I Am Crazy

Our presentation at church blessed us! We were able to share transparently the journey God asked us to take one step at a time. We admitted to them that we weren't sure about the outcome. We told them about Edmond and Edina, but clearly stated they were just one option in the wide world of international adoption.

Individuals and couples encouraged us in the next days and weeks. They wanted to share with us. Without us asking, they began inquiring about how they could financially give (tears....God's people are his very hands at times!). Yes, our church would be our support. We were confident in that and translated the message to Chris, the social worker responsible for finding a forever family for Edmond and Edina.

With the blessing came...well, other stuff. Now everybody knew how crazy we were. Before this, we could be selective with whom we shared our adoption process. After sharing freely with whomever chose to show up at church, we knew that word would get out that we were adopting two kids from Africa (translated: crazy).

I'm not gonna lie. Something told me that when a conversation landed on the Shoafs, people would speculate our motivation, capability, sanity. And so the second-guessing continued...some days worse than others.

This was bad timing for second-guessing....Cradle of Hope sent an e-mail entitled, "Welcome Aboard!"

We were officially matched. Our home study was complete and Edmond and Edina were reserved for the Shoaf family pending international documentation and approval. This is what we had been working for!

Tim and I were excited to be officially matched and conveyed the news over dinner to the kids. They began discussing sleeping arrangements, offering their bedrooms for sharing. And if the second-guessing wasn't enough, the reality of having two more kids began to weigh on me. Was I going to go crazy?

Then I found it.

I was sitting in church on a Wednesday night. Tim worked late and didn't make it in with us. Josie had dropped my Bible the day before, causing all of my "inserted notes" to fall out. Bless her heart, she cleaned them up off the floor and shoved them back in my Bible, but the bulky mis-placed notes were making it difficult for me to navigate the Scripture passages being taught by our pastor. Desperately trying not to show my aggravation, I flipped a chunk of pages to discover a small, home-made booklet with "Haiti 2012" printed on the makeshift cover. It was my journal from Haiti!

Throughout our adoption process, I had often wondered if I documented any information about the children we grew close to from the Mission of Hope orphanage. As the pastor continued teaching, I flipped through the pages...memories came flooding back. One of the last things written in the journal took my breath away. In my own handwriting from July 8, 2012, I read:

"We have seen first hand, these poor children in the village and their parents' request is always that they could go to school. I also spoke with Abby, a staff person, who shared more personally. Lydia was with me and we discussed adoption. This is the first time in my life I have ever felt the nudge to ask more about adopting. After seeing so many twins in the orphanage, I asked her why they have a lot of twins. She said they were viewed as a curse and were many times unwanted. That broke my heart! Back home, twins are quite the opposite. I thought, if I could adopt a set of twins out of this poverty and their stigma, I would do it in a second. I will continue to pray about this."

Our pastor kept speaking, but for me, time stopped. Had I written this?!?! I remember that conversation. I remember having those thoughts and I vaguely remember a prayer time on the roof...but those memories were foggy. Here it was, in writing. God was bringing to pass what I had prayed. He was in the details....and twins even!

Yes, I was crazy. There was no more second-guessing that. But now I knew that I was crazy because God is crazy. He is crazy about His people and working things out for good. He is crazy about the afflicted. He is crazy because He uses ordinary people to carry out extraordinary things.

I am crazy. But I don't care. God will use imperfect people in crazy situations to work out miraculous details. Scripture is full of them. Hebrews 11 had become my comfort in knowing that God does crazy things. And now I felt like I was living part of this crazy thing called "faith." I know God planted that journal on Wednesday night because he knew I needed to know that I was the best kind of crazy there is.