Just Jump

     

    Tonight I sat with with my 7 year-old bio son and sobbed with him. Deep sobs; the kind that have been waiting to burst for days, maybe weeks. We were sitting together talking about how he was feeling having young foster kids with us, and his words were tough, "mom, it's just so hard". I cried with him and said, "oh I know, it is so, so, so hard!". I held him and sobbed along with him, then I said. "Sometimes the things God asks us to do are the hardest, the very hardest." My next thought was to say, 'but oh the treasures in heaven, and oh the rewards of helping someone in need, and oh how joyful we are in God's will'. Instead, I stayed quiet, and just cried and held. He doesn't know yet that out of ashes, God rebuilds, he doesn't know yet that brokenness leads to healing, he doesn't understand the wonder and beauty that comes from walking out God's will; so very difficult, yet the most fulfilling. 

    We have had a foster placement now for a couple months. They will stay long-term ( in the foster system this could be a few weeks to a couple years...or for however long God allows us to be their family). I wish I could tell you all about them, I wish I could send pictures and talk about them, but I can't. I can't tell you about joyous and funny moments, heartbreaking stories, things they do and say that make us angry, sad, happy, bewildered; all the above. Let me just say, that what we expect to happen with adoptions or foster care, is rarely what ever happens. To do foster care, is to truly stand with your hand wide open, ready to welcome and ready to say goodbye. These children are in need of someone to meet their every need, and not just their immediate needs, but past needs. It is a lot! Every moment calls for dependence on Jesus. There is no way our family could do this without the minute to minute presence of our Savior. It means everyone pitching in and helping, it means giving up activities and space, it means being emotionally exhausted yet finding more to give. 

    Several weeks ago we took them to the pool and discovered this was a brand new experience for one of them. Fear took hold, and the pool became a horrid abys waiting to swallow this child up, or so they thought. Patience and time was needed. Several trips to the pool and this child went from sitting on the edge with just a toe in, to floating in a Puddle Jumper all on their own, to actually jumping off the side into our arms. As I watched these precious ones gather the courage to jump from the side of the pool into the water and into our arms, Jesus showed me a beautiful picture. "Melissa, Michael, Hewitt family; you jumped!!!" As if a parent was cheering us on, encouraging us, helping us trust, Jesus threw back his head and yelled with glee. "I told you I would catch you!" You see, He has so much more patience. He has so much more love than we can ever have. He waited while we dangled our toe in the water, gradually working our way into the pool, then built up the courage to jump. I think with most things, Jesus is waiting for us to trust Him enough to jump. And in order to jump, we must abandon all footing, we must give up what we think we know, we must leap into the unknown. The difference, DON'T MISS THIS, is who you are jumping to. I can leap into the unknown when I trust my Savior to catch me, to keep me from drowning, to support me, to be my everything. 

    So if you ask us how we are doing these days, you will probably get an answer like, well we are surviving, or we are okay. Because we are learning that after that jump into the pool, we have to completely rely on Jesus to sustain us, to keep us afloat, to hold us up and teach us to swim with Him. This is HARD! I mean chew-you-up, spit-you-out hard. It has challenged us to work on our relationship in our family, to operate unselfishly, and to grow amazing amounts of patience (we have failed miserably several times on this one - THANK JESUS FOR GRACE). But...love the buts...we are growing and learning, and most of all resting in the arms of our Savior. We are seeing knew strengths in each member of the family and working on weaknesses. We are learning that life is broken and hard and we are called to give the love of Jesus even if it means walking into horrible places,  collecting the shattered pieces and giving them to God believing for healing. It means, not turning a blind eye, it means getting out of our comfort zone and placing ourselves at "risk". 

    I want to ask you a question. Are you comfortable? Do you think someone else will always step-up and take care of the needs? Do you think that the people in ministry, missions, helping in some way have some strength that you don't have, therefore eliminating the need for you? They don't. We don't. The Hewitt family is not more gifted, more patient, stronger, more anything...we have nothing but the grace of God and his strength. So this is my challenge to you: if you know God is calling you to do something, JUMP! Don't sit on the side of the pool with just one toe in. Just JUMP! If you are a believer in Christ you ARE being called to jump in somewhere. It might not be helping foster care or adoption, or meeting the needs of the hungry, or missions, but trust me, God is calling you. 

                        The real calling is not to a  certain place or career,

                                 but to everyday obedience.

