Merry Christmas & Melkam Gena to ALL!

Each year during Advent, our faith tradition reminds us that we must assume a posture of anticipation, that the best things come in time. We remember how Israel longed for a messiah and how we long for God's justice and mercy to fall, and our world to be set to rights. Of course, this year as we anticipated the birth of the Christ-child our family has been longing and praying for our little girl to come to our family.

Early in December we received information indicating that our case was approaching the last step of the process prior to receiving our court date. But as December rolled on, we only received a request for an updated document. While we had the form updated and submitted within 24 hours, it took 2.5 weeks for the originals to get into the correct hands in country. We are hopeful that no additional documentation will be requested and our letter of approval will be forthcoming.

It was disappointing to not receive a court date by Christmas, but we have much for which we can give thanks. In December, our daughter moved from the orphanage to our adoption agency's transition house (with several other children). And for the first time we were able to send her a care package which included a photo album with our pictures - so now she can see each face in her new family! In fact, here is a picture her her doing just that :0)

While our Christmas is on December 25, Ethiopia celebrates Christmas on January 7 - so maybe in our prayers for a court date by Christmas, we should have specified which one we were talking about :0) 

We learned our lesson and are praying more specifically now for a court date by January 7 - that would be a "Melkam Gena" indeed. 

Thank you all for caring about her and us. Please continue to pray for all five of us during this journey.

In God’s Grace,

Kameron, Nathan, J. Henry, Amelia and our New Little Girl!

Progress Updates and T-shirts!!!

Friends!

Our latest updates in our process are indicating that we could receive a court date in Ethiopia by the end of 2016! (Of course there is no guarantee of this timeline...but it looks promising!) This means that Nathan, Henry and I will hop on a plane and head over for a 5-6 day stay. During this first trip we will be able to meet our little girl in person for the very first time! We will also go to court and have the adoption finalized in country. After that we will return home while the U.S. embassy prepares a passport for her. 

Then, after 3-4 weeks we can return to pick her up and bring her home! FINALLY! FOR GOOD!

As some of you know, our original adoption agency closed at the end of July this year and we were forced to find a new agency to complete our process. Thankfully, we are thrilled with the professionalism and advocacy of our new agency – things are moving! But it did present some new and substantial costs we had not anticipated. 

So we are launching a t-shirt fundraiser in hopes of meeting a new goal in anticipation of our travel. You can take a peak by following the link below --- They would make an awesome Christmas gift :0)

http://www.booster.com/onesuchchild-cardenfamilyadoption

We are so grateful for the support of family and friends throughout this process. We could not have made it even this far without your encouragement and support.

Please continue pray for all five us during this journey.

In God’s Grace,

Kameron, Nathan, J. Henry, Amelia and our New Little Girl!

Dan Rather didn't get it...

If last week I was all, “Holy Contemplative Prayer, Batman!” coming off my spiritual high from the monastery, this week it’s been more like:

Cricket. Cricket.

I once heard told that Dan Rather asked Mother Teresa what she said during her prayers. 

She answered, "I listen." 

Dan followed up with, "Well then, what does God say?"  

Mother Teresa smiled and answered, "He listens." 

For a moment, Dan didn't know what to say, so Mother Teresa added, "And if you don't understand that, I can't explain it to you."

If you read my post last week, you recall I took Saint Mother Teresa’s advice, and instead of talking to God, I started listening. I gotta be honest…I think I’m Dan Rather. Fortunately, I’ve been in the 60-somethings Psalms this week, and I am beginning to think that David had a little Dan Rather in him, too.

In Psalm 61, David says, “Hear my cry, O God; listen to my prayer. From the end of the earth I call to you, when my heart is faint.” My Bible commentary remarks that the psalmist feels “far removed from the presence of God,” in verse 2. Check.

In Psalm 62, twice David says, “For God alone my soul waits in silence.” Same, dude. Same.

Finally, in Psalm 63, from the wilderness David cries, “O God, you are my God, I seek you, my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.” My commentary says that, here, David is describing “a place where God is not.” Still with you, David.

All week long, I’ve listened for God. And all week long, my soul waited in silence with from the end of the earth in a dry land where there is no water. At least I’m in good company, though, with David and Dan Rather and all.

