it's complicated

i've done it- i've found a spot outside where the wireless works.  because i just need to be outside as much as possible- so i can breath. especially on days that look and feel like today- which is, perfection.
a hot sun, cool wind, some quiet birds (not those loud mocky ones around my house) the perfect temperature and hundreds of white butterflies.  sometimes i feel like maria in 'the sound of music' running to the hills and missing the abbey call- i get that.

so, i have a secret.

i'm in love.  again.  but it's complicated.  it's complicated for many reasons- outside ones and inside ones.

about 8 months ago i wrote about the snip snip. about being done making babies, about the procedural permanence of this and the process of arriving here after years of living to be pregnant again.
but i also wrote that we weren't 'done' having kids- that i'm still stuck on four or five- i wrote that i can't wait to meet them.

and i think now, i might have met one of them.

she is little and brown and has stolen my heart slowly over the last 6 months.  but it's complicated.
the process of adoption is long, confusing, layered and wrought with opportunities for injustice.  some people want control, some people want money, some people want what's best for the child.  and there are legitimate issues around her history, whether she is truly an orphan, whether she even needs to be adopted, and most importantly- what's best for her- who should adopt her.  which gets to the most complicated part of it all.

see, i can deal with the mess of the legal stuff, and the bureaucracy, and the waiting- because i really believe that God is all over that- He's got it, and if she is meant to be with us- then she will be- whenever that may be.

the messy part is that i have issues with the whole adoption scene in uganda.  it's a group that i don't want to belong to.  and at the risk of stepping on toes or offending ears- it kind of makes me sick. 
now that i've opened a can of worms, let me explain, or try to. basically i think the idea of wealthy white american christians 'saving' little black african babies is wrong. because they don't need to be saved- because they have a rich culture and a heritage and sometimes families.  because every time i'm in kampala and see a couple of american parents toting around a little ugandan child they just look 'smug'.  like they've both won a prize and deserve a prize.  and i can't help but think how many people are saying how wonderful they are because they've done their part and now  there is one less child running shoeless around the world.

now i realize that i'm a complete jerk.  that this is horrible of me.  that in saying and thinking that, i'm being horribly judgmental, and not loving and perhaps i am the worse of the evils.

but.

i have to ask the question- is american adoption of african children really the answer? which begs, what is the question?  i think the only time it's the answer, is when it's for the american person/ family doing the adoption- that it should be a 'selfish' endeavor- that it is only the answer to that pure deep desire to have and love a child.  i firmly believe it's not the answer to the african orphan epidemic. i just don't think the answer to poverty is to pick one child out of it at a time.  that the answer to wanting to help the world, is to remove a child from their culture.   i mean there has got to be a better way.  are we sure there is something wrong with shoeless? 

if we really care about the plight of africa and african children, why are we not rallying together to help stabilize families in african countries? to not exploit a continent with big business? why are we not supporting entire communities? striving to keep them together, to assist with resources, education, financial stability? 

some american christians have written books and blogs about the great need in africa and that if every american christian adopted one african orphan we'd 'solve' the problem.  really?  and what problems would come from that?  what if every american christian, adopted one older child out of the overwhelmed US foster system?  what if every church rallied around those families to support them raising a child who hasn't known a stable home for 15 years?  why isn't that our 'call'?


this is why it's complicated for me. 

because i selfishly, love this girl.  i'm in love with her like i was with my other three kids when i got to know them. because i know if we lived in the US we'd be adopting there - but we don't we live here.  and i wonder how it would feel to be her in our family- deeply loved but always standing out.  i wonder if her desire would be to not have muzungu parents?  i wonder if any of it really matters as we're all different anyway.  i wonder if color might matter to her? even if it doesn't matter to me.  we spend lifetimes understanding our identity- it is essential to us- even when our identity is in our faith.

so what do i do with all this?  i pray.  i pray to be more gentle and less judgmental and more forgiving, and less assuming and more loving.  i pray for the orphans of uganda and the US and for those that care for them. i pray for those who desperately want a child no matter where they are from, and for those parents raising children from another country or culture- that as their african child becomes more american, they will in turn, become more african. i pray for honesty and openness and the allowance of expression and the acknowledgement and acceptance of the challenges that will come.

this is where i am- forgive me.