So, we’ve been to two lessons now, and he is loving it. When he gets out there in the country and interacts with these giant creatures, he comes alive. It’s really fun to see him interact with his horse, Lily.  We really hope that he will find in her a silent listener to connect with… and begin to make sense of his first six crazy years of life.

It will be interesting to see how this shapes his future and how big a part of his life horses may actually end up being.

On this day in recent history (last year) we opened our front door to meet a little brown boy wearing a big, blue, dirty Gap winter coat, bright yellow t-shirt with the name of his pre-school plastered across it, and a recently acquired pair of hand-me-down tennis shoes from the CPS office he had spent the afternoon inhabiting.

The moments leading up to that car pulling in our driveway could be described as uncertain and scared on our behalf. Sara sat on our couch with a look on her face that said, “Ryan, you really don’t know what we’re getting into, do you?”. She was skeptical, nervous, worried, and flat out tired from a full day of working with teenagers that didn’t know how to show respect to an adult. I, on the other hand, wouldn’t be able to sit down if I had to. I paced our living room, glancing every 5 seconds or so out the front window to see if that car had arrived yet. We had no idea how this process would go down… what this child would be like, look like, feel like.

The car arrived… we looked at each other and debated if we should go meet them in the driveway or wait for the doorbell to ring. I’m pretty sure we debated long enough for them to get out of the car and begin making their way up our sidewalk before we opened the door and met them on the porch.

There he was… this miniature person… scared out of his mind… hiding behind the only constant he had during this crazy day that he had experienced. It was the case worker that pulled him out of school early.

She looked up at us with a gentle smile and informed us that he is really shy and had only said a handful of words to her throughout their day together.

He walked slowly through our front door… clinging to the caseworker’s leg. CPS had given him a few little cars to bring along and a black and orange blanket that had been handmade and donated to the system… some things for him to hold on to as his own. She also slipped us a small grocery bag with a pair of sock, undies, and an extra change of clothes… but, that was it.

There wasn’t much time for introductions… we quickly gathered around the living room and started to sign papers. It was probably at that point that Sara and I realized (but didn’t let on) that we had no clue what we were doing. We were signing papers… that’s something that adults with responsibility do. We were signing papers in order for this lady to be able to walk out our front doorwithout this child she brought in.

Meanwhile… this little guy had found a safe haven under the coffee table that all the signing was taking place on. He hid… clinging to the blanket and toys that he brought. He laid there and cried. As we tried to listen to the important things being discussed about the papers, we both were having to surpress the lumps in our throat that were being sent up to remind us that there was a real child under our coffee table with tears running down his cheeks. In a matter of minutes, it would be our responsibility to help that child make sense of everything that happened in the last 24 hours.

Within about 30 minutes, it was just the 3 of us. All the caseworkers had said their goodbyes and wished us luck. We had shown him his new room… pulled out our limited number of toys to try to entice him… but, our tokens were beginning to run out. Luckily, it was about to be dinner time and the only thing we could think of to take his mind off of things was to bring him to Gattitown.

Bear in mind… at this point Sara and I had yet to hear his voice. The only noises we knew from this little child were wimpers. At some point in the getting ready to go process, a word was released. I was so excited to hear his little country-ghetto voice appear.

And so we set out… placing a child for the first time in the newly bought booster seat that would now grace the back seat of the car that had seen me through college. This marked a new season in our life.

Looking back on that night is difficult for us. It’s difficult to remember the pain that such a small child felt. It is still incredibly hard for us to understand what it must have felt like to be picked up from school and driven in a car for an hour and a half to a cold, bright, florescent-lit office to sit for the remainder of the afternoon… and then to be dropped off in a home with two white people. No goodbye to the family that you had spent the last 5.5 years with… not even an explanation of why this all occurred.

Every few months, we are reminded of that afternoon when we dig to the bottom of his t-shirt drawer and find that worn down yellow t-shirt with the name of his hometown written on the front. It’s way too small for him to ever wear again. But, it won’t be thrown away. In between those faded threads are the only parts of his early life that he still has.

We hate that even still… as incredibly far as we’ve come with him… with the completely different child that resides in our home today… even still when the caseworkers drop by for a monthly visit, the fear in him shows its ugly face once more. The memories associated with caseworkers unravelling normal. We hurt for him. We pray that one day his life will feel secure and he will know that there will be no more unravelling in this home.

So, here we are… one year later. As this day approached, Sara and I went back and forth on whether this day should be celebrated or even talked about at all. We celebrate the fact that this blessing was sent to us one year ago. We celebrate the incredible progress he has made in this past year. But, we have decided that the celebration will be between mom and dad. To expect him to celebrate such a horrific day would be cruel and unusual.

