I am an adoptive father. Given this week’s epistle, I certainly can’t resist writing about that reality. It is something I know a little about and that means the world to me. It means a great deal to me to read that just as God chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world, so God has also destined us for adoption as God’s own children (Eph. 1:3-6). It is easy for me to extrapolate from my imperfect love for my two sons to God’s perfect love for us all.
That is why one of my pet peeves has to do with the casual way people use the word adopt to apply to zoo giraffes, African elephants in danger of extinction, and my personal favorite, highways and roads. At the end of the day, your adopted highway gets left behind. Not so with your children. Adoption produces the same result as birth. It is based on love and commitment. Has nothing to do with good deeds. It has to do with forever; no matter what. Let me give you an example. It involves applying for my son Andrew’s citizenship (he was born in Korea).
Let me tell you, even under the best of circumstances, there is nothing easy about it. I had to go to the INS office to make the initial application. At least in those days, if you had any hope of doing anything else on the day you went to the INS office, you had better be there when the door opened. If you arrived later in the day, you might very well wait for hours to speak to someone. I learned that the hard way, and when I found it necessary to go to the INS office, I would arrive at 5:00 a.m. Even then, I was never the first person in line.
Part of the process involved an interview with an INS agent. These were not easy to get. You had to sign up and would be assigned an appointment several months in the future. One could, however, request an earlier date if there was a cancellation. That is what we did.
Sure enough, one day we got a call that there had been a cancellation and were told to bring Andrew for his interview the next day for an appointment at 4:00 with the instruction that we would have to be there by 3:00 because that’s when the door to the office was closed to anyone else coming in. Because my schedule has always been more flexible than that of my wife, who is a teacher, I took Andrew to the interview.
Now because Andrew was all of 10 months old at the time, it would have seemed sensible to leave him at home for this, but no, Andrew was required to be there in person. Although Andrew’s mother did not come with us, she had bought him a new dress suit for the occasion, baby blue, and I had instructions to dress him accordingly for the big interview. We got there in time. Sure enough, the door locked behind us promptly at 3:00. We waited.
Here’s where the fun begins. As babies can sometimes do, Andrew picked this particular moment to have, shall we say, an upset stomach. It was not pretty. It was major. It was oozing out from the diaper in a major way. It oozed onto the new baby blue suit. It oozed all over my suit.
Why didn’t I excuse myself and take Andrew to the bathroom you might ask. I’ll tell you why. The bathroom was on the other side of the locked INS door, that’s why. Yes, I was told I could take him but that I wouldn’t be able to get back in. So I dealt with changing diapers on the floor of the INS waiting room. This did not make the INS staff happy. That’s OK because it didn’t make me happy, either.
Finally, with baby diarrhea smeared all over both of us, we were called in for the interview. I apologized and sat down with my 10-month-old placed somewhat strategically on my lap. The INS agaent began. “I have some questions to ask you on behalf of Andrew,” he said while looking down at the application on his desk.
“OK,” I said”
“First question. Has he ever been married?” I laughed.
“This is not funny,” I was cautioned.
“I apologize,” I said. “No, he has never been married.”
“Has he ever been a member of the Communist Party?”
Even I know there is nothing funny about the Communist Party, especially to a member, which the INS agent might have been for all I knew.
“No,” I replied, “he has never been a member of the Communist Party.”
“Has he ever plotted to overthrow the government of the United States by force?” It did occur to me that given what I’d just been through in the waiting room, little Andrew might have the ability to overthrow the government, but I decided it was best not to make jokes.
“No. He has never plotted to overthrow the government of the United States by force.” I couldn’t resist. “To my knowledge,” I added.
I don’t remember any of the other questions. No matter how ridiculous it was, somehow Andrew passed, and his naturalization application was approved. A couple of months later, he was sworn in as a United States citizen. I took the oath on his behalf. I brought extra diapers along with me for the big event.
That’s the tip of the iceberg about adoption. You don’t bring extra diapers for your giraffe, your endangered elephant, or your stretch of highway. You do for someone you love more than life. I’m guessing God has a massive diaper bag.
Agape,
+Stacy
Bishop Stacy Sauls
Founder and President