Missing There, Missing Here

It is hard to put into words all that the Ream family has been up to lately. I suppose if I had to sum up how I feel about all that we have been up to I would say that my heart is on a daily rollercoaster between missing there (Haiti) and missing here (the good ole USA). I'm missing there bad. I miss Haiti. I miss my girls. Understatement. I ache for my girls. I ache for the feel of their hair, for the sound of rattling beads as we walk hand in hand, for the touch of those beads on my arm as I watch them sleep in the early hours of the morning. I miss Esmée's laugh, Marguerite's bounce and sway as she enters the room, dressing them, feeding them, teaching them, praying with them, just being together. I am seeing a pattern in these in between times. About a week after I leave them I hit rock bottom. The ache feels close to a death. While we know we will see them again one day, we don't know when that day will be...and the missing is overwhelming. I wait for time. Time eventually overpowers the ache. But the ache doesn't go away. Ever. It is always there, every hour of every day. There. Here. No matter how far apart we are, my girls are never far away from me. A few months go by. Time helps, then time backfires. The overpowering ache begins to build again. This is because there was not a death. The ones I miss and long for are very much alive. We keep hope alive...oh so alive for the day we will be together again. The girls always ask when we first arrive, "When you come back?" instead of "When are you leaving?" They survive on hope. But "hope deferred makes the heart sick..."(Prov. 13:12). It has been 4 months since we left our girls last, and my heart is in the"sick" stage. 3 months in between visits is about the max before the unquenchable ache overpowers. It was 3 months in between my first and second visits. It was six months between my 2nd and 3rd visits. Then 3 months between my 3rd and 4th, and now we are looking at 6 months elapsing between the next....which Lord willing will be the last. You have no idea how excited I am about that. We haven't told the girls we are moving to Haiti. I hope no one else has spilled the beans. They made us promise last time that we would bring their brothers the next time we come, so we have sent them word that we are coming in August with their brothers...but now we won't get there until Sept. making this another awful 6 month wait. Hope deferred for another month. I am holding on to hope for the day in September when the girls look up at us and ask, "When you come back?" and we say, "This time we are not leaving Haiti until you can come with us!" Until that day I will be missing there, but cling to the rest of that verse which says..."but longing fulfilled is a tree of life". Ready to eat me some fruit from that tree! 

In the meantime of missing, we have been been in the trenches of spiritual warefare. We are grasping for the tree of life, but our baskets are coming up empty. We know that God has called us to move to Haiti. We know that He has called us to pursue these adoptions. We know that He will continue to provide and that His will shall be accomplished. We are not doubting these things, but the Deceiver has sure been busy trying to knock us off our feet. The other day I got a bitter taste of how Job must have felt when he received one super bad news report after another. While the first messenger was still speaking to him a second came and gave him more bad news, then a third and fourth with more of the same. Nothing but bad news with no light at the end of the tunnel...such has been our week. We knew this would come. I won't go into details on this post (the list is too long and posting publicly for all the world to see isn't a good idea anyways) but I would like to ask for much prayer at this time. The enemy does not want us to move to Haiti. The enemy is clinging to our girls and will do everything in his perverted power to keep them in their orphans night. We know who wins this battle. He has already overcome. He told us that "in the world we will have tribulation". We do not despair. And although it is hard to "be of good cheer" right now, we are comforted that the Victor in this battle has already been decided. And we are on the winning side. Darkness has already been overcome by the Light of the world. Our eyes are fixed on that Light...even in the midst of the darkness...because we know the Truth. "For whatever is born of God overcomes the world..." (1John 5:4). "Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God..." (1 John 5:1). WE BELIEVE! "And this is the victory that has overcome the world--our faith. Who is he who overcomes the world, but he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?" (1 John 5:5). "We know that we are of God, and the whole world lies under the sway of the wicked one. And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us an understanding, that we may know Him who is true; and we are in Him who is true, in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life." (1 John 5:19-20). We know that one day we will eat of that fruit! "To him who overcomes I will give to eat from the tree of life, which is in the midst of the Paradise of God" (Revelation 2:7).

