The Mailbox

Looking back, I am sorry that we didn't take a picture as we apprehensively dropped the standard #10 envelope containing our application for adoption in the mailbox. The simple and singular act represented for Rebecca and I the culmination of several years of talking and praying as we considered the prospect of international adoption. Since there is no snapshot by which to remember this monumental first step, it will be immortalized here, as the first entry in our family blog.

Many of you will be reading this several weeks after it was initially posted, and I hope that it will serve as a brief (or not so brief) history of how and why we made the decision to adopt.

Three years ago, while Rebecca and I were part of a group Bible study, we began to feel drawn to the continent of Africa. We began to develop a deep empathy for the continent and its people and we felt that someday we would be in service to its people. At the time we both thought (and feared) that we would be called into the mission field and that we would be relegated to an out-posted tribal village far from the familiarity of our homes and our families.

During the past three years, we have often revisited the time when we felt so undeniably drawn to Africa and its people; however, we have never quite been able to reconcile what this meant for our lives. Neither of us see ourselves as missionaries (at least not in the traditional sense of the title), and we have both often remarked how at home we feel in the skin of our lives. We enjoy our jobs, our friends, our church; in fact, there is little that we really feel inclined to change too drastically.

Periodically, we have discussed having children. We have discussed when and how many and how close together in age they should be, all things that I assume most couples discuss when the topic of children arises. In addition to those "typical" discussion points, we also discussed how wonderful it would be to have an ethnically diverse family. Initially, these discussions were fleeting and our comments passing; however, as we began to discuss our "ideal" family at greater length, it became apparent that we both greatly desired to have both children who were white as well as children of color. I was almost immediately reminded of our very serious discussions two years earlier of Africa , the needs of its people, and our desire to be invested in both. In the six months to a year to follow, we first jointly and then separately began to realize that our calling to Africa was not one that required us to leave American soil and live in an unfamiliar place, but rather that it required us to only visit that unfamiliar place and that it required us to raise one of its sons or daughters. Specifically, we were drawn to the country of Ethiopia in eastern Africa.

At this juncture, I should be clear, that this was in no way an epiphany or even and "ah-ha moment," but rather a slow revelation forged through research and soul searching. We have each asked, both separately and of each other what it will mean for an African child to be raised in a white family. We have asked what others will think as we become "conspicuous." We have wondered how paramount the roll of race is in modern society. And we have asked if what we are doing is even right at all. During the past several months we have managed to find at least partial answers to some of those questions and we have become more comfortable with wondering what the answers are to the others. We do not pretend to fully understand what we have committed ourselves to, but we are trusting that God understands the process and that we will ultimately be given the desires of our heart.

As with a pregnancy (or at least I infer as with a pregnancy) we are excited and terrified. While we know many people who have adopted, many internationally, this process is still new and unfamiliar and certainly unconventional. We expect that there will be lots of questions and we a are looking forward to answering them. We hope that you will join in our excitement as we begin this journey into what feels like a veritable unknown. Faith led us to take the initial steps in this process and it led us to a blue metal mailbox. It is our belief that it will lead us far beyond that mailbox and that the journey will be filled with surprises.

Ryan