Putting Things in Perspective

We haven't figured out yet where we are going to display this picture of Benjamin's father, but his tired eyes and weary face are clear reminders to us of the divine privilege and God-ordained responsibility which we have to parent Benjamin.

Poor. Widowed. Childless.

We very much feel like he is a part of our family.

This picture also reminds us of the silliness and pettiness which are too often a part of our little American lives.

Giving and Gaining

He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.

Jim Elliot

Loving Miss Ruby, Knowing God, and Adopting Benjamin

Twelve years ago this month, a dear, godly lady named Ruby Schoonover gave Todd a copy of Knowing God by J.I. Packer (InterVarsity Press, 1973). Knowing God is not just one of those books you read. It is a book you read and read again and again and again. You mark it up. You highlight it. It's pages are brown at the edges. You devour it.

For two years, Todd preached the gospel in Miss Ruby's church. Twelve years and four boys later, we still find ourselves reading in this classic. Little did we know that Packer's words about adoption in chapter 19 would one day resonate so profoundly with us. What we once acknowledged with our minds, we are now experiencing with our hearts and lives. Adoption is a rich theological concept, but at our house adoption is now more than just a concept--he's a boy named Benjamin who is crawling around on the floor!

You should have and devour your own copy of Knowing God, but here are some choice words on adoption from Packer:

What is a Christian? The question can be answered in many ways, but the richest answer I know is that a Christian is one who has God as Father.

If you want to judge how well a person understands Christianity, find out how much he makes of the thought of being God's child, and having God as his Father. If this is not the thought that prompts and controls his worship and prayers and his whole outlook on life, it means that he does not undertand Christianity very well at all.

Our understanding of Christianity cannot be better than our grasp of adoption.

Our first point about adoption is that it is the highest privilege that the gospel offers.

To be right with God the Judge is a great thing, but to be loved and cared for by God the Father is a greater.

Our second point about adoption is that the entire Christian life has to be understood in terms of it.

Adoption, by its very nature, is an art of free kindness to the person adopted. If you become a father by adopting a son or daughter, you do so because you chose to, not because you are bound to. Similarly, God adopts because he chooses to. He had no duty to do so. He need not have done anything about our sins except punish us as we deserved. But he loved us; so he redeemed us, forgave us, took us as his sons and daughters and gave himself to us as our Father.

We love you Miss Ruby!

Why?

According to an international Children's Ministry Organization,


25,000 children

throughout the world

DIE

every day

from MALNUTRITION and PREVENTABLE DISEASES.


With this being the case, what are we doing playing the kinds of games we are playing with our lives?

God Moves in a Mysterious Way

Dear Matiwos,

As we write these words, it is Monday morning here in America. The Monday sun has already shone on Ethiopian soil for most of your day. We can hardly believe it, but there are four little boys who have just begun to stir in our home. We thank God for Jack, William, and Isaac. And at this time, we are especially grateful for Benjamin.

Arriving home and watching his three brothers welcome him was simply more than we could take in. There were kisses and hugs galore. We will never forget the boys touring Benjamin throughout the house and showing him every nook and cranny of his new home. The best line of the evening was “Benjamin, this is YOUR room!” Indeed, there is no doubt that he is a very real part of the Brady Bunch!

Thank you for making the time to travel the long eight hour journey to Addis Ababa to meet us and have a brief time together on Saturday. We realize that you may never read these words, but writing them seems so helpful to us.

We will never forget our momentous meeting on that Saturday morning before leaving Ethiopia.

How heartbreaking it was to hear of Abayenesh’s death just hours after Benjamin was born on April 13, 2009. Since you were married to her for just two years, we can only imagine how deep your pain of loss continues to be. It was such a delight to hear you talk about Benjamin’s mother the way you did.

We grieve with you that a simple lack of medical attention cut her 24-year-old life short. We are so thankful for the diligent effort that you and your in-laws made to keep Benjamin for five months. However, we are also thankful for your belief in God and his Son, Jesus Christ, and for your trust in God’s providential watchcare over him. How difficult it must have been to hand him over to the orphanage—not knowing what would eventually happen to him.

On your side of the planet, life seemed to be falling apart as you lost your wife and only child. But simultaneously God was stirring in our hearts and preparing us for another son here on this side of the world.

God has given us a love for Benjamin that cannot be explained. We know that your heart-wrenching loss has resulted in a divine and overwhelming blessing for us. We will never understand the particulars of God’s workings, but “…we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose” (Romans 8:28).

As we said through two interpreters on Saturday, we promise to provide for, protect, and parent Benjamin. We promise to love him. We promise that he will be able to have that which you have always longed for—an education.

We continue to be overjoyed at your belief in God and His redemptive work through Christ. You may rest confidently in the fact that Benjamin will hear the gospel. He will be raised in a God-centered, Christ-exalting, gospel-driven home, and he will hear often the good news of God’s great mercy for us in Christ.

Hearing that you are a singer in your small Christian church makes us realize why Benjamin loves music! The nannies at the transition home told us, and we have seen it for ourselves—whenever he hears music, Benjamin immediately begins dancing.

As we laid our hands on you and prayed for you on Saturday morning, we promised to continue praying for you for the rest of our lives. We will. How grateful we are that you now have pictures of our family. How grateful we are that we now have pictures of you. We look forward to Benjamin learning about you and the God whom you love.

More than ever, we are now mindful of the fact that “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28).

John’s vision seems clearer than ever to us—“After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, ‘Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!’” (Revelation 7:9-10)

As we all gathered around Isaac’s crib late last night, all things seemed as they should be. As we have sung each night for months, we sang again, “Jesus loves the little children, all the children of the world. Red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in his sight. Jesus loves the little children of the world.”

We pray for you. We thank God for you. We love you. We love Benjamin, and we thank God for His only Son, the Christ, whom He has given to us.

May each of our mysterious and divinely-ordained stories bring much glory to our great God in the years to come, and we look forward to that day when He will finally make all things right.

Your son’s parents,

Amy and Todd Brady