We look forward to being able to celebrate a different day very soon… the day when his adoption becomes final and his name reflects ours. We pray that day will be one filled with amazing memories that we can all look back on and truly celebrate.

This prayer from the Valley of Vision has been wrecking me this entire week. I’ve just been trying to chew through these words one by one… they have revealed so many inconsistencies in my heart and have brought me to my knees to beg for new mercies.

O Thou that hearest prayer,

Teach me to pray,
I confess that in religious exercises
the language of my lips and the feelings of my heart
have not always agreed,
that I have frequently taken carelessly upon my tongue
a name never pronounced above
without reverence and humility,
that I have often desired things which would have injured me,
that I have depreciated some of my chief mercies,
that I have erred both on the side of my hopes
and also my fears,
that I am unfit to choose for myself,
for it is not in me to direct my steps.

Let thy Spirit help my infirmities,
for I know not what to pray for as I ought.
Let him produce in me wise desires by which I may ask right things,
then I shall know thou hearest me.

May I never be importunate for temporal blessings,
but always refer them to thy fatherly goodness,
for thou knowest what I need before I ask;
May I never think I prosper unless my soul prospers,
or I am rich unless rich toward thee,
or that I am wise unless wise unto salvation.
May I seek first thy kingdom and its righteousness.
May I value things in relation to eternity.
May my spiritual welfare be my chief solicitude.
May I be poor, afflicted, despised and have thy blessing,
rather than be successful in enterprise
or have more than my heart can wish.
or be admired by my fellow-men,
if thereby these things make me forget thee.
May I regard the world as dreams, lies, vanities, vexation of spirit,
and desire to depart from it.
And may I seek my happiness in thy favour, image, presence, service.

~Desires, The Valley of Vision, p. 106

O Source of all Good,

What shall I render to Thee for the gift of gifts,
thine own dear Son, begotten, not created,
my Redeemer, proxy, surety, substitute,
his self-emptying incomprehensible,
his infinity of love beyond the heart’s grasp.

Herein is wonder of wonders:
he came below to raise me above,
was born like me that I might become like him.

Herein is love:
when I cannot rise to him he draws near on wings of grace, to raise me to himself.

Herein is power:
when Deity and humanity were infinitely apart
he united them in indissoluble unity, the uncreated and the created.

Herein is wisdom:
when I was undone, with no will to return to him, and no intellect to devise recovery,
he came, God-incarnate, to save me to the uttermost,
as man to die my death,
to shed satisfying blood on my behalf,
to work out a perfect righteousness for me.

O God, take me in spirit to the watchful shepherds and enlarge my mind;
let me hear good tidings of great joy,
and hearing, believe, rejoice, praise, adore
my conscience bathed in an ocean of repose
my eyes uplifted to a reconciled Father;
place me with ox, ass, camel, goat
to look with them upon my Redeemer’s face,
and in him account myself delivered from sin;
let me with Simeon clasp the new-born child to my heart,
embrace him with undying faith,
exulting that he is mine and I am his.

In him thou has given me so much that heaven can give no more.

~The Valley of Vision, The Gift of Gifts, p. 16

Our little guy is absolutely OBSESSED with horses. The first few days we thought it may just be a fad. Turns out, horses are here to stay. If you meet D, YOU will soon become a horse to be pulled around the house… ridden on… locked in the closet because you’ve been a bad horse… you get the picture.

Early on, we were told that it would be a good idea to get him a stuffed animal of some sort so that he could have something to hold and confide in when he gets sad. So, we decided to get him the horse pictured above. He was SO excited about it. However, just as important as finding the perfect horse was finding a rope to tie around his neck to lead him around the house. Awesome. We have such a cowboy on our hands. Not what I was expecting!

The same day that we got him the $15 horse, we decided to give his family a call so that he could talk to them since he misses them tremendously… one of the first things he told them was that he “got a horse”. He didn’t bother to tell them that it was about a foot tall… and made out of cotton. We were whispering in his ear that he should tell them that he “got it” from Walmart. Eventually he did, and they all laughed and we sighed with relief that they no longer thought that we were trying to buy his love or something!

We’ve been trying to figure out how to make his room more personal for him. Last week, the thought went through my mind that I should get some horse photos printed that I shot several months ago for a client. So, I ordered some big prints and surprised him the other day. His face lit up as if magic had landed right in his room. He has been staring at the horses and dreaming up stories about them every since.

I love the power of photographs.

I love watching his mind speed through creative scenarios that he makes up.

What a crazy few days we’ve had around here. Sara and I looked at each other the other day and said, why does it look like we are parents of a newborn? We were completely worn out and felt like our entire day revolved around starring at and playing with D.

