The Friday before Father’s Day I found myself in a quick phone
call with my college roommate who I don’t get to talk to often enough these
days. She dove right into asking
questions about our adoption process and how close we were to getting to be
able to travel and pick up our daughter.
I confided in her my honest feelings, as always, and didn’t
hold back that I had a mental wall about how this adoption was going to
end. Although we had paid thousands of dollars in fees along the way, I knew the end was not pretty. A few days earlier, I had totaled
our remaining dues ($7,400+) and imagined our travel costs (airline, hotel,
food, etc.), and saw that our adoption envelope had just over $9,200 in
it. We had been consistently living
below our means and sweeping money into the adoption envelope, but it clearly
wasn’t enough.
My husband and I had touched on the topic in a brief alone moment a week before that. I didn’t have an answer, neither did my
Beloved – there were no more extra funds coming in. We agreed to just pray about it.
To be honest, my faith was shallow. I was approaching it as if I needed to come
up with a great idea, or succumb to the truth that we were going to have to
borrow money to complete our adoption.
Meanwhile, I bravely decided to put my head in the sand and
not think about it at all.
After telling Carrie all of this in a much more
“blunt-because-you-know-me-so-well” fashion, she immediately turned it around
and said that she had been in a Bible study recently and felt like she needed
to share what she learned with me….
“Laurie, our God is
the God of loaves and fishes. You don’t
know how this story will end, but HE DOES.
You need to turn to Him and commit to Him what you have. He will provide.”
I’ve been a Christian for a long time, so I’d like to say
that she brought me out of the pit and I saw the light. I know that the Word of God is truth, but I
will be honest and say that I felt good for about 90 seconds and then I went
back to hiding my head in the sand, sending up some SOS prayers, and ignoring that nagging nervous feeling of
helplessness.
The next morning, I was drinking my coffee and scrolling
through my Facebook feed when and I jumped over to
read this wonderful post
written by an adoptive dad (Father’s Day weekend, remember?).
I enjoyed the fact that he made decisions a lot
like my husband does and took comfort in his personal experience of not knowing how
his adoptions were going be able to work out.
But then he ended his post with this from Mark chapter
six: 35 By this time it was late in the day, so his disciples
came to him. “This is a remote place,” they said, “and it’s already very late.
36 Send the people away so that they can go to the surrounding countryside and
villages and buy themselves something to eat.”
37 But he answered, “You give them something to eat.” They said to him, “That
would take more than half a year’s wages! Are we to go and spend that much on
bread and give it to them to eat?”
38 “How many loaves do you have?” he asked. “Go and see.” When they found out,
they said, “Five—and two fish.”…
41 Taking the five loaves and the two fish and looking up to heaven, he gave
thanks and broke the loaves. Then he gave them to his disciples to distribute
to the people. He also divided the two fish among them all. 42 They all ate and
were satisfied, 43 and the disciples picked up twelve basketfuls of broken
pieces of bread and fish.
I immediately went to my Beloved and told him that I had no
idea what was going on, but I got the sense that we needed to incorporate the
idea of loaves and fishes into our prayers about Megan’s adoption. He agreed and that was that.
My mom and I spoke on the phone while she was staying with my brother helping his family as they welcomed their fourth sweet baby into their family. She happened to mention that my sister in-law donated a bunch of items to an adoption fundraiser yard sale that wound up raising about $3,000. I told her briefly of our dilemma (head out of the sand just to peek at the bright light for a moment), and she suggested that I think about hosting a yard sale myself.
Honestly, $3,000 wasn’t going to solve our problem, and we were seriously considering me traveling alone to adopt Megan. That would be like Kenyon missing the birth of his child. I really wanted to bring one of the older boys to help her adjustment as well - but that wasn't going to happen from this point of view.
With time running out, I went back into my mental hiding.
Sunday night is family dinner night at our house and my
non-biological sisters who live close by come for dinner every week. Unprompted, that Sunday night one of my
sisters brought me two boxes of clothes, shoes, and accessories and told me to
take what I wanted and pass the rest along.
