Baby Africa: our adoption story begins

I work at a local RTC, you can read about why I love it here. My work has kept me from jumping ship and swimming to Africa ASAP to adopt all the babies I can get my hands on. I work with orphans in the "American" sense. I work with kids who are aging out of foster care, in a residential setting. It has taught me so much, made me laugh, made me cry, and helped me hold out on my dream to one day adopt. (And probably kept our marriage together, David wouldn't have been happy if I came home with twenty kids from Africa a couple years ago like I wanted to!) But, the time has come! We have officially begun our adoption. There are still many unknowns and many bumps I am sure but we are so excited to know that now is the time. 

About two months ago I sat in a movie theatre surrounded by my american "orphans" and bawled my eyes out, (which thoroughly entertained the six girls I had brought)  as I watched "Africa's Elephant Kingdom" on the big screen. It was a movie that so touched my heart, God was speaking directly to me through this film. Here are a few tid bits of what I learned and why it inspired me:

- Elephants gestation period is 20 months. (The average time to complete an adoption from Africa, 20 months.)

- The movie went in depth about the community of adults, not necessarily blood relatives, that it takes to raise an elephant. ( As I watched this part I cried, seeing each of our close friends and family members who will be essential in the development of our kids. Helping us to teach them, love them, honor them, and grow them.)

- It talked about elephant societies being matriarchal, the eldest female must remember where to find water and lead her pack, sometimes for weeks, to water. They rely on this woman to lead them to their source of life in the drought. 

- It talked about how the males are the strongest mammals on earth, they like to be alone, but meet up with their packs often, and when they come back, they're greeted with such love and resect, whether they were gone for a few hours or a few months. 

- One of the most powerful images in the movie as when an elephant tried to give up. They had been looking for water for "too" long, and this elephant just couldn't go any further. She tried to give up. She laid down in the middle of the desert. But her pack would not let her do it. They all gathered around her and began lifting her up with their trunks, they pushed her along, they dragged her, they "yelled", they cried, they did everything they could until she finally began to walk again.

- It even went into what happens when an elephant dies, how each elephant pays their respects, mourns, and encourages their friends and family members to move on. 

I was then watching another documentary, Children of the Dust. And it talked about what happened in the 70s in South Africa with the elephants. In the late 70s they finally began to protect the elephants form poachers. They created a wildlife sanctuary and put all the young elephants who had been orphaned due to poaching into this protected area. The young elephants were horrible, they were fighting, they wouldn't sleep at night, they would just cry and cry all night long, they would try to attack the other animals, and even try to have "relations" with the zebras and such. Finally someone had the idea of bringing in a few older elephants. So they brought in two older elephant couples. ANd within a few weeks the young elephants were behaving like elephants should. They were lost with out parents, they didn't know how to behave or belong and as soon as they were given parents they began to behave like elephants! 

Within a couple weeks of one another these two stories about elephants and the way they live, the way they take care of their young, their sense of community and family, all of it had effected me so strongly I couldn't ignore it. Thus, as we begin our adoption we have chosen to use the symbol of an elephant to represent the family we hope to become. A family who is open and welcoming, a family who cherishes their children, a family who encourages one another and won't let any one give up. A family who cries together, a family who laughs together, a family who supports and nurtures children wherever they're at in their development, and most importantly, a family who is interconnected with a community of people who love and care for us and our children, a family who is bigger than just our gene pool, a family who encompasses the world. 

Please join us in our journey, as a member of our tribe, to seek out our little ones to cherish! 

Baby Africa, here we come.