They told me adoption was beautiful and redemptive. I guess they were right, but that wasn’t the whole story.

Let me explain. Some time ago we adopted a son from Ethiopia and thought he needed an Ethiopian brother, so we started our second adoption. Months passed and for the usual reasons it was taking longer than anticipated. I periodically perused waiting child lists for various agencies, and one day I found him. He was the right age for our papers, tiny and precious with a mischievous grin. I inquired about this boy, who was not yet matched, and also was not in Ethiopia. We were confused at this development, but we read the file and prayed for a boy a world away who had already known too much loss. We decided to pursue him even though he was not in Ethiopia. We started over with new papers for Congo. Soon after we added a match for a certain baby girl.

It finally came time to travel and pick up our kids. Congo was a brand new program, but they said it should take two weeks. My husband and I both traveled for the first week, then my husband left to care for our son back home and my sister came for the duration of the trip. However, she got lost at the airport. She’d been the first one through customs and baggage, and in the chaos of the Congolese airport she was pushed outside and coerced into the wrong taxi, having never made contact with our guide. After a long and terrifying nighttime ride through Kinshasa, she did eventually find my door.

I know...the One who intimately knew the cost of making orphans into sons and daughters and chose to do it anyway.

She recovered safely inside the compound gates and the rest of the week was uneventful, until the kids’ papers weren’t ready when it was time to go. So we waited for days, which turned into weeks, praying for today to be the day and dreading 5pm when the consulate closed again with still no word and no papers. Fridays were the worst, with the weekend looming long and low. By the fourth week I broke down on the phone with our agency caseworker, begging her to please just do something, though I knew she had no power over the embassy. Really I just wanted to be heard, but “I told you this would be hard,” was the best she had to offer. I felt forgotten, alone, and trapped half a planet away from home with two kids I barely knew. And there was nothing to do but wait.

I kept extending our stay a few days at a time, but eventually our hotel was booked and we had to move. The new hotel wasn’t as nice, nor accustomed to adoptive families, so when the policemen followed us back from the grocery store one day they were ushered right to our door. I didn’t understand what they wanted. I called our guide, and soon there was a posse of angry men arguing in our front yard, and even the Vice Consul of the US Embassy made an appearance on our behalf. They were looking for quick cash, but a lot of worse things had gone through my mind by the time they finally left empty-handed. We moved again late that night, back to our first hotel where, providentially, a room had opened up. Our papers were mercifully ready a few days later, and we finally headed home a full 35 days into our 14-day trip. I’m not sure “Welcome Home” has ever sounded as sweet as it did when our feet finally found American soil.

They told me adoption was beautiful and redemptive. I guess they were right, but that wasn’t the whole story. If I’d known the costs from the start, I would have walked away from the boy in the picture, convinced I didn’t have what it took. To be honest, I still don’t have it. But I know the One who does — the One who intimately knew the cost of making orphans into sons and daughters and chose to do it anyway. I guess they never said it would be easy. Redemption is costly, and life can be just plain hard. But I would do it all again, because they are worth it.