Missing here is a new phenomenon to have to balance. It is not one of the punch in the gut, feeling like Job things, but it is a bittersweet addition. I suppose being in the sick stage of missing there helps lessen the ache of already missing here. These are uncharted waters. I feel like one day soon (perhaps the day we get on the plane) the tide of missing here emotions that is slowly closing in will sweep me away. I am not there yet. But I know it is coming. I am wondering how severely we will miss the temporal things. We have been out of our house for 2 weeks now. This has been hard (mainly physically and relationally...is moving ever easy?) but this is a really good thing for our transition time...removal from our stuff...from our pet...from our previous daily routine...from a good chunk our lives as we knew them.  But it isn't those things that I am already missing about here. I am already missing the sound Erin humming a tune over the kitchen sink, hearing Jesse say, "It's all good" for the 15th time in a day, Emilee's laugh, Eleisha's face of a million expressions, Lala's chubby thighs, Ellie's big brown eyes, watching Ba (Dad) playing with my boys, everything about my Musy (Mom), my brother Jon filling up a room with his presence, Mema and Papa visits, spilling my guts to Steph over coffee or whenever we can steal some time, my joy Kelli Hine, Ben Ritche at my table saying "All Jesus". And those were just my missings of the last 10 minutes. A dozen more dear ones will cross my thoughts and put an ache in my heart in the next 10. Missing here makes it difficult for me to get through the church service without a watershed. Makes it dificult to see Jodie Cowan pop her head out of the children's room and rush over for a hug that I know will be one of our last for awhile. Makes it difficult to peek into the Sunday School room and watch Evan and his sweetie Emilee Easley playing together for maybe the last time for a long time. Makes it hard to hug Emilee's mom, my dear friend Ariana.  Makes it hard to hear about the new youth pastor interviews and know that soon someone else will be teaching the kids we love so dearly...just missing that it won't be us. Missing here isn't bad. It just means that we have been blessed. Blessed by love. Love that comes from Him who first loved us. This love is eternal. This missing is temporary. Someday we will all be together again. We will eat of the fruit together. Perhaps longing for that is what I am really missing. Missing Heaven. 

"Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. 

For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord."

Romans 8:37-39

Though it tarries...

So it's been a long time since we have posted an update on our adoption progress. This is because it has been a LONG time since we have heard anything about our adoption progress. We have been in IBESR (the system in Haii that the paperwork has to go through) since mid April.  We were encouraged when 6 of our girls friends being adopted from their orphanage by friends in our area came out of IBESR in late May. All of the families adopting these kids submitted their dossiers the same day as us but entered IBESR 1-2 months before we did. There are others that entered IBESR before us that have not come through yet, and so far it seems the average timeline in IBESR is 3-5 months. We know some that have come through in a month and others that have been in for nearly 6 months now. We have been told repeatedly that it pretty much just depends on the person processing the paperwork...whether or not they care about the piles representing persons sitting on their desk. We learned that there is a new IBESR director and that anyone who had not come out before the new director took office should expect to experience delays. Delays. Let me say that again. Delays. This word used to infuriate me. I mean we are talking about orphans in often inhumane conditions...waiting. Waiting while their families that could provide for them wait to be able to do so because of red tape. Still not feeling any reaction. DELAYS. Perhaps making it bigger will do the trick. Uh, nope. Am I just numb to this word by this point, or is it because God has been teaching me that delays...even the ones that seem anything but good...the gut wrenching ones that make me scream WHY?, Lord WHY?...are His mercies in disguise?

