mailbox miracle and haiti

yesterday, i went to our mailbox and found this inside:

[if i wasn't so lazy, there would be a picture here of an envelope containing 2 100-dollar bills, a kind note from an anonymous person, and an awesome sticker of the ethiopian flag that is actually from ethiopia.]

can it really get better than that? God keeps blowing our socks off with the kindness of family, friends, and now even STRANGERS! well, perhaps this person isn't really a stranger, but we at least have no idea who sent us this little miracle. so anonymous person, if you read our blog, i want you to know that we are thankful for your kindness and generosity. your note and that awesome [it really is AWESOME] sticker from ethiopia are hanging on our refrigerator reminding us not only of our children, but also of you. we're going to use the money you gave us to pay the $190 fee we will owe the ethiopian embassy to authenticate our dossier.

i sent a draft of our dossier to our case manager on thursday. i will update whenever i hear whether or not the dossier is OK to send to raleigh [and then to DC] for authentication. we are praying to send it next week, as that will put us SO CLOSE to being on a waitlist.

also, i have a job! it's temporary, but i start tomorrow. more on that cool story later.

lastly, i haven't written anything haiti. i wish i could, but i don't think my blogging is ever as articulate as i intend [or wish] it to be. maybe you all could just climb in my brain for a day?? i know a lot of people wonder how to reconcile God with the earthquake, and, for the record, i don't think ANYBODY [john piper, tim keller, insert your own pastor/theologian...or even pat robertson] has all the right answers. personally, i don't think God MADE the earthquake happen. i think we live in a world that is broken by sin and EVERYTHING in creation is affected. simply put, creation doesn't function as it was intended to function. bad things happen because God allows our sinful world to run its course, not because God makes bad things happen. the difference between "making" and "allowing" is a very important nuance. i know a lot of people ask, "why can't God just stop all the bad stuff?" and to that i say, one day God will. i don't know why God continues to allow creation to groan and suffer under the weight of sin and brokenness. one reason is that i think God allows human free will [my reformed friends will disagree vehemently with me on this point]. i think God allows humans to make choices, even if those choices result in sin. and i'm pretty sure that God is quite grieved at the choices we have made. this is why i'm not a big fan of churches that only emphasize moral codes like "don't drink" or "don't dance" because they grossly underestimate the sins we have perpetrated against our fellow human beings. they fail to point out how the sins of pride and selfishness perpetrate the greatest of evil. i think God lets us make choices, even when they result in great evil, so that we are pushed further and further into seeing our need for redemption because redemption is the point of everything. personally, i think when we come to realize that our bad choices have created the world in which we live, we are forced to search for something that can get us out of the mess we have created. and, well, that's where jesus and the gospel come in.

but the gospel isn't just for the salvation of individual souls. the gospel is for creation, the whole of creation. it is for a creation that is full of injustice, poverty, disease, and pain. and when i look at haiti, i am reminded that while christians do not have the power to save souls, we do have the power to bring justice and hope to hurting people. we can be redemption in action. we can give to organizations like the red cross and world vision. we can petition our government on behalf of families like this one who are hoping to have humanitarian parole granted to their adopted children who are still in haiti waiting to come home. and, because i am an adoption advocate, we can consider adopting one of the many children who lost his/her parents to this terrible disaster. i read today that the number of orphans in haiti has tripled because of the earthquake.

i never wrote the post i had hoped to about the weird tension between appreciating blessings and hating possessions. there's a lot i wish i could say about that. but in general, when i think about haiti, i wish we all could evaluate our ability to ACT not based on our view as americans who are used to comfort and security, but rather as haitians who live on $1 a day. if you think your house isn't big enough to bring in one more child, consider that a house like yours in haiti would probably be a mansion. the questions about why this disaster happened will linger for quite some time, but this should not keep us from considering how we can join in God's redemptive intention for creation.