The Davis Family

What would a mother do for a little boy named Daniel? What wouldn’t two mothers do for a little boy named Daniel? This story is one of tragedy and one of hope. One of loss and one of promise. It’s not an easy story to tell… there is more than meets the eye. I will tell you what I can.

My first installment is in photos.

I don’t remember how long the flight halfway around the world was, but it was long.

The three travelers in the mirror of a tiny European elevator in Sofia, Bulgaria.

We met other travelers while abroad! Two kind Kenyan missionary nuns (who speak English!) greeted us and helped us mail letters to the birth families of two other adopted children.

Another 8 hours traveling to the east border – the city of Varna on the Black Sea. Driving like… like Marty. On straight stretches we were going 100 mph (160km/h)

Varna at last! With enough luggage in tow for four people for two weeks!

Into the orphanage with my second born held tight.

We learned that Daniel’s mother WAS THERE! Here we have just a little more waiting outside the director’s office.

The first meeting. The only sounds were background voices and tears.

Two mothers. One embrace. One experiencing loss. No… two experiencing loss.

Bound together in love. Both of us choosing to believe hope.

The story here grows too long for pictures or even words. Daniel’s mother loves him deeply. She wants what is best for him. Everybody, everybody tells her he is better off in the orphanage and that she cannot care for him. The loss is keen and the story is tragic. Her bravery is a bright light and her love is fire. It is not good that we live half a world away and that we two mothers cannot be with each other with our boy.

She gave me gifts beyond value. Newborn photos. And a figuring showing a man (“your husband”), a woman (“you”) and a little child (“Daniel”) in an embrace wrapped by angel wings. She gives us her blessing. And now my tears are flowing again.

Gifts.

She spoke much… I have video for Daniel later. He played a loud toy she gave him during our talk, but that is okay. She had to hand me Daniel after we got to the car. And I prayed a blessing on her, though the words were short. I had no words. I gave her our email address and some photos of our family. I gave her the promise that he is still loved and that someday I’ll bring him to visit when he is older.

It was beautiful and hard.

Daniel bears the wounds of orphanage life. He is small. his lips are cracked and peeling. He does not trust. He is smart, curious, determined, playful, delighted by small things. He is tired, scared, and away from all things familiar.

He will not eat or drink for us yet. Please pray.

While we were in the building, we learned that this is the first time ever that a birth mother has met the adoptive family during the pick up trip. Usually, it is something done not at all or after the adoption has been complete and the family is home via the internet. What a gift to be able to see and hold and cry with Daniel’s first mother.

Here they are watching a video of Jordan playing in the river.

Maggie understood what was happening with that keenly perceiving heart of hers.

Lunch break on the swings with Maggie

Lunch break – Daniel fought being held and we let him scoot around on the concrete. First taste of freedom. First taste of the sun.

In our apartment at last. A rest from travels. And look! He can bear weight on those crooked little feet!

Rachel and Co, made it to their destination and tomorrow is the big day! She was so tired that she asked me to post. 🙂 Not much to report but further bulletins as events warrant.

This thought came to me as we were singing at church on Sunday. The line in the song was “Oh death where is your sting? Oh hell where is your victory?” I was holding Jordan and thinking how for kids like him and Daniel the is healing is so slow. The wounds they’ve received are deep and though we’ve given him so much of ourselves it hasn’t been enough. And the kids we leave behind in the orphanage are soooo hard to think about. It SEEMS like hell has a victory in them. That place seems like such a black hole of suffering that our meager efforts can never undo the pain those kids have endured. But then it came to me, that our little efforts of adopting these two boys, out of many children, are just a down payment on Jesus’ final and forever victory. His rescue will be COMPLETE. When He is done with that orphanage and those kids there won’t be any pain left. One day He is coming back and He is going to take it ALL away. He will undo the years of neglect and fill those kids up with so much love and light that the years of waiting will be crowded clean out of their hearts. They just won’t be able to keep a hold of it. What little we’ve done, that has resulted in a partial rescue, a little healing, is a beginning of His greater work in these boys lives. We’ve applied the battlefield first aid if you will. It’s not enough, but it’s not for nothing. It is good and right. When we visited the orphanage in May, I was overwhelmed with the weight of suffering there. My heart breaks for all the children left behind. But the message I want Rachel to take in her heart when she picks up Daniel from the orphanage is, “Tremble you darkness. We are just the advance scouts. The cavalry is coming.”

