What Adoption Means...

About a year or so ago I became aware of a teenage girl who was wanting to be adopted. At the time, she was just a photograph, but she had a truly sweet-looking face. From her name, I knew she was Albanian, even though her country wasn't listed next to her posting on Bethany's Children of Promise. Last winter my bloggy friend, Melissa, visited Albania and met her. She reported that her personality was as sweet and genuine as her photograph implied.

Around the same time, I met via the internet a woman, Christa, who with her husband had stepped forward and wanted to adopt this waiting girl. They faced great odds, though. The biggest being this teenager's looming 16th birthday in July. If my new friend Christa and her husband could not complete their homestudy AND get immigration approval in time, this girl would turn 16 and forever remain an orphan. She would be turned out onto the streets without a home, without a family or social network, without a job, without food stamps, welfare, job-training program, you name it. The statistics are quite grim (have you seen the movie "Taken"?).

One by one, each deadline was met. Christa and her husband traveled to Albania, met their daughter-to-be and fell in love. Unfortunately, they had a few 'hiccups' in court. Pray-ers were rallied. Two more court appearances and everything became official...one day before her 16th birthday.

I'm borrowing this list from the Bethany rep in Albania who e-mailed us the good news this morning. From now on, this girl will have:

• a place to call home
• parents
• a brother
• people to help her negotiate her way
• people who can introduce her to Jesus
• someone to celebrate holidays with
• a place to go when hard times come
• a place to go back to
• someone to walk her down the aisle
• people to love
• a place she can walk in and just open the refrigerator without asking
• her own room
• her own clothes
• things that won't be stolen when she looks the other way
• a photoalbum with her pictures in it
• an address
• a family vacation
• her picture on the wall
• someone to celebrate her accomplishments with
• a mom to care for her when she's sick
• people to cheer her on
• a father's protection
• a mother's love
• someone to celebrate mother's and father's day with
• people who will make her birthdays special
• a living example of the love of Christ that calls us into His family......