A Natural Family

**J wrote this and presented it as the Call to Worship at our church on the day of EmAdu's dedication. I think of it often (and usually get teary). It is worth reading all of it. Even if you've heard it before.

Call to Worship 9/21 – Dedication Sunday
Two Sundays before we left for Ethiopia, I shuffled into a pew at Christ Church New Brunswick, the local Episcopal church we attend when we aren’t in Stamford, to hear a lesson about Ishmael. I have to admit that I wasn’t completely present. My mind was racing through the seemingly endless list of tasks we had to accomplish before flying to Addis.

Rev. Deborah Meister, the rector at Christ Church, grabbed my attention quickly, though. After reviewing Sarah’s intolerance of Hagar and her son, as well as Abraham’s unwillingness to protect that son, Rev. Meister described Hagar’s despair in the wilderness. She has some water Abraham gave her, but it quickly runs dry. She has nearly lost all hope that her son will survive when she encounters an angel in the wilderness who ministers to her and the child.

This is the story of all parents, who eventually release their children into a wilderness, ‘trusting God,’ as John Ames, the main character in Marilynne Robinson’s Gilead understands it, ‘to honor the parents’ love for [that child] by assuring that there will indeed be angels in that wilderness.’ (219) (Hat tip to Rev. Meister)

As my son grows older, he will know Kathryn and I as his parents, and we will shower him with love and support. He will also know of his first parents, Ayelech and Firew. He will know of his first family’s profound trust in people they did not know to provide him with the love and support they would not be present to give. A love that they have modeled for him in what is perhaps the greatest demonstration of love imaginable – sacrifice. We are his two families made into one.

Importantly, he will also know of one other group of people that make up our unlikely family. After he left his first family, but before he knew us, Adu was in a bureaucratic wilderness. We all waited for 13 court dates to pass, for visas to be issued, for immigration papers to be approved, for two governments separated by thousands of miles and multiple language barriers to meticulously grind out the particulars of an ethical adoption. And all the while, Adu was stuck in limbo, meandering through a bureaucratic wilderness.

But there were angels in that wilderness. Men and women who attended to Adu’s every need, who loved him when the two families who were desperate to love him could not be with him.
There was Dr. Tsegaye, who heads the Wide Horizons for Children program in Ethiopia and who has set an ethical standard that many more countries in Africa will soon follow.
There was Sister Askale, the head nurse for the infants, who works miracles for children who haven’t had access to all that they need when they come to her, and who commits herself so entirely to her work that the departure of each child is the occasion for the greatest joy and deepest sorrow for her.

There were Girma and Agirso, the social workers in the Sidama Zone who worked directly with Adu’s family in assisting them in their adoption plan. After meeting with Adu’s first family, we had lunch with Girma, who spoke with a fiery passion about his work in the region, about the importance of serving families in a manner that allows them to stay together, that makes adoption a last resort, and that provides a safe place for families in crisis to seek and receive help.

There were Eskedar and Sinidu, who oversaw the guest house where all of the adoptive families stayed; Mulat, who organized all aspects of the trip and drove us all around town; guards who knew all the babies’ names and played soccer with the older children; and countless names and faces we don’t know who navigated Adu and his family through the complex legal process and assured that this adoption was ethical and in everyone’s best interest.

And then there were Amarech and Mulu, the nannies that directly cared for Adu for the six weeks he was in Wide Horizon’s care. As they had done for so many babies before and will do for many more after, they nurtured Adu in every way imaginable. When he was hungry, they fed him. When he was thirsty, they gave him something to drink. When he was naked, they clothed him. When he was sick, they cared for him.

With no direct ties to his family and no expectation of ever seeing him again, everyone associated with Wide Horizons for Children in Ethiopia worked tirelessly to provide Adu with everything he needed. They were his angels in the bureaucratic wilderness, and they form another extension of our family now.

On Sunday in Ethiopia, when we were with Girma, he told us to come home and tell everyone what we saw. Tell them of the need, yes – there are an estimated 5 million orphans in Ethiopia – but also tell of the work that is being done so that others may be encouraged by it and seek ways to pitch in.

A few days later, at a coffee ceremony in the Big Kids House mere hours before we caught our flight home, Dr. Tsegaye stood before us, telling again of the agency’s commitment to the families it works with in Ethiopia. And he echoed what we had heard earlier in the week. Go, he said, and tell what you have seen here.

And so, this morning, I tell you what I saw – I saw angels in the wilderness.

The call to worship today is really a call to service. It’s a call for us to empty ourselves and minister to people we don’t know with the expectation of little in return. It’s a call to march out into a wilderness and serve whomever we find there. It’s a call to answer the hope and the faith of others until there is no wilderness without an angel there to help.