It's 4am on Day 2 of our second trip to Ethiopia and I am inexplicably awake. I feel compelled to write a few things down, although I am incredibly exhausted and probably incoherent at this point.
Day one started by arriving at the orphanage where Tariku was staying. What an unforgettable day! This was the moment we had been eagerly anticipating for 2 and a half years. We sat and chatted for a short while, watching the nannies caring for the other children. Even the guards were holding babies! We played with some of the other children whom friends are adopting.
I couldn't help but wonder, though, what was going through our little boy's head. He's old enough to know the drill - he's seen enough children leave that I think he knew what was going gone. He wouldn't let us put him down. As we were preparing to leave, I put him down so I could get up out of the chair I was seated in. He put all his weight into my legs, backing up into me and pinning me against the chair, as if to say, "Don't you dare leave me here!"
We returned to what we're calling home for the week. The remainder of the day was filled with visits from friends, warm greetings from folks we've met in our travels and some new folks, too. In the midst of it all, I developed a new shadow.
As I sit here writing at an hour I'd much rather be sleeping, I'm watching this little guy sleep. I can't help but wonder, "What is going through that little head?" In the last 24 hours, he's been taken by 4 strangers to a strange place with a strange bed. A new place, the 4th place in the last year, to call home. He seems so trusting, and so at peace.
We had a moment during the day that stuck out. In a matter of less than 2 minutes, our little guy tried to jump off a 10 foot ledge, threw a ball at a car, then when retrieving the ball he quickly tried to get into the car, then tried to escape out the gate, then found a wad of gum on the wall and tried to eat it. Every time I told him not to do something, he listened, but he is most definitely testing the limits and boundaries. He's in a sense learning the "law" of the family. Other moments, he's reaching out his arms to be picked up and saying "Papa" - that's enough to make me melt! He's being 'grafted' in, just as Romans points out we are being grafted in through Christ.
For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, “Abba, Father.” Romans 8:15
God was showing me this is what He did for us and still does with us. Those who had great faith in the old testament were those who believed in the coming Messiah and love for God. The law was given for our good, not as a measure to strive in the flesh, to attain and boast in as our own works, or as evidence of love for Him. I'm seeing maybe I should have a greater love of the law...not to live under it, but just understand it more in order to know more about my Father in heaven.
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