, Caleb” or sang Happy Birthday, he quickly responded “Daddy and Caleb are boys.” Maybe if he had siblings whose first language was English they would make up for the obvious gaps his parents are creating in explaining these seemingly weird traditions.

I only hope we can get our act together by Thanksgiving or Christmas.

But for now, we’ll assume this isn’t some indication of a larger schism in his thinking about life and the world.

As for my little guy, we’ve probably seen the most change in him — out of the two — since we’ve brought him home. And while I couldn’t imagine loving him more than when I first set eyes on his picture, he has certainly managed to steal more of my heart each day as he is getting more and more comfortable being in mommy’s arms.

In the Bible, God Himself describes Caleb as one who “has a different spirit in him, and has followed Me fully.” I see even the beginning seeds of this namesake in my own little Caleb–who pages through his bible with wonder and asks us many times throughout the day to “salut” (pray). His sister’s larger-than-life personality (that can tend to take up a room and then some) doesn’t threaten him …he just sits back and laughs at “goofy” (as we affectionately call her) as if to say it’s your time to shine, sis.

Amidst scores of birthday gifts (not even from us), by far his favorite birthday treat was a card that said “Happy Birthday” from my friend Erica and her daughter Madelyn, complete with childrens’ chicken-scratch. He carried it around all morning singing “da da da da” (he’s even composing music at a young age) as if he’d been given a life-size firetruck.

So, although a little late, here’s to the other of the little brown people who have rocked our world.

We love you, Caleb!