Meet Benjamin Goodgame!

http://vimeo.com/7211226

WE PASSED COURT!!!

We found out yesterday, October 14, 2009, that we "passed court." That means that Tesfahun is now a Goodgame. We are naming him Benjamin Tesfahun Goodgame. He is doing well, and we can't wait for him to come home.

Thank you to all our friends and family who have prayed for us during this process. We are truly blessed!

Care Package Report

We just got to talk to a couple who went last week to get their daughter from Ethiopia, and they were so kind to take a care package to our little boy. We sent him a toy car, a few clothes, and a photo album with family pictures in it. They said he looked great. But he's a little shy. We have been told that before. She did say that it was probably a little overwhelming for him with all the adults around.

It was so great to hear that they got to see him. Every update makes it a little more real that, with hope, in three months, he will be here and be part of our family finally.

We got the call!

Sorry it's been so long since our last blog. I'll let Randy explain that later in our next post. But the most exciting news is that on July 29 we got THE CALL. Our family coordinator called us on a Wednesday afternoon. It went something like this: "Hi, Amy and Randall. We have some exciting news for you. We have your referral! It's a little boy, and he is two years old." At this point, we have her on speaker phone and are just sort of laughing. That kind of laughing emotion that is very close to crying but joyful. We were just so excited and we didn't know what to say. She said she would send us the email (with all his info and pictures). We hung up and waited for the "ding" of the computer letting us know there was a new email in the inbox.

That was a long couple of minutes! :)

We opened it, and read his info. Then as we scrolled down further, we finally saw his picture. This most precious face of our new son! At that point, there were no words--only tears and joy and a sigh of thankfulness. We started this process in December of 2007, and our family has been praying for "little brother" since January of 2008. It has been a hard road at times, full of fear, excitement, joy, anticipation, pain, doubt, and faith, most of all faith. But now we know his name and his face (we won't be able to post his pictures or give his name until after we pass court). At this point, we're hoping for a court date in October, and there's the possibility that he will be home with us by December.

Thanks to everyone who has supported us during this time. We really appreciate your thoughts and prayers. Continue to pray for our son and our family. We can't wait to bring home Goodgame #5!

Book Exerpt

This is an excerpt from a cool new book by Russell Moore, Adopted For Life. Russell is speaking at a Together for Adoption conference in Franklin, October 2-3. Enjoy!

Some Christians have firm convictions against any kind of debt. Because of the Bible tells us “the borrower is the slave of the lender” (Prov 22:7), these Christians believe nothing should be purchased that can’t be paid for in cash. In an era when so many people—including Christians—are awash in indebtedness to credit cards and car payments and so on, I respect those Christians who reject debt altogether. If you’re of this conviction, then don’t violate your conscience. Most Christians, though, don’t believe the Bible forbids all debt, just unwise and enslaving forms of it. Most Christians, for instance, will take out a mortgage for a home, and don’t believe they are unwise stewards for so doing. If you fit in this category, I do not think taking out a loan for the purpose of adoption is wrong—provided, as in all things, you’ve wisely considered how you’re going to pay off the money you’ve borrowed.

At a more fundamental level, it’s important to know that you don’t always have to know how God will equip you to adopt before you begin praying and planning toward adoption. I know it’s a Christian cliché to shrug and say, “God will provide” in the face of financial uncertainty—but the reason it’s a cliché is because God does indeed provide. Now, to be sure, God doesn’t promise to bless us with material prosperity, and he doesn’t indulge us with money to cover our foolish consumerist binges. But God repeatedly provides the means for willing men and
women to become parents, including those he’s called to adopt. Sometimes, at the first, it seems economically impossible.

When Maria and I started the adoption process, we had no money. I was a doctoral student, working as a part-time research assistant, and my wife was a very low-paid office secretary. In our living room was a threadbare couch we bought for about thirty dollars. After we purchased it, we had to spend another fifteen dollars to get the marijuana smoke smell out of it from the previous owners’ use. My car was a rusted little Subaru with an overheating radiator that could only get me about a mile and a half down the road without needing a gallon of water poured into it. We lived off our meager salaries, and the money I’d earn preaching in little country churches on the weekend. Later in the process, I was appointed to a seminary faculty, but, even so, the financial weight of the adoption was overwhelming to think about. I don’t like worrying about how I’m going to pay for things, and I can’t stand the idea of being indebted to anyone. And yet, God was, it seemed, leading us to do
something that would cost possibly more than the two of us combined made in a year.

One day, I looked up from my office desk to see a young man peering in the window of my door. I recognized him. He was a youth minister from a church in another state. I welcomed him in, thinking he wanted counsel about some pastoral situation in his church or some doctrinal point in the Bible he couldn’t understand. Instead, after a few minutes of idle conversation, he looked at me and said, “My wife and I were left some money from a relative who passed away. It’s about $10,000 and we were going to use it one day to go toward a down-payment on a house.” I nodded, trying to anticipate what the ethical dilemma would be, for which he was seeking my “wisdom.” He said, “My wife and I have been blessed with children, and I know you are trying to adopt. We want you to have this money, and use it toward the adoption of your children.”