                     And that call is extended to every Christian, not a select few

                                                                        -Brother Andrew

    If you are a believer in Jesus, I beg of you not to stand by, spending most of your life being afraid to jump. Thinking your toe dipped in the water is the same as swimming. It is scary, and hard, and tough, but God is there in that scary and in the hard and that is what makes the difference. The need is so, so, huge; all you have to do is look around. People are suffering, children are hurting, souls are longing for Jesus! If you are a child of God, you have what it takes to go where He calls you...because you have HIM. 

                                                                                                                         JUMP

Not Ready

 

Today as I was folding laundry, I came across a little article of clothing that is not usually in my pile. A sweet reminder of a little one that came and went very quickly. You see a few weeks ago, we officially went full foster. The way the state and county works is very confusing, so I won't try and explain the in and outs of switching, the mountains of paperwork again, or the endless waiting. The main thing is, we realized that there was more of a need to foster right now, than just trying to adopt.  
      Our goal is to help kids. Period. So we will go where we are needed the most. Already, I feel we are elbow deep. A precious little child came when we weren't ready and left when we weren't ready. But you know what? This child wasn't ready either. Who is ever ready to be taken away from all that is familiar and placed with strangers. Who is ever ready to not be cared for, put in dangerous situations, abused, or abandoned. None of these children are READY for that. So whether we are ready or not we will be there for these kiddos, one by one.
    Of course this is harder than it sounds, and I know we are not even aware of how hard it will get. Seeing the little bag sitting by the door, in preparation of departure, packed with much more than what the child came with, was heartbreaking. But the JOY of knowing we were there, when that child needed us, is unimaginable.
     We don't know what the future holds each day. We don't know if we will get a call and be scrambling to get a room and bed or beds ready. We don't know when we will say hello or goodbye. We do know, we have the love of Jesus to give. We have arms to hold, hugs to share, tears to cry with them, a safe place, laughter and love.

     "Ask yourself what is really
     important, and then have the
     wisdom and courage to build
     your life around your answer."

     Continue to pray for us. THIS IS HARD. Pray for wisdom. Pray for the courage to do this. We are not special people. We do not have extraordinary gifts. We are not better with kids than others. We are not more patient, more loving, more giving, stronger, more special...more of anything. We are ordinary people taking one day at a time and following the voice of our Savior Jesus.

     There is a need for families that are willing to adopt! There is a huge need for families to foster! If you think God is calling you to help in any way, please reach out to us and ask us about how to get started. 

The Journey

The longing, and the desire to adopt has been on my heart for as long as I can remember.  When Michael and I met, I shared this desire with him and soon it fell on his heart as well.Our journey of adoption has spread over 13 years. Many of you know, we started the process of adopting internationally in 2007. After five years of paperwork nightmares, excruciating hurt, disappointment, and exhaustion, we called an end to the process. We were burnt out, disillusioned, and wondered if we would ever be able to start the journey again.

The burden to adopt never left my heart. If anything it grew stronger. Over the next years, God worked to heal both Michael and my hearts from many wounds and deep brokenness. God put strong Jesus followers in our path to lift us up and encourage us. I don't know if a day went by that I wasn't thinking and hoping that it was time to start the journey of adoption again. A little over a year ago we made the decision to start the adoption process once more. Only this time it looked a whole lot different.

The first time we chose International adoption. It seemed much more "clean", and easy, less risky. We made choices back then based on what we thought we could handle. What would be best for our family at that time. We didn't make the wrong choice, because we clearly knew God wanted us to follow his call to adopt, but we were young and a naive. We started with Vietnam; it closed. We started with Uganda as a Guinee pig family; it was decided (not by us) after months in, that we were not a fit for the new program. We started with Ethiopia; years would follow of more paperwork and longer waiting lists. We ended the Ethiopia adoption still far, far down on the waiting list. We were heartbroken.

Back in those years, we thought we could handle all that adoption could throw at us. Oh boy. God has shown us we really CAN'T handle any of it. You see, no adoption is "clean". In fact, International or domestic, adoption is messy, and hard, and personal, and heartbreaking. From the moment you start it hurts. Oh it hurts!!! And we have only just started. We have walked with many friends through adoptions and we have observed horrendous pain, but also a beauty that can only be orchestrated by an awesome God. The only way we can handle this pain, carry the burdens of children we don't even know yet, is by God's grace. Adoption, like most things in life is messy. It definitely is not clean!