But what if this process had been easy? Not that we have ever heard of ANY adoption from Haiti being described as easy. Adoptions from Haiti typically take between 2-3 years. This is the norm...sadly. We knew this when we submitted our dossier after Haiti closed humanitarian parole in April of 2010. We were hoping this would not be the case post-quake, but we knew it could be. We do not know of a single child that has come out on a traditional international adoption (what we are doing) from Haiti since the earthquake. We have watched kids come through humanitarian parole, student visas, and medical visas...but not adoptions....YET! While I may not be having a reaction to the word "delay", I do struggle with internal (sometimes external) reactions to others (who know didly squat about Haitian adoptions) who make comments and conclusions about why it is taking so long. I don't mind anyone asking. I don't mind explaining. I don't get my feelings hurt easily. But there isn't a week that goes by that someone (usually with a doubtful, you are ignorant to keep fighting for this adoption look) says, "Do you actually think they will ever come home?" Faking a smile I say, "Yes", while cringing inside at their poor word choices especially times like when we are at the airport welcoming the upteenth child coming home (not from Haiti) to families that started their process a year after us. Adoption is hard nomatter what the circumstances, country, or wait time. We get enough unlovely comments about the fact that we are adopting older children..out of birth order...that are black, that we are buying our children, that we are moving to a hopeless country that will never climb out of the hell it is in, that we are crazy to do so. I've never said we aren't crazy. I think you have to be at least a little crazy to do these things...or just crazy about following the Lord in whatever He leads you to do and wherever He leads you to go nomatter what it may cost. It is sad how few Christians actually get that. They say they believe it. But they don't get it. I'm not saying we get it fully, or obey fully, or trust fully. We don't. But I wish that there was more compassion and encouragement going around the body of believers in what the Lord calls us to do or calls us to endure. Let me put it this way. If your friend or family member is struggling through the wait of unemployment or an illness that doesn't have an end in sight, do you say, "Do you actually think he will ever find a job?....Do you actually think they will ever get better?" Maybe they will. Maybe they won't. Only God knows tomorrow. But seriously people. Think before you speak. Note to self to do the same. How bout instead of asking "why?", instead of asking if they will ever come home, if they will ever learn to read, if we will ever get through the many"issues"...what if you just prayed for this precious little girl? Pray what is written on the sign she holds that "He will cleanse their hearts. He will make them whole". Only God can do that. We need your prayers. We need your compassion in the hard times.

Many times when we ask "why?" we don't get answers. But God has been gracious in giving us a glimpse of the why and how this has been a mercy in disguise in many ways. If we had been able to use an agency for our adoptions, if things were not so complicated, if we had not had to do so much research on our own for our adoptions for so many months, there is no way we would have the connections and dear friends in Haiti that we do now. And it is through these connections and friends  that the Lord has opened our hearts, enabled, and provided for us to move to Haiti. It is a mercy that we have had the time we have had to prepare to bring orphans into our family. Knowing what we know now about our girls past, personalities, and the issues we will surely face would have been much much harder to face if they had come to us quickly in the way we originally thought they would. Many of these issues of great concern that I have prayed over and over in the past 18 months will be drastically reduced by the fact that our girls will be able to transition to our family in their own culture. God knew all this. All those months of asking why. God knew. He knows. We are blessed when we see these glimpses of His glory. When a tiny piece of our brain comprehends that He really is working together all things for good.

This morning I was sitting on the porch of my sister's country home reading Habakkuk. I didn't set out to to sit on that lovely porch in the cool morning breeze with Habakkuk in my mind, but I kept thinking about the word "delay" and set out to seek God's word on the subject. So I looked up the word "delay" and couldn't find it in the back of my Bible, but found the word"tarry" instead. I think I like tarry better than delay anyways. I am thinking Tarry should be the name of a future child. You can talk me out of that later. Back to Habakkuk...which we won't be naming a future child after. I stopped here for awhile.

"Though it tarries, wait for it;

Because it will surely come, 

It will not tarry."

Habakkuk 2:4

Is anyone else puzzled by this verse? First it says "though it tarries...". Then it says "It will not tarry."in the same sentence. Huh? Seems like a contradition to me. I sought the big Bible scholar expert notes to see if they had a hunch as to what this is really saying. Summarizing what I found...God knows His plan and the outworking of all things in accordance with His purposes. While awaiting the fulfillment that will surely come, we must rest in the fact that the fulfillment lies in God Himself. It will not take any longer than God has planned. Our plans have changed. God's have not. We don't always understand, but we know that He understands it all. Thank you Lord for helping us to trust you while waiting. Thank you for giving us glimpses of Your plans for us and how You truly have been working all these things together for our good and for the fulfillment of Your glory. Thank you for Your Word that says, 

"For My thoughts are not your thoughts,

Nor are your ways My ways, says the Lord.

For as the heavens are higher than the earth,

So are My ways higher than your ways, 

And My thoughts than your thoughts."

Isaiah 55:8-9