I put them in the garage and thought nothing of it.
Monday morning arrives.
Monday through Friday my Beloved (the morning person) gets up at
zero-dark-thirty and runs five miles. He
then comes back, gets showered and dressed, and brings me (NOT the morning
person OR a runner) a delightful mug of coffee to wake me from my dreamy slumber
so that we can talk for a few minutes before he leaves for his long work day.
I rolled over and cracked an eyelid that Monday morning and
saw my coffee on my nightstand, but my Beloved was nowhere to be seen.
The house was quiet.
I was alone.
I reached for my coffee AND my Bible. It had been too many days and I was feeling a
little desperate.
|
The reading plan |
When I read my Bible, generally I follow a 10 chapter per
day reading plan that was popular a while back.
I keep a chart in the back of my Bible and always just pick up where I
left off. The 10 chapters take me all
over the Bible and I really like the variety.
I would love to say it had only been a few days since I my
last quiet reading. I would like to say
it had been several days. But I’m being
honest here – it had been MANY days. It
is summer vacation. Five kids are home
with me. Days are long and I have little
to no alone time that overlaps with any valuable brain cells.
I looked to my chart and just dug in…..
But I nearly dropped my Bible on the floor after the first
few sentences of the first chapter.
It couldn’t be.
What?
I quickly realized that my 10 chapter reading plan that I
could have been reading two weeks ago or two weeks from now had me starting at
John chapter six.
“Jesus Feeds the Five Thousand”
I read it through, all the while feeling the humility that
the God of creation gave me the gift of knowing He was right there with me
(even with my head in the sand).
The God
who put the stars in place and knitted me in my mother’s womb chose to
encourage me by these three linked messages inside of a long weekend.
He knows the end.
John 6:5 When Jesus looked up and saw a great crowd coming
toward him, he said to Philip, “Where shall we buy bread for these people
to eat?” 6 He asked
this only to test him, for he already had in mind what he was going to do.
After allowing myself to soak up the story, I texted my
husband (and Carrie) to tell him of my reading that morning. I then asked him how he would feel about
putting my full effort behind a yard sale where we could accept donated items
and hope for a big turnout to fill the gap.
He agreed.
John 6:8 Another of
his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, spoke up, 9 “Here is a
boy with five small barley loaves and two small fish, but how far will they go
among so many?”
I had two boxes of donated items and some random things
around the house. Not nearly enough for
a sale myself, but that day I decided on a date and put out the word of our
plan.
I fasted in honor of what God was about to do in our
lives. I don’t fast very much, but it
made me realize how much more I need to pray.
Friends, acquaintances, and complete strangers brought
donations – both small and large.
We had
clothes, shoes, household items, toys, furniture, appliances – you name it and
it was arriving almost daily.
Several people had their own yard sales and then let us come
and pick up everything that didn’t sell.
Friends would do this and then convince others (complete strangers to
us) to do the same.
Our garage quickly filled up.
My dear friend and mentor came weekly to sort all the
clothes and smaller items so that we would have less of a challenge setting up
during the sale.
We listed bigger items on our local online classifieds and
made nearly $900 before the yard sale weekend even arrived.
Not only that, but my long distance friends started sending
checks in lieu of yard sale items.
Generous checks from people that I know for a fact are not loaded with
cash. Envelope after envelope, I would
open and tearfully read through a heartfelt note of LOVE for our family and our
soon-to-be daughter.
I had lunch one day with a new friend of mine. She is a season ahead of me in life and I
have come to depend on her for wisdom and thoroughly enjoy every moment I have
with her. She and her husband are some
of the most generous people I know.
She encouraged me to not only
apply for visas for my Beloved and myself, but for one of our older boys as
well. I hesitated because I always want
to be a good steward of the money God gives us, but a week later, I sent three
applications to the Chinese Consulate in Washington D.C..
Another dear college friend stopped for a couple of days
during a long road trip during the week before the yard sale. She is artistic and has her own experiences
with loaves and fishes in her life. She
stayed up until 1 a.m. one night making 20+ poster board signs for our sale.