I wasn’t expecting that, and I quickly dismissed it. “Oh no,” I said. “ I appreciate that greatly. But I want you and your wife to use that money for your house, or for your kids’ college education.” I assured him of my appreciation, and politely changed the subject to something else, trying to avoid the awkwardness of the moment.

“Are you telling me you already have all the money on hand that you need for the adoption?” he asked. “It’s already paid for?” I said, “Well, no, but…” This young minister interrupted me. “Well, then, I’m sorry to be disrespectful, but this isn’t really about you,” he said. “I mean, we aren’t in a place where we can adopt right now but we want to be a part of adoption. We think God is calling us to this. And it seems to me as though maybe you’re too, I don’t know, prideful or something, to receive this.” I blinked. He looked up and said, “Maybe you just need to repent of your pride and self-confidence and just let somebody bless you.”

He was, at that moment, the prophet pointing his finger—“Thou art the man”—exposing the slimy recesses of my heart, right there under the fluorescent ceiling lamps of my office. I had nothing to say. It was true that I was embarrassed at the thought of taking money from someone. I wasn’t anybody’s welfare recipient. I’d paid for every car I’d ever owned with cash. I’d worked my own way through all my schooling. I paid off every credit card bill I’d ever had in full the month it was due. I didn’t like the idea of this young man’s family knowing he was giving the money—money they’d like him to have for his family—to me. I didn’t like having the roles reversed on me suddenly—and my sitting there as a supplicant to be helped rather than a sage to be consulted. It was humiliating.

This young man looked at my tear-streamed face and said, “Well, I’ll mail the check tomorrow.” He continued, “I just want two conditions met. We’d like a picture of the boys every once in a while as they’re growing up. I also want to make sure no one ever knows who I am. You can tell people that someone helped you—if you think it’ll help people to do the same. But I don’t want anyone ever to know it was I who did it. I want God to get all the glory here. I don’t want any.”

By Faith: A Ugandan Orphanage

I ran into this story on CNN.com yesterday about the creation of an orphanage in Uganda. It is so inspiring to consider the lives changed by a person with a vision and the courage to obey.

Ugandan orphanage

Perseverance

Well, as Amy said, now it's my turn.

Up till now, Amy bore the burden of keeping folks updated with our adoption progress, and tonight I hereby take charge. (Or else I'm in trouble!)

As you may notice, there is a significant silent gap between November and April on our blog. Like the old adage goes, 'silence speaks' and here thats as true as ever. The second half of last year, Amy was experiencing nagging health problems that developed into troubling, constant pain. Long story short, in December she was diagnosed with IC, or interstitial cystitis.

"Inter-what?"

You can google it and learn way more than you'd ever want to know, and half of it will be wrong. Basically it's very painful but not life-threatening. The doc that made the diagnosis said there wasn't much we could do but try to watch what she eats. In fact he said, "Just do what you've been doing." Which wasn't going to work for long because Amy was losing weight like I lose my car keys and the pain wasn't subsiding.

After a difficult Christmas, once we all got back to Nashville, we found a homeopathic doc that said he could help, and we pushed all our chips on the table and said, "yes please."

And finally, after a few months of intentionally avoiding the issue, (which was really hard with the kids), we made the call to America World to ask if we could put the adoption process on hold, since Amy was sick and we had no idea what to expect for the future. They mercifully agreed to let us take a few months out of the process while we figured things out.

All of this is running parallel to the track of struggling mightily with God. At least, it seemed that way to me. God was probably not so worked up. It's so hard to see your loved ones in pain, and I cried out a good bit.

I flipped between being mad and sad and numb and just coping. I was about to leave my part-time job at the church and go back to full-time music, and we were deep into the journey of this adoption which had already been more trying that we would have liked. We have said all along that this was not our plan. We had submitted to what we thought was God's plan, and he's the one wrecking it. Now that just seems mean.

By the second week of January, we had come to terms with the situation and had agreed together to stop the whole adoption process if things kept going as they were. She was in too much pain to consider anything else. And then, ever so slowly, like a Plutonian sunrise, Amy began to improve.

Sometime in mid-February, she turned the corner we had all been waiting for... not for the adoption, but for the return of the personality that had been consumed by all the pain and hunger and confusion and fear about what to eat. And late one night - I think it was on my birthday - she wanted to talk, and it was about the adoption, and now here we are.

The thing is, from the beginning, this was never about wanting to adopt. We simply wanted to grow our family. And as we may have articulated on this blog before, we planned on the old fashioned way, and then as mysteriously as is typical for these kind of things, we lost our peace about that. We prayed and talked and struggled and finally landed on adoption. This was God's clear path for us, as far as we could tell - which is never very far, as it turns out.

And then it wasn't, and now it is again (or, maybe it was all along)... And we are thankful. As ridiculous as it sounds, we are thankful for the trials that we have been through the last few months. God brought us to our knees, which is a pretty healthy place, metaphorically speaking. We see his hand in every step of the way, even when it seemed like he was just being mean. (It makes me think of Livi, screaming when I wrangle her down to pick out a splinter.)

And... we are pumped UP!!! We are going to Ethiopia to find our son, and if he's got a sibling, we'll take him(or her) too! Thanks for being pumped with us. It means the world to have the encouragement and support of our friends and family. We're so thankful for all of you!!!! Tune in again soon. I'm going to try and write something every day or two. (even if it means staying up past 2 AM)