Adoption

Those of you in our church family may recall that on the Sunday before we left for China, there were a few parts of the service that were very meaningful to me. I told some of you that I was glad we are new in that church, so I wouldn't think that someone was planning that for us, but that God had put that in place.

One was a Psalm assuring us we have nothing to fear. What can mortal man do to me? Perhaps that is why I'm not a nervous Nellie about documents, or much of anything else, for that matter. Not confidence in myself, but in Him.

The other was a section of catechism that we read on adoption.

"What is adoption? Adoption is an act of the free grace of God, in and for his only Son Jesus Christ, whereby all those that are justified are received into the number of his children, have his name put upon them, the Spirit of his Son given to them, are under his fatherly care and dispensations, admitted to all the liberties and privileges of the sons of God, made heirs of all the promises, and fellow heirs with Christ in glory."

To be able in such a meager and lowly way to mimic here in China what our Lord did for us is somewhat staggering. Christ says to us, today and forever, I chose you. We say to Seth, today and always, we chose you. Christ chooses to love us. We choose to love Seth. Christ chooses to discipline and shape us, and we likewise Seth. We will never live up to His perfect example, but we are honored to in turn be chosen to do this choosing, to nurture one lost soul towards heaven's gates.

I want to commend this journey to you all. It largely stinks, mind you. The prying, the waiting, the paying, the changing, the lying, the inconveniencing, the waiting again. I'd be happy to offer some advice on taking other tactical roads than we did, but as we always knew they would, while the trees are still there, they pale to the beauty of the forest, and the filthy means are, while not justified in the end, fade to black.

We know that Seth's adoption is just the latest in a long, long line of others. We applaud those that have gone before: Laverne and Louise, the Fentons, the Jarboes, the Bantas, the Malkuses, the Dupees, the Mengles, the Bennies, the Hites, the Sanfords, and the many thousands of others. This particular adoption is perhaps unique only to us, but thank you for supporting us in it, and making Seth feel special.

This is probably the final report from the Redland. Tomorrow we take the oath at the US Consulate to care for Seth as our flesh and blood, as if we need such banalaties to ensure as much. Then we hop a train to Hong Kong, find a cab to an airport hotel, catch a quick nap, and arise early for the homeward semi-circum-navigation.

I've gotten rather wordy; my apologies. I hope you have gotten a small glimpse into our journey through these pages. Know that we have greatly enjoyed reading your comments as well. I've tried to avoid a simple we did this, then we did that, recap of our trip, but for whatever boring lowlights I included, thanks for slogging through (or congrats for skimming over!). We look forward to seeing all of you very soon!