Leaps and Bounds and Redemption

Flint has had one of the best weeks of his life in the United States of America. It has been a wondrous, hope inducing, awe filling, growing in leaps and bounds reality. Which, coincidentally translates to Flint and I have had one of the best weeks of his life in the United States of America. See how that works? Yes, I am the parent but relationships are streets that run two ways. My tender mercy for the boy has swelled and expanded and stretched to new heights. Witnessing improvement, forward movement that might, perhaps mean my labor has not been in vain, is good for my often weary flesh.  I can not help but be thankful for the wellspring that is refreshment when it washes over me.

Of course as there is often a ying to every yang, sweet Meadow is in a bit of a slump. Pockets of despair I thought we had  finally moved beyond are being revisited and I am once again reminded grief is a wave. It ebbs and it flows. It recedes exposing wide, sandy beaches and it rises to high tide obliterating what lies in its wake. Even through painful tears of overwhelming sorrow, we will continue to row.

Speaking of lamentation, a blog post that is a couple years old was brought to my attention recently. It was written by Jamie the Very Worst Missionary and can be found here. I had not read it before, but I basically emphatically agree. Not because I have any experience with short term missions trips, but because I possess intimate, ego stripping, heart shattering, raw, flawed motive exposing knowledge of what it is to swoop in on an impoverished family with my Western Philanthropy and take what I truly, to the very core of my being, believe belongs to another and claim them as my own. Yes, I am speaking of Meadow and Flint.

Although I feel enormous resistance when I mention this and I am no stranger to the significant pressure as a follower of Christ to count it all redemptive, I do not claim that to be the case.

As much as I desire to be honored for a good deed as much as anyone else, when injustice has been rendered, I have to believe it right and honorable to acknowledge and address it rather than sweep it under the rug to keep up appearances.

To me, our quasi ethical adoption is the epitome of a short term missions trip gone awry, not with ill intention, but with misguided effort. 

Eek. Uncomfortable, I know.

I see Meadow struggle with a crisis of identity that I humbly doubt will ever be fully healed this side of our coveted eternal hope.

I see Flint struggle with the weighty expectations of life in America which include continual academic progress and verbal interaction and increasing responsibility and I truly wonder if he is better suited to days spent on the African Savannah.

I know that for them, that this land of abundance comes with its own particular brand of poverty.

I think about the $1,000 a piece we spent on Lifebook videos in which a videographer and translator visited our children's fathers in their rural homes and filmed the locations, including their siblings and I wince with embarrassment over what I have done. I ask myself how I would feel in his place as I observe the anguish in his face and the tremble in his voice and the tears welling in his eyes as Meadow's father gives detailed account of his daughter's life, from her labor and delivery until the day he dropped her at the orphanage, including the moment he named her, Masso, meaning blessing.

I can not help writhe in grief that I did not have the wherewithal to collect all my benevolence and do something preventative for these families. So their fathers could raise their own children. So their families could stay intact. So their dignity could remain secure. So my daughter's heart would not be so deeply wounded. So she would not forever fight the uphill battle of feeling herself deserted, abandoned, unwanted, unworthy.

When I say say I agree and I have absolutely no plan to participate in a short term mission trip, it is not flippantly or without thought. It's because I can't even look in that direction. Although I know without a doubt there are many people doing wonderful work in foreign countries, even on short trips, it's not just Meadow and Flint and their families who have suffered, I too have been scarred by participating in ethically questionable practices that I have no means of undoing. I just couldn't even consider it an option.

Whether you fault me for it or not makes no difference - my conscience has been burdened.

At the same time, in response to what has taken place in our lives I do continue to feel led to give in the realm of orphan care and my passion has grown because of the road we've walked. But our service is and will continue to take on an entirely different light.

And that will have to be redemptive enough.