When I was at the monastery, Brother Benedict and I had a brief discussion about a book he was reading by Saint John of the Cross, The Dark Night, in which (and I’m paraphrasing Brother Benedict’s synopsis here), Saint John describes that there are times when God pulls away from us and leaves us to a darkness for a season in order for us to grow in faith. Kind of a “conviction of things not seen” thing, maybe? Who knows.

Listen, John Ortberg tried to pull this same line on me toward the end of his book, Soul Keeping. Maybe I’m not spiritually wise enough for this kind of theology, because right now, in this season of my life, ain’t nobody got time for that. God up and leaves? Really?!

So, instead of thinking that maybe I was just stuck between Dan Rather AND Saint John of the Cross, God forbid, I decided to turn to Pandora.

Whenever I can’t seem to find God anywhere, I have turned to music. I have always found God’s presence waiting for me there, particularly in the old anthems found in the blue hymnbook of my childhood church. Now until very recently, I hadn’t been able to develop the same kind of attachment to contemporary Christian music. I’m pretty sure that Carmen clouded the entire landscape of contemporary Christian music for me from the late early 90s until about 6 months ago. But, this new wave of Christian artists is rising up, and some of their stuff is Psalm-worthy. Nathan recently turned me onto the Robbie Seay Band, and with their help toward the last half of the week, I decided not to let the Dan Rather in me win out. This is their modern remake of an old, old Advent hymn:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XnZr9bhcXuM

Each morning, during my prayer time, I have been meditating on this song, particularly these words:

Dear Savior come to tired earth

and bring the grace of dawn 

Dispel the night and show Thy face

Come, Messiah, Come

Now, we didn’t hear any update from the adoption agency this week, because there wasn’t one to give. Between that and the dark silence I found waiting for me every time I went to God in prayer, I’m going to be honest, I needed God to dispel the night and bring the grace of dawn.

And I honestly don’t feel like God’s done that yet.

But, like the song says:

There is hope today

that God Himself might shine upon our souls and say

Unto you a Savior comes

and everything will change

So, I’m going to keep mediating on these words and hoping each new day for the Messiah to be so present with me that even Dan Rather would know God is there.

In God's Grace, 

Kameron, Nathan, J. Henry, Amelia and our New Little Girl!

Setting Down My Prayer List

It’s been one year and three days since we received our referral. Three hundred and sixty eight days of many ups and even more downs. In light of the recent events with our agency and the anniversary of our referral, I revived a long-standing, never-actualized desire to travel to St. Bernard’s Abbey, a Benedictine monastery, in Cullman, Alabama for a time of spiritual renewal. The timing finally felt right, and after making a few jokes about “The Thornbirds” to Nathan (which he had to Google), I fished my mind from the gutter and scheduled the visit. I had planned to spend the 48 hours in some sort of intense prayer vigil for movement and mercy with the adoption, but that’s not what it turned into at all…

I arrived at St. Bernard’s at right before 5p mass and vespers on Thursday. Guests at St. Bernard actually sit with the monks and participate in the offices (chanted prayers), so after mass, I anxiously made my way to the chancel area, found a seat, and tried not to make a mistake as we all prayed together.

Dinner followed in silence, which intensified my feeling that I had made a grievous error in thinking there was anything for me at a monastery. What the actual hades had I been thinking? These monks won’t even talk to me. This was probably the stupidest thing I have ever done. I bet Nathan knew this was going to be a train wreck; why didn’t he tell me this was a bad idea? This is totally his fault.

Friday, I woke up at 5:30a ready to pray. After breakfast, I sat down in a rocking chair that became a perch for me for the rest of my time at St. Bernard’s. Before I began my laundry list of adoption related prayers, as has become my custom to pray, I remembered something that I had read from the Sermon on the Mount the night before: the Lord’s Prayer. Well, actually, I remembered the few lines before Jesus gives us the Lord’s Prayer. In Matthew, Jesus says, “When you are praying, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.”

