A witness to God's love

My heart has been very heavy for the people of Haiti since the massive earthquake that happened there about two weeks ago. Having young children, I am especially touched by the plight of the country's many orphans and adoptive families who are in other countries and have had to struggle to find their children, whom they were waiting to pick up and bring home at the time of the earthquake.  I have been following the public information provided by God's Littlest Angels, a Christian orphanage and school operating in Petion-Ville, south of Port-au-Prince.  GLA has recently been profiled on the national news because the US and Canada has finally issued humanitarian parole visas for the dozens of children who were already adopted but awaiting paperwork in order to be picked up from Haiti and taken to their new homes. 

Isn't it funny the way God's timing works? This weekend, we had friends come for a visit from the town where we used to live.  They recently brought home their two sons from Ethiopia.  This was our first chance to meet the boys.  The visit was scheduled just prior to the Haitian earthquake and was really an "info gathering" mission.  Other friends of ours who live here adopted children through the same agency a couple of years ago and were the ones who helped get our visiting friends started with the process. And the older children living here still remember Amharic, the official language of Ethiopia and the language spoken by the boys. 

We definitely looked forward to the visit from our old friends and seeing their two children that we have watched grow into teenagers.  And, of course, we were excited to meet the two boys.  But, even more so, this weekend was a gift to me and I really felt God's blessing as I prepared for our friends' visit.  Difficult to explain.  In some ways, our friends weren't really here to see us. The important part of the trip was for our friend's 8 year old boy to meet the Ethiopian children of our friends living here, to speak Amharic, to see a family that looked like his new one does, and to communicate without the stress of a new language.  Our friends got to ask their son some important questions with the help of a teenage "interpreter".  I wasn't a part of those conversations, but I sensed some necessary emotion and healing happened. And, what a blessing to be able to provide food and a place to land while that important "work" took place! What an amazing experience to see this family interact with each other in such an early stage, and to see their love for one another already!

I was brought to tears this morning when our friend told my husband (via facebook, of course!) that he felt like now that they made this trip to Kennewick he feels for the first time like they are actually "home" from Ethiopia. I cannot express my joy at being used by God to help facilitate that, even if it was only by making skillet potatoes and eggs!