Blog post written by Matt...best daddy ever...
Tomorrow we travel the first of 20,000 miles to get Evie Lu Allmand and bring her home. I could not be more excited, it affects everything I try to do or think about, the adventure, the daughter, the impact of it all of all on my family. We are packed and ready for the road so much so that normal life here feels weird.
So many elements of this trip are profound and I love it for all of these reasons, the adventure, the experience, and the child.
The adventure is profound. Never before have I taken my family 20,000 miles around the entire planet. We have been to China, but Dubai will be new, and 4 kids will be a completely new experience. I can’t think of adventure without thinking of the Hobbit, what Bilbo initially sees as “nasty disturbing uncomfortable things” becomes the defining part of his life.
There is risk in adventure, the knowledge that you are away from home, isolated from your well-worn support systems. We will not be in a safe community that I trust and know my way around. We will not be behind the sturdy, safe walls and locked doors of my house. This impacts me profoundly as I feel an incredibly powerful call to protect my family; my house is a well-secured, well-armed place to do that easily.
On the road this all evaporates and we are left in the open, unarmed and unsecured. What does this do and how do we deal with it? This I love, we are challenged to give up the well-worn, but completely inadequate material support system and cling to two others. God’s promises and other people, we trust that this trip and this adoption are God’s will for our lives. This gives me courage that He will see us through the countless fears regarding the simple travel and the complexity of adding a new child. Setting aside earthly security and trusting God to guide and protect you is powerful and moves your faith powerfully. It helps answer the question “Do you really believe what you believe is really real”. It also forces us to trust other people, interacting with strangers in a strange land so to speak and seeing the inherent good in people and the lengths to which people you have never met will go to help you get your needs met. This is good for the soul to experience God’s love through people. It helps our kids grow and mature and develop good judgment and learn to interact with a world that contains risks but is full of good as well.
The experience is powerful on so many levels. Weeks of time together full time as a family, no work school or activities to dash off to avoiding interaction, its just us. That is so good for a family, learning that you love each other and in fact like each other most of the time! The risk of adventure pulls us together and deepens love and respect. The challenges we overcome will become stories we recollect together a thousand times nurturing relationship each time.
The perspective brought by travel is unique. No book can bring the depth of knowledge that a simple trip to the grocery store and interaction with a radically different culture challenges so many of our preconceived ideas about how life has to be led. Whenever I return from time in a new culture I am less biased, less judgmental, more thoughtful and compassionate than when I left. The life of comfort we lead at home is beautiful, a wonderful blessing from a loving God, but in the light of global suffering do our personal choices lean towards reckless extravagance rather than obedient enjoyment? This is the type of intellectual and emotional challenge travel offers up many times a day to the thoughtful traveler.
The child. Topping this all of we add another human being to our family, a radically profound experience in any setting, but so poignant here. At it’s simplest we add another adorable, joyous, easy to love sweetheart to our cadre of sweeties. But there are deeper issues at work. One less orphan is a powerful component of this exercise. On January 19ththe world will have one less orphan, one less child in foster care, one less human living without a mothers love, a fathers protection and loving siblings to experience life’s joys and struggles along side. There are hundreds of thousands of others to take her place, but it is an improvement.
She comes wounded, hurt to some unknown degree from missing out on that first motherly love and care, growing up in an orphanage and later foster care then after two and a half years, transitioning to our family. All of these changes leave wounds that we will desperately try help her deal with, imperfectly, but sincerely. Race is another issue that will impact her, we are of Swedish and English descent, and she is not. We have paler skin, big noses and ears and more height! This is not always going to be at the front of mind, but will be made acutely so in times where other kids are looking for a difference to attack or school projects draw it out, the ignorant questions of thoughtless strangers make her feel it and at key other times she spends developing her identity. She will face huge emotional struggles while sorting through all of this for herself and I hope we can play the role of guide knowing her struggles are not our own, but help her see her value is from God’s love and her Chinese heritage is something fascinating and a unique part of her story to savor. I hope for many future trips to China to help explore this culture we are now inextricably linked with. At our home China is part of a discussion at least daily. Sydney is proud to be from Minnesota, Callie from Kearney and Emma from China. Emma does not understand that entirely, but when she is she will have a lifetime of positive thoughts and discussions to benefit from.
So, for now I am impatient to be moving, our path takes us East until we are back home, circling the globe as a family. We will see the amazing sights of Dubai, Guangzhou and Hong Kong. We will welcome little Evie into our hearts and home forever. Lord willing we will return home with more knowledge, understanding and perspective on this amazing life we lead, and beautiful little Evie Lu.
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