Answering The Unanswered Question

Answering "The Unanswered Question" is hard. It's hard when asked by strangers, hard when asked by friends, hard when asked by family, hard when we ask it of ourselves, and hardest when asked by our girls in Haiti. We are to the point where many are afraid to ask it, or apologize for doing so. But please don't feel that way. It's still ok to ask. We never expected this process not to be hard. Everything about it is hard, and we don't expect it to get easier even when we are able to answer "When are the girls coming home?" and even when they do. Our daily prayer is that in the many hard days ahead that we will be able to "count them all joy". You see, God's adoption of us wasn't an easy process either, yet we are so thankful that He endured many hardships for our sakes. 


Haiti's adoption process is one of the longest known to man (or at least to us!). It makes it more difficult for us (and others to understand) because of the circumstances in which we entered our adoptions of the girls. It has been 8 months now since we were first matched with our girls and submitted paperwork on the U.S. side, but initially that was under a different process, and that process (Humanitarian Parole) closed down last April. The best news we have received so far is that Haiti re-opened for adoptions at all. We hurried to submit our dossier on May 15th, 2010 (getting that done in the time frame we did it in was truly a miracle), and entered the long adoption process  in Haiti at that time. Traditionally, Haiti's adoption process timeline is approx. 2 years. We are about 5 months into that, and because of the chaos of the earthquake, paperwork issues have slowed things down more than we had hoped or imagined. Our hope and prayer was that our dossier (along with the girls dossier with all their paperwork) would go to IBESR last June or July. It still is not there. This has been disheartening to say the least, but we are told the girls paperwork should be secured and completed within this month of October (Lord willing!) Please pray specifically for this and that once it does go to IBESR it will be placed in hands that will move it through quickly! 


I want to encourage you with something God reminded me of just yesterday. I was thinking about a popular phrase and commonly asked question that was at one time "unanswered". Queen Esther was asked, "Yet who knows whether you have come to the kingdom for such a time as this?" (Esther 4:14) I've always heard the "for such a time as this" part emphasized to make a point or to answer a plaguing question. However, it was the "who knows?" part that grabbed my attention this time (probably because I've heard myself say that a lot lately). Part of the unanswered question is "Who knows?"! "Answering our unanswered question (or any question) with an unanswered question like "Who knows?" is nothing short of frustrating. It simply begs the question, "Then who does know?" Jeremiah 33:31 says, "Call to Me, and I will answer you, and show you great and mighty things, which you do not know." I told the Lord, "I want to know! I need to know!" I know there are some things God says we don't need to know, but I need to know this! And you know what? God gave me my answer! Many, many times throughout scripture He tells us, "And you shall know I am the Lord your God". Our son Ethan just finished memorizing Psalm 100. Each day I would hear his sweet voice practice saying these words, "Know that the Lord, He is God; It is He who has made us, and we are His." Thank you Lord for reminding me that you really do have the whole world in your hands, and that includes Haiti. So instead of answering the unanswered question with the question "Who knows?" from now on my answer will be "God knows!" and that is a really great thing to know!