Did I Miss Something?

A couple of years ago, I took a trip with Samaritan's Purse to Ukraine. We were documenting some OCC distributions there at the time. It was a fun time - extremely cold, but fun. At any rate, I had a very interesting, and confusing, experience.

The girl you see pictured with me was a young girl in the town of Simferopol. She lived at a school for kids with speech problems. Approximately 50% of the students there are orphans. Some nationals in Simferopol had organized an OCC distribution to these children. It was during this distribution that I saw her. The moment our eyes met, I melted. There was something in the way she looked at me that made me think "I have to get her out of here". We continued to do our filming there and I had little time to spend with her or find out about her situation. I did manage to grab a still photographer and have him snap this picture. I also spoke to the director of the school before we left and got some contact information so I could follow up when I got back to the states. When we left the school/orphanage, I cried because I couldn't take this girl with me. Now remember, I had been traveling the world for about 8 years by that point, and had seen thousands of orphans but had never had this happen - ever!

So when I got back to the hotel that night, I called Kim and told her what happened. I had not gone on that trip or any other before or since to look for a child to adopt. In fact, I had never given adoption any real thought before, but there I was on the phone telling Kim, from half a world away, that I wanted to adopt this girl right then. Kim's response - "Let's do it!" There was no hesitation on her part. A few days later we left Simferopol and traveled back to Kiev where we stayed with some nationals. I told them my story, and they assured me that they would help us when the time came to make the necessary arrangements. Things were moving very quickly for me at this point and I was feeling a bit overwhelmed.

On my flight back to the States, I had a middle seat. As I sat there waiting for the window seat passenger to board, I thought of all that had happened and was looking forward to a nice relaxing flight home. Then the passenger arrived - a woman carrying a young child. "Great" I thought, "this kid is going to scream the entire flight". Well the lady sat down in the seat next to me and eventually we began to make some small talk. Turns out, she had just adopted the child she was holding and was returning home. "OK God, you have my attention" I thought to myself as she and I talked about the adoption process.

After returning to Sarasota, I realized that there was a Ukrainian church meeting in our church building on Sunday nights. I eventually was in a Bible study class with many of the members of this church. It sure seemed that we were quickly on our way to having a third child in the house.

Using the contacts that I had gathered in Ukraine, I began the process of trying to determine the status of this girl. I emailed several people, including the school director. A week went by - nothing. A month later - no answer. We had been researching on the internet as well about the adoption process for Ukraine. After a few months, the country halted all adoptions to Americans. Completely. Talk about disappointing. It seemed so obvious that God wanted us to adopt this girl, but all doors were closed to us. And eventually, our dream of adopting her died.

What happened? Did we miss God by allowing the dream to die? Was there some lesson we were supposed to learn that we just weren't getting? Was there even a "why" that needed an answer? That chapter of our lives seems to have been completed, but it ends with a big question mark. And that's a hard thing to live with.