I can promise y’all, I am a pray-er of “many words.” Throughout this last year, with a little help from the spiritual formation of my childhood, I had developed a truly inaccurate view of the nature and purpose of prayer. The good news: the amount of time I spend in prayer has never been greater. The bad news (kinda embarrassed about this): I had developed this notion that I had to pray for every need we had related to the adoption every day using very specific words (lest God be confus-ed…), or God wouldn’t come to our assistance. Many times I have actually concluded my prayers with the Lord’s Prayer, realized that I forgot to mention a specific prayer need, pried my closed prayer back open to stuff in that need, and then re-recited the Lord’s Prayer, so that my tag-on prayer wouldn’t be invalidated by occurring out of order.

This is messed up on so many levels.

Most importantly, though, what is my prayer life saying about my understanding of the character of God? I’m not trying to self-deprecate too much here, because I believe God abides with us where we are, but prayer was becoming exhausting and weighty and self-centered and neurotic. And that’s all unnecessary. Jesus is all, “your Father knows what you need before you ask him,” and Paul is all, “for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words.”

I realized, sitting there in that rocking chair, that God loves me. And you know what else? God loves our daughter. And even if I never lifted another prayer need up related to this adoption again, the Spirit will still be interceding for her in Ethiopia just like it will be here. Thanks be to God that her eventual homecoming isn’t dependent on my ability to beg God correctly for it. I don’t have to explicitly name every one of our current needs every morning. God’s already received word; the Spirit delivered the messages more eloquently and quicker than I ever could.  

So, I ended up spending very little time praying for anything specific at the monastery. I just sat there with Jesus. The good news about waking up at dark-thirty for Matins and Lauds (fancy Catholic prayers) is that I was able to I feel the early morning breeze blow across my face for a good two hours afterwards and imagine that it was the “ruach,”, breath of God, confirming God’s presence with me in that rocking chair.

And you know what? Those two days I spent at St. Bernard’s with Jesus, neither one of us was really saying anything, but I still felt heard. It was one of the sweetest spiritual experiences of my life.

Before I left the Abbey, I had a conversation with an incredibly charming monk, Father Francis, about the nature of prayer. He highlighted our culture’s obsession with originality and insisted that the prayers of the Psalms can’t be improved upon. Sold, Father Frances. Toward the end of our conversation, he confirmed, “Prayer isn’t about changing God, it’s about changing you. Let their words [the Psalms] become your words.”

There’s just one problem: when you’ve been talking to God one way for three decades, it can be more than a little difficult to change the nature of your relationship from this side of things. I’m not saying that we shouldn’t ask God for what we need; in fact, God even directs us to ask, seek, and knock. Repeat. I’m not going to go Gregorian-chants-or-nothing with Jesus from this time forward. This is merely a story about my prayer life, not a recommendation for yours. 

For the next few months, I’m going to pray the Psalms or keep quiet and listen. I’m not going to ask God for anything. I’m going to let someone else’s good words become my words, and I’m going to be still and allow the Spirit to do its thing. Because “he knows our needs,” and His glory will be revealed whether I beg for it or not.

By the way, do you know how I know that’s true? Because two days after I returned home, we received an email from our new agency that all the in-country issues with our old agency had been resolved. The biggest obstacle in moving forward – separating from our old agency in-country – was overcome on Friday morning, while I was sitting at a monastery in prayer, not saying a word.

In God’s Grace,

Kameron, Nathan, J. Henry, Amelia and our New Little Girl!

A "fan girl" moment, in other words...

Last Sunday, I had a total “fan girl” moment. Well, I guess now it’s more of a “fan woman” moment, as the object of my swooning was not a movie star or pop icon, but a Jesuit priest who bears a striking resemblance to Santa Clause. I got to meet Father Gregory Boyle. And even give him a side hug. In 2011, at the recommendation of a dear friend at our former church, I read Father Greg’s “Tattoos on the Heart” for the first time.  Through his 30-year work with gang members in Los Angeles, Father Greg has become something like the Grace Whisperer. Of “Tattoos…,” Richard Rohr says, “Sometimes we are allowed to see in our own lifetimes what we were supposed to see in the life and ministry of Jesus. Read, and let your life be changed!” I’m pretty down with that description.