-Brian

There is a lot of anticipation around here as we approach bringing the littlest Davis home. For months, Brian and I have cordoned off a part of our brain that experienced pain and grief whenever we thought about our “newborn to us” son and the conditions he is living in, literally half a world away. And now the longing, the waiting, the work, the great expense, the longing is about to be fulfilled in the adoption and reunion of ourselves with our precious son. I leave tomorrow.

There are two things happening here, however. Well, at least two. One is the reunion of a family to a son. The other is the disruption of a child from his world… into a family of strangers. This is a child who knows his life’s routine, who has a set point of all things familiar… being taken without explanation (he does not understand Bulgarian, much less English more than a few words) to a foreign place with people he doesn’t know. From his perspective, he is being kidnapped.

Please pray for him. Pray for us. We have studied how to best relate with him during these first days and years to create an environment where Daniel can begin to experience feeling safe. But we know so little about him that we don’t really know what it’s going to be like. I barely know what he looks and sounds like. I have very little insight into his thoughts, hopes and fears. But this is the only way: pick him up unannounced from his orphanage on Wednesday morning, change him into clothes we’re bringing for him and leave immediately in a car for a 6+ hour drive back to the country’s capital. He’s rarely been in a car. I’m not sure how the fear will set in – will he try to play and distract himself? Will he withdraw and be a little mouse? Will he protest and cry? Certainly, after some hours he will want to go back to his room, back to his bed, be tired and hungry.

So I know this is a “downer” post in the midst of the celebration of adoption. It’s suffering in the middle of great joy. But that’s the way of adoption. Brokenness and healing. Grief and new life. The joy is no less!

At the same time, I see this journey as an image of other parts of my life. Where joy and suffering are together. Love. Passion. Ambition. Loss. Emptiness. Failure. One goes with the other. When my faith is weak and I consider if God is real… then I realize that if God is not, then at the end of this life, there is no reward, no hope, no champion, no reunion. That is death! God is real and He knows my name! And at the end of this temporal struggle between the forces of light and darkness, there is a great reunion of all. And He will call my name, because He knows and loves me. What joy and hope at the end of the battle!

THAT, is anticipation. Can’t wait!

Today, I have been listening to God tell me about hope. It’s an important promise for me as we are finishing our adoption journey… beginning our parenting journey… and leaving so many children behind. I need these messages of hope, of life.

Eyes that don’t know trust yet.

The main story was this morning. Brian was working from home and we took a morning break to walk down the hill to bring the chickens a bag of food.

First promise of life… the rebirth of rain after a summer draught. The smell was fresh, the sun was cheerful, the air so deliciously clean. The birds chirping, the rough, scratchy grass softened. I had just scheduled Daniel’s first doctor appointment HERE in the States and I felt the life in me dancing.

While we were down in the coop, I decided to move our broody chicken (chicken that sits in her nest incubating eggs and who doesn’t leave the nest except for a bite of food or drink) out of her nest. She’s been sitting for well over the 3 weeks it takes to hatch eggs and I knew that the two eggs she was sitting on were most likely dead. I have a separate part of the coop with no nests that I was going to lock her in for a few days. It’s not my favorite thing to do. We’ve seen the eggs sitting cold (because she went back to the wrong nest on accident). One of the eggs had two long hairline cracks. They both had a slightly rotten smell. So we picked her up and turned to go.

A single fluffy yellow chick looked up at us with great surprise.
The other egg, still uncracked, peeped at us.

Life. Unexpected life. Life after adversity. Hope.

Hope for Daniel.

Then tonight after work but before dinner, we attacked the weeds in the garden. Our poor garden. We tended it some. We watered it some. And the weeds thrived and many of the cultivated plants died or sprawled on the ground for lack of necessary trellises. And the weeds. Oh, the weeds. We pulled and we pulled. With every giant weed we pulled from the rain-softened ground, we saw the soft, dark soil that we had prepared this spring. And I remembered that from our poor, overgrown, imperfect garden, that I’ve harvested tens of pounds of gorgeous, delicious tomatoes. And bags of carrots. And there are nearly a dozen small butternut squashes in there. And the blueberries… gallons of blueberries were picked this spring.

Hope. Promise. Life.

Finally, as I left the garden to feed my family, I saw a honeybee. It had been there an hour earlier. Sitting, moving slowly, lost little honeybee. It was a young one, not old and near death. But then, it was near death. I suppose it went too far from home without enough food. I mixed a teaspoonful of sugar water and offered it. She drank. Then she cleaned her antenna and wiped her face. I offered her the sugar again, but she flew away, in slowly widening circles, finding her way home.

Sometimes we need a helping hand.

Life.

Some days the death and suffering are all I can see. This world is so very broken. But other days the Lord whispers words of hope.

Garden in spring.