God willing, in six weeks Angie and I will
be traveling to Latin America to meet our daughter for the first time. Neither of us has ever been outside of the
United States before (sorry Canada, you don’t count) and I will be spending two
months in a country where I speak so little of the language that I might as
well say things really loudly and slowly in English. A country that when I researched books about
it, every single one was the story of someone who had been held hostage and tortured
in the jungle for 6 years. A country
whose largest anti-American organization/army has a name that I cannot help but
laugh when I hear. (FARC!? I mean, c’mon, it’s hard enough to be taken
seriously when you’re a Marxist rebel army hiding out in the jungle eating capybaras,
but then to name your organization something that inspires gut-wrenching laughter
in your most hated adversary? That
sounds like something Mel Brooks would come up with. I am SO dead if I get abducted.)
And even more terrifying than becoming a
paycheck to a bunch of Idealist Latin-American Hippie-Soldiers is the thought of
having a 3 year old to take care of. I’m
not sure I know what a 3 year old is, let alone how to raise one. Is there an owner’s manual or something? Do I get points for effort? How much damage could a well meaning
father-to-be possibly do to a kid in just a couple of weeks, right? The good news is that we know she’s a tough
kid. I would rather not think/talk about/be
reminded of the things this poor girl has gone through, but she’s so tough she
puts Rocky to shame. And she (and EVERY
SINGLE ORPHAN) deserves a family that will love her forever.
For whatever reason (and I don’t hold them
accountable at all) Claudia’s foster family isn’t willing to adopt her. But she deserves to know that she is a
daughter, not a foster-daughter or ward of the state. That there is absolutely nothing wrong with
her, and that she has a Mother and a Father who love her no matter what, and
will raise her to know that her Father in Heaven loves her even more than we
do. That her Mother and Father’s friends
and family lover her so much that they are willing to sacrifice their own
comforts and time and money so that she can be with them. I can’t say it enough – I don’t deserve the
friends that I have, and it is inconceivable that I will ever be able to repay
your kindness and generosity.
My
hope is that by bringing Claudia home with us, that where she lives now will be
able to take in another child. It sounds
like they do a very good job with Claudia, and many kids would be lucky to have
a home like the one she is in right now.
And one by one (or five at a time for some
of the Reese’s Rainbow community) family by family, we’ll get there.