Somewhere in there, we found out that my husband received a
commission check that he didn’t expect (Remember the Excel spreadsheet
guy? He knows every dollar that is due
to him, so this could only be God). With
this check and the yard sale, I was starting to get the sense that this was
coming together.
I texted the friend who told me to apply for all the visas
and she said: “Isn’t that just like God
to meet your need? I wouldn't be surprised if you have some leftover.”
One night, as the big sale drew near, my Beloved got to
catch up with a close friend of his. This
friend and his family are a complete gift to us. We love them genuinely and dearly, but our
friendship may not have blossomed if it were not for a terrible tragedy that
struck their family. We have watched God
create beauty through ashes and our faith has grown through the process of pain
and slow healing.
This friend insisted on paying for one of our plane tickets.
What? He surely had
no idea what he was offering. Plane
tickets are between two and three t.h.o.u.s.a.n.d. dollars. Give him an easy out.
Nope. He was fully
aware and all.in.
Yard sale weekend arrives.
Our friends and neighbors came to help us manage the
inventory and sales. One friend that I
hadn’t seen in years insisted on being with me for the first five hours of day
one. I didn’t realize until late the
night before what a gift (and necessity) that was.
I didn’t even ask her.
I was given the opportunity to share our story many times
and just felt complete joy and peace that no matter how it turned out, God had
this covered.
Day one: $1,150
Day two: $1,260
End of day two and my dear mentor and I are starting the
clean up process. I went inside to make
us a cold drink and returned to help her pack up the clothes for the Big
Brothers/Big Sisters truck that was arriving shortly. We were high-fiving the success of the sale. My Beloved was off taking down all the signs.
One woman was in the driveway with her two children walking
the aisles.
I walked out of the house
with two drinks in my hands.
In passing,
I thanked them for coming and told her kids to fill a box for $1.
There were no other shoppers.
I handed Pati her drink and the anonymous woman walked up to
me.
“Are you Laurie?”
“Yes I am.”
(Shaking my hand) “I’m Lynn.”
Lynn handed me a folded check.
“Lynn, do I know you?”
“No, you do not know me.” (as I’m opening the check)
At this point my tears are falling. Lynn is walking away from me saying something
about having their own adoption story, but it is a complete blur because I
can’t believe what just happened.
I follow her, mumbling something about the words thank you
seeming inadequate. I wrap my arms
around her. She hugs me back but seems
determined to get to her car. She
doesn’t even call her kids to the car – it’s like magic – they just know to get
in.
And she drives away.
I’m still crying and I silently hand Pati the check. Now she is crying too. She reminds me not to call my husband because
she wants to see his face when he sees the check.
I obey. We cry. In shock, we continue to pack up things for the charity pick up.
My husband returns. I
show him the check. HE CRIES.
That night I returned to the story in John 6. John 6:12 “When they
had all had enough to eat, he said to his disciples, “Gather the pieces
that are left over. Let nothing be wasted.” 13 So they gathered them and
filled twelve baskets with the pieces of the five barley loaves left over by
those who had eaten.”
Let nothing be wasted.
My first thought after receiving the $4,000 check and after I
returned to my right mind was, “I want to be the one dropping off the check!”
We had not yet booked our tickets, but we already started
talking about tracking every single penny through our
electronic envelope system.
Any extra will not be wasted.
Donations continued to arrive via postal mail, PayPal, and
simply handed to us unexpectedly. One donation was mailed directly to our agency to reduce our fees still outstanding. A
Noonday party benefitted our adoption costs. We
think we are quite close to covering all of our travel costs with the
possibility of having “baskets to gather” after we are through.
We have purchased three round trip airline tickets and a single one-way ticket. We have booked hotels and reserved a guide and transportation services. Megan's older brother Andrew will meet her in China and help us convince her that our family is pretty great and we are excited for her to be in it.
We have great plans to help another adoptive family or set
up a grant for a specific orphan that needs a family. Our cup is overflowing.
Off to China we go…..