Things are starting to level out though. Just when I get really frustrated with the way he acts or talks to us or something, I have to remember that just 3 days ago this 5 yr old was yanked out of his normal and placed into something that could not be more abnormal. Shoot… as a 26 yr old, I would probably not be behaving much better!

We’re learning and laughing a lot.

Our first breakfast consisted of me trying to get him to eat… while not having a clue what he normally eats. We agreed on toast. I paired it with a cold glass of organic milk and thought we would be good to go. He just starred at it. We talked for a bit and figured out that he normally eats oatmeal. Awesome. We have that. So we cooked it up. It was the instant kind that is already sweet with lots of sugar. He took one bite and said, “where’s the suga?” We went back and forth for a bit until I sprinkled a tiny bit more in from our huge container (the health major in me was cringing… this was everything I was trained to NOT do). “Put the WHOLE thing in there… I ain’t eatin’ that!” Then he took a sip of his wonderfully organic milk… “There ain’t no suga in this… where’s the suga?!?”

You get the picture… it was quite the sugar catastrophe that I wasn’t prepared for. Gradually, we’re eating less and less sugar. Here’s for hoping!

Other fun things:

As we’re getting out of the car from shopping the other night, D tells Sara, “I gotta potty!”… Sara: “Alright, let’s go in the… D! Not on the driveway!!” Before she could even respond, he had whipped it out and was spewing all over the driveway. Can’t punish him for something that he thought would be normal. Now he knows that’s not OK.

He’s definitely still in the “figuring things out” phase. Learning that referring to me as “Old Man” doesn’t go over well. Realizing that when he sneaks into my office and gets on the computer, he will quickly end up on his bed in time-out.

All in all… he’s a really smiley kid who loves to play and have fun. He pretends that everything is a horse and enjoys yelling at his imaginary dog.

So this is our life right now. Always something new.

If you’re a client and have called later at night thinking that surely I would not answer my phone and you actually had to talk to me, that’s because I definitely thought that YOU were our caseworker calling us with a possible foster placement. Lots of disappointing realizations to say the least.

But, as I was sitting at my computer writing about ISO (that’s what the next post will be about), the phone rang and I answered.

A 5 year old boy… we’ll call him “D” here on the interwebs.

Sara and I had a game plan for when such a call would come. I would immediately text her phone and say “CALL ME” (had to be in all caps)… I would also send her an email and any other thing I could do to get her attention. As soon as she could pull herself away from her class she would call me and we’d make the final decision.

She called back pretty darn quickly. I answered and heard her yelling in the background to her kids, “I SAAIID SIT DOWN!”. I knew at that point that she meant business! We decided that there was no reason why we shouldn’t accept the placement, and within a matter of hours, we had a little 5 year old sitting in our living room.

It has been a whirlwind of a day… it’s been emotional and hard… but, it’s also been hopeful and exciting.

So, the next few days will involve us getting to know each other better. If I don’t respond to an email super-fast, you’ll have to just get over that!

Here’s to the journey ahead… a journey that promises to pull us closer to the Lord for our strength and dependence. We appreciate all prayers for us and for D.

Two years ago today, I said, “I do” to the most beautiful woman that I know. The last two years have been refining for the both of us. We’ve been able to laugh and cry and at the end of it realize that we still love spending time with each other way more than with anyone else. I love that we both make the same jokes about things and create the same awkward situations. I pride myself in the fact that we are known as the couple that makes the inappropriate comments around our friends! If it was just one of us, it would be kinda an issue, but since we both have NO filter, it makes life all the more fun!

Sara, I can not wait to spend the rest of my life with you by my side… to experience the things that we’ll experience this next year with none other than my best friend.

I. Love. You.

Side Note :: To those of you who are contemplating getting married a few days after Christmas (as we did), realize that when you get ready to celebrate your anniversary in a town like Bryan/College Station, there will be ZERO cool restaurants open because apparently unless you are student in this town, you are worthless.

Just last night I was visiting with a couple while riding home from a photo shoot… we got to talking about my experience in Malawi… I made the comment that I couldn’t believe that it’s been two and a half years since I boarded a plane and said my last goodbyes to that wonderful place. It is really scary how time gets away from you… I’m starting to understand what my dad means when he makes those statements.

Each year, days like today sneak up on me. I promised to never forget the things I saw. There is no doubt that I won’t forget the things I saw. But the reality is… I woke up today, and were it not for Twitter, I would have no clue that it is World AIDS Day. Each year, I find myself further and further away from my connections with the reality that people all over the world are suffering from a disease that is crippling societies… destroying families… stripping the last strands of hope that people are holding on to.