Adoption is a beautiful example of the overabundant, redeeming love of Christ. It is physical, rolling up your sleeves work, and endless love, and weeping, and anger at the child's past you can't change or take away. It is willingness to open your family to the unknown, the wild, the crazy. But it is also opening up your family to a glorious tapestry only God in His perfect sovereignty could weave. Adoption means being willing to jump into a new child's past, full of their hurts, and anger, and fear of love. It is showing them (your biological or adopted or foster child) a Savior (not us), Christ, who ultimately made them, and chose them, and wants to make them whole. That is NOT clean! That is not low risk! That is not easy!

So here we are stepping out and ministering in our home state, in our home nation. We might not only just have 1 new family member, we might have their relatives that become part of our family. We might deal with visitations, and people hating us, we might deal with children coming and going that we get attached to and we watch walk back out our door. A wise lady once told me, "No matter how God chooses to give us our children, we really never know for how long, or who they will become, or how they will turn out. It is up to us to parent them the best we can FOR THE TIME God gives them to us".

If we can offer hope and love to a child, even if it is for a short time, than that is what we will do. Our journey is just beginning, so please pray for us to never take our eyes off Jesus, to offer these children physical and emotional safety, to show them the incredible love of Jesus so clearly it changes the course of their lives.

Stepping Out In Faith

We are in the process of adopting or fostering, or perhaps both! We are stepping out of the boat and yes, so far it has felt like walking on water.

         But the disciples, who were now in the middle of the lake, ran into trouble, for their boat was tossed about by the high winds and heavy seas. at about four o'clock in the morning, Jesus came to them, walking on the waves! When his disciples saw him walking on top of the water, they were terrified and screamed, "A ghost!" Then Jesus said, "Be brave and don't be afraid. I AM HERE!" Peter shouted out, "lord, if it's really you, then have me join you on the water!" "Come and join me," Jesus replied. So Peter stepped out onto the water and began to walk toward Jesus.

 Matthew 14:24-29

This passage of scripture touched my heart about a year ago. Right after we had made the decision to start the adoption process up again. It was a terrifying decision because we had experienced tremendous heartbreak on this journey before. So it truly felt, for Michael and I, like stepping out of a boat in the midst of a storm, hoping we didn't sink, and walking toward Jesus. Instead of focusing on Peter's failure later on in the story, God allowed us to see Peter's faith. Peter asked Jesus to walk on water! He wanted so desperately to go to Jesus, that with tremendous faith, he set his foot down on waves fully expecting to walk to his Lord. And guess what? Jesus said, "Come on, man, walk to me." Did he say it with a smile perhaps? Did he laugh in delight and cheer him on inwardly? I like to think so. Jesus knew the storm was raging, he knew the danger, but he quickly said "come". 

Faith is fine to talk about it, but in the midst of stepping out, it gets real. The waves start to loom, thunder cracks, and lightning flashes across the sky. The storms of life can threaten to drown you. The key to walking on water in the midst of a storm? The key to faith? Never, for one instance, taking your eyes off Jesus! We have already had storms and crashing waves, and yes, like Peter, we've looked around at our circumstances and thought "Dang, we are crazy, this isn't possible".

Satan has tried to distract us and take our eyes off of Jesus from the start, but thankfully we serve an awesome Jesus who just leans down and offers His hand. Again, and again, and again. 

So friends, we ask for your prayers. Pray specifically that we keep our eyes set on Jesus Christ. Pray for our hearts. Pray for our biological children as they welcome new siblings. Pray for our children to come (whether for a short time, or a long time) for their safety, their emotions, and their hearts.

Questions we anticipate you having.😁

Q. Do we already have a child in mind, or placed?
A. Possibly, hopefully we will know soon

Q. When did we start the process?

A. We initiated the process about 1 year ago. Then classes, training, home study, paperwork, paperwork, paperwork. Have I said, paperwork.

Q. Who are we adopting through?

A. We are adopting through APAC (a division of DHR in Alabama that works specifically with adoptions) We are also considering doing foster care. 

Q. Boy or girl?

A. Whomever God wants to place with us

Q. How old?

A. Trying to keep under our youngest's age. So under the age of 6 ish

Q. Why are we doing this?

A. We have felt for a long time God's call to adopt. It tells us in the Bible to take care of the widows and the fatherless. True spirituality that is pure in the eyes of our Father God is to make a difference in the lives of the orphans, and widows in their troubles, and to refuse to be corrupted by the world's values. James 1:27  We feel this is the way God wants OUR family to carry this out. During this process, God has given us such a heart for these kids, no matter if they would be ours legally through adoption, or if we can only parent them for a short time. I will write another blog telling our journey up to this point.

Please feel free to message me or Michael if you have any other questions, if you are interested in starting this process yourselves, or if you just want to let us know you are praying for us.