I won’t recount to you how his powerful words  altered my life’s course, because that’s not what happened. Sometimes God works fast like that. But other times, as Father Greg describes in Chapter 11, God’s work is slow. I guess the first reading ignited a little spark in my spirit, and in spite of myself, it has been trying to shine brighter for the last 5 years. I re-read the book this year as part of a small group study at my church, squarely in the middle of waiting on our daughter. It was interesting to see which passages I had highlighted during my first reading few years ago. This time, entirely new passages emerged as life rafts (intentionally underlined rather than highlighted this time – we’ve all got quirks), each one centered on trusting in the slow work of God. I am betting that his phrase “slow work of God” was inspired by the earlier writings of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin:

“Above all, trust in the slow work of God. We are quite naturally impatient in everything to reach the end without delay. We would like to skip the intermediate stages. We are impatient of being on the way to something unknown, something new. And yet it is the law of all progress that it is made by passing through some stages of instability – and it may take a very long time. Above all, trust in the slow work of God, our loving vine-dresser.”

Go ahead, Father Pierre.

This week has been another practice in leaning into the slow work of God. We were told the week prior that we would hear an update from our new agency regarding how to move forward during the week of August 28^th, but that didn’t stop us from secretly wishing word would come early. Because receiving news before we were expecting it has always been our experience in international adoption. Of course <insert eye roll emoji>. In God’s effort keep us from dwelling on the slow-ness of God’s work, we were delightfully gifted us with head lice (courtesy of Amelia), so I don’t want to complain too much about waiting around for the phone to ring. This week, though, that little light in my spirit sparked a new realization within me: Father Pierre and Father Greg are so right. If you look really hard, you can find grace in the intermediate stages too.

When we received our daughter’s referral last September, we were told that we could expect to bring her home in 6-9 months. Well, 6 months into waiting on an actual and specific little girl and not just sitting on a list taped to somebody’s filing cabinet, I was still FREAKING OUT. I think my mother was seriously worried about my mental health. All these international adoption books were starting to scare me. How would we manage? Would she and Amelia get along? How long could she be in preschool before starting real school? Real school is scary. Was Amelia going to freak out? Would she feel replaced? How were we going to divide up all the girl toys? Would we buy more toys? Different toys or the same? What if they didn’t want to share a room? Was “cocooning” going to be the death of our family? We don’t stay inside well. Is this going to be a total train wreck?

Surely this stream of consciousness is all normal? If not, kindly put a pin in it and save it for us to talk about way a long time from now.

Fast-forward several months. More slow work, more waiting. You know what? That slow work has done a number on my anxiety about her homecoming. Of course, I still recognize that things will be tough for a while when she comes home. Maybe even a long while. But the transition was initially tough when we brought J. Henry home, and tougher still when it was Amelia’s turn to cross our threshold for the first time. There will be a transition period. I totally accept that. But you know what? This slow work and waiting has given my heart time to long for my daughter. I mean really, deeply long for her. Down in my soul.  I have prayed (almost) every day since receiving her referral for our hearts to be bound to hers and for her heart to be prepared to receive our love. And all this time has allowed my heart to truly be bound to her even before knowing her. I don’t think I could have seen through the fog of anxiety clearly enough 6 months ago to be able to say that.

Now, the Wesleyan in me needs to come right out and say that I DO NOT believe God caused our adoption process to be a slow work so that I would be brought to a spirit of deep longing for my daughter. I DO NOT believe that God is keeping my daughter in an orphanage this long just so her adoptive mama can get her crap together and her heart in the right place. Rather, God’s redeeming seeps down into the ashes of our waiting so that nothing is wasted during this time. My heart – our hearts – are being changed during the wait.  

May the slow work of God press on as we await the day that our dear daughter who has been in our hearts will join us in our arms. And may it also continue in me.

This week, please be in prayer that:

1.     We will hear from our new agency during the first half of the week. I mean, we’re talking about slow work, not slooooooow work, right?

2.     Our case is in order and in good standing for an agency transfer

3.     MOWA and the orphanage will not request additional paperwork from us as a result of the agency change

4.     The agency change will not significantly delay our timeline for bringing our daughter home

In God’s Grace,

Kameron, Nathan, J. Henry, Amelia and our New Little Girl!