The Long Way Around

I knew I would marry my husband before we met.  We exchanged emails for a couple weeks before meeting, and in those messages he told me of his love for children and missions.  Once we were dating, we spent hours walking and planning of all the children we'd have and the ones we'd adopt.  Our love was built on a mutual desire to raise children.

Once engaged, we planned a May wedding-- then moved it up to February when we found out about an opening for houseparents at a children's home in Mexico.  We knew what we wanted to do and we were in a rush to get there.  A few months after our wedding we headed to Guatemala for language school, enroute to Mexico.

Then, I had (what I thought was) a miscarriage.

And with that, everything changed.  The confidence I'd held in my calling to work at a children's home was wrenched from my grasp in the wake of the pain of infertility.  It hurt to see pregnant women, especially teenage moms.  It hurt to see other people's children, while we were waiting for one of our own.  The idea of being around a bunch of kids a children's home felt like salt in the wound.

Since then, we have almost become house parents three times, tried to adopt for years, and been through multiple other fertility treatments.  In all of it, the pain, the changes, the many moves that have taken us to new houses, cities, and countries-- God has been working in our hearts.  And in His unfailing love, He has been patient with us as we grieved the loss of fertility, and even the loss of adoption (as we've gone through years of waiting for Guatemalan paperwork to qualify us to apply for adoption).  It has been a painful process of relinquishing control over the deepest desire of our hearts.

On Saturday we are moving to a children's home in a city in northern-western Guatemala.  We will be helping to raise 93 children and teens (+ Z, of course).  Arriving at this point has taken almost ten years, but we recognize all that God has done during that time, and how much better prepared we are now than we would have been when we were first married.

We took the long way around, but we've finally found our way home.