Yeah… it’s been two and a half years since I left that place. But, there is rarely a day that goes by that I don’t think about Malawi. It may be a cup of hot tea that I drink in the morning… a dish that we have for dinner one night… when I just naturally call one of the kids in our Life Group “Iwe”… or give Sara and sad face when she is complaining about something and say “pepani” (“sorry”… said in a very childish-tone… yeah… I’m mean like that!).

Today I remember.

Today I’m wearing the shirt that a Malawian friend made me… randomly I already had it on before I remembered it was AIDS Day.

Today it is important that our friends and neighbors around the world know that they are not alone in this fight.

For those of you who didn’t know… I lived in Malawi, Africa for almost a year working with a program called HOPE for AIDS. Check out the wonderful work they are doing! I wrote about all my experiences on a blog called Hope From Malawi. Here’s a particular post I wrote when I was visiting an AIDS clinic that we supported.

For those of you stumbling upon my blog for the first time, you may be a little confused because you probably came to see some photos. Ehh… well, not today.

Adoption is something that my wife and I have become increasingly passionate about over the last several years. We knew before we even got married that we would eventually grow our family in part by adoption. It wasn’t something that just came to us one day. In fact, we had honestly thought about adoption next to never in our lives. We knew that people adopted, but our culture had never really helped us to see that it could be something a family would do who did not have fertility issues.

We’re incredibly thankful for families that we love who have gone before us and shown us by example that caring for the orphan is something that every follower of Christ is commanded to do. Many of us are called to adopt. Many are called to support those adopting. Many are called to open their homes up to foster children who may be reunited with their birth family eventually. NONE of Christ’s followers are called to do nothing.

Sara and I were also thrown into unique situations in life that opened our eyes real quick to the need. After graduating from college, I moved to Malawi for about a year. A country rocked by the HIV/AIDS crisis and flooded with orphans. Although, at that stage in my life, I didn’t really think a lot about how adoption could play into things, I did think a LOT about what the answer could be for the orphan crisis. It was a time that I wrestled with the brokenness that I saw in the world constantly.

Sara and I both had jobs here in Bryan that put us on the front lines of seeing what destitute poverty looks like here. Seeing what happens when children are not in loving families. I worked for Big Brothers Big Sisters for a year and a half and learned things that were hard to believe. Sara works for Bryan ISD and knows that there are many students right on the line of dropping out and within years will end up in prison.

We’ve learned that there are 500,000 children in the U.S. Foster System at any given time. Sadly, because we tend to not use the words “orphan” or “orphanage” much when referring to children in our own borders, we tend to think that there is only a problem in other countries. We learned just this past Friday that here in the Brazos county, there are only 15 active foster families currently… yet annually, there will about about 100 kids flow through the system in our county.

It’s real easy to look at these numbers and stories and feel overwhelmed and guilt-ridden. Throw in the stats about the global orphan crisis, and you will probably just throw your hands up, grab a pillow to plunge your face into, and sob!

But, God has graciously moved us out of a guilt-driven faith. He’s shown us hope.

Sara and I are in the very last stages of being licensed to foster children. Hopefully within a matter of weeks we will have a little kiddo in our home running around and tearing up all the nice things that married people who don’t have kids have!

But, we’re not out to save the world.

We fully believe that the blessings that come from having a child in our home will far outweigh the struggles… the hurt… the uncertainty. Once we came to the realization that although we (Ryan & Sara) are broken people… just like many foster children, we too, have Reactive Attachment Disorder toward God… we too, hated God and slapped him in the face… we too, never deserved to be called his son and daughter. But, despite these things, while we still hated God, He adopted us. He reached out… pulled us close, called us son and daughter.

So… we care about adoption because it is our story. It is God’s story.

We care about adoption because God has a special place in His heart for the orphan… for the oppressed.

And we believe that God is using His people to step up to the plate and say that we will take the children that no one else wants.

So, we’re eager to see what God has in store for our little family. We’re hopeful that MANY more will join this journey with us to care for children that no one else cares about.

Throughout this month, I’m hoping to write a few more post to help educate us better on adoption and orphan care. Sadly, the church has vered away from teaching about adoption and caring for the orphan over the last several hundred years. But, we’ve seen signs of that changing… and we’re excited! So, if that’s you… someone who has claimed to follow Christ and has never even thought about caring for the orphan in tangible ways… don’t feel condemned! But, perhaps it’s time to open your eyes and ears to what God’s heart is about it and pray about what your involvement needs to be.

I’ll leave you guys with this amazing video. Every time I watch it, I get a huge lump in my throat. Not really a sad lump, but one of those hopeful ones. Be inspired…