No matter how I strained my ears in the courtroom, I couldn’t understand what was being said. The air con was blasting and the lighting seemed bureaucratic and unfriendly. The judge was an older Australian donning a tired judge’s wig. Now and again a word would stand itself up and swirl in my brain as I tried to make sense of what was happening, but to no avail. Was this good? Bad? What was that facial expression saying? What is happening???

“Mention,” “your application,” “the subject,” “verily” (which sounded so silly to my brain it hung around for a while distracting me from what came after). And then the painful ones.

“Father: unknown.”

“Mother: unknown.”

I looked down at the chubby cheeked baby staring up at me. Her eyes are so bright. So very sparkly. She gave the judge a sideways glance, and then right back to my face shining with a soft smile. I bounced her for a second pretending she needed some consolation. She didn’t. Not right then. But I did.

“No, Gemma, no. Please don’t absorb those words into your heart. I’m your Mama. She’s known. She’s right here. Over there, he’s your Daddy. He’s known. We are known, GemmaGem. Don’t take it in.”

But the reality is that she does have another mother and another father out there, and we know absolutely nothing about them. We have no intention of hiding from that reality, nor could we. We pray for them. We love them with broken hearts. Broken for her. Broken for them. I can’t imagine what situation they must have found themselves in to make the awful choice they made. Life can be brutal and unforgiving. No doubt they were feeling that harsh reality when they introduced her to the world by being active participants in demonstrating life’s cruelty. But I don’t feel anger. Just a deep, unending sadness.

I never felt called to the mission field. Small nudges noodling me along until one night I woke up with a start, the bamboo floor churning beneath me to the horrible sound of pigs fighting, all swelling to an unbearable climax until snorting off into silence. In that moment I thought, “Ummm… how did I get here?! What choices did I make that led me to the middle of a South Pacific jungle with pigs fighting for a sleeping spot literally under my bed?! How did this happen???”

Not so with adoption. I’ve felt it my whole life. Wanted it my whole life. It became unquestionably clear in October 2016 when God put it back on my heart after the passion and surety I felt had drifted into inaction. In that moment, I didn’t want it. I informed Him we were full up. I had two kids, three would throw the balance of chaos and order off. I like order. I don’t like chaos. So, two it is and we have two. See that, Lord? T.W.O.

Without fire or brimstone, thunder or noise, I heard Him respond.

“Do you think I’ll say, ‘Well done keeping a clean and orderly house at the expense of my orphaned children? Or that I’m ever happy to see people choose work, ease, convenience, or control over my children? They are Mine. I wanted you to shepherd them to me. And you said no. For a clean house.’”

I quivered at the thought. How could I be so selfish and fearful? We prayed a lot, we asked for input from people we trusted, and then we said yes. My arms have been yearning for the baby He marked to be in our family ever since. I assumed the situation would orbit around a mother dying in labor. It’s just so common in this country. But that’s not what happened. On a Monday in May Brian got a phone call from the Office of Child Welfare in Port Moresby saying a baby was there in the hospital and needed a home. He left on the earliest flight Tuesday morning and brought her home Wednesday afternoon. She was so small. She’d been in the hospital since birth, though not born there, and even with medical care was only 5.5 pounds at 6 weeks. I’ve never seen such frailty. She gained weight like crazy that first month with us, but it was rough. She cried a lot. I cried a lot. Brian struggled trying to fix us. The girls adored her through it all. At four months she finally let me comfort her. Up until that point if she got really worked up she rejected me for, well, anyone else. More than once I had to call Brian to come home from the office because she just wanted no part of me. Then it changed. She was wailing in the arms of a teammate who passed her back to me. As she spilled into my arms she immediately stopped crying and relaxed, curving her soft (yay!!) body into mine. I’ll never forget that feeling, that moment.

Through all the legalese jargon still rolling around me, I was sure things were moving our way. Gemma’s sparkly eyes dimmed a bit as her eyelids drooped. The judge stood, we bowed, and out he went. In a flurry of “please explains,” our lawyer told us the details of the judge’s ruling. She’s ours. It’s complicated and not “final,” but she’s ours. And we’re hers.

Gemma Charlotte Paris. Mother: known. Father: known. Sisters: known. Dog: known. She’s ours.

It seems particularly fitting that this giant step forward in court occurred in November, National Adoption Month. The topic of abortion is so all consuming right now, but never is adoption attached to it. What has saddened and confused me for years is how believers treat this topic. So much righteous anger at the killing of innocent lives. I don’t disagree with that, but I believe the Church is in sin. The conversation rarely goes beyond abolishing Roe v. Wade as if laws prohibiting abortion will fix the heart issue. That’s akin to disciplining your child with a spank or a time out for the surface behavior while utterly and completely ignoring the heart issue. Why isn’t the conversation about the abysmal rates of adoption IN THE CHURCH? Why are we berating and accusing non-believing women who are making that choice of being the spawn of Satan himself? Why are we not standing up and saying, “ME!!!! I’ll do it! I’ll love the child you can’t. I’ll protect the child you can’t. I’ll pray for you every day multiple times as I shepherd your child because you’re God’s child, too. He loves you, too.”

If you are fence sitting about opening your home to adoption, stop. God doesn’t approve of it. Lukewarm wishy-washyness isn’t what He’s after. Crazy, nonsensical decisions that involve caring for orphans AND THEIR BROKEN PARENTS is His heart. Do it in trust and faith that He will provide everything you need for the battle that lies ahead. Every time I see Gemma’s tiny toes, tiny hands, chubby cheeks, and irresistible smile I think about those millions of babies aborted. The ones whose toes and hands and cheeks will never be seen by human eyes because their mothers thought there was no other way.

So go ahead and protest or rant on Facebook about the horrors of Planned Parenthood, but please also do whatever your part may be in loving the mothers and fathers making bad decisions. Pray, help someone you know by financially investing in their efforts to adopt, or perhaps even do it yourself. The adoption road is giving us a beautiful, messy life we wouldn’t trade for anything.

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