The road provided a face to our coalition. This “coalition”, that we always speak of back in Los Angeles, that is full of thousands of individuals who have been compelled to act and are now driven to end the war in Congo. During last fall’s tour, we met Lindsay and Brian Morris at at Blue Seven in Oklahoma City. That evening impacted Lindsay and Brian greatly in their journey decision to adopt. Lindsay wrote to us to share her journey with us. It’s an honor for to share it with you.
It’s been just a year since the day my husband Brian and I officially said yes to international adoption. We knew little idea about what to expect and certainly could have never predicted the events that have transpired.
If I had to describe our family before our decision to adopt, I’d say we were a pretty normal, mid-western family. I’m home most days with our two boys while my husband works to provide for the family. We go to a church we love, spend lots of time playing games and wrestling around with our little guys, and enjoy being with our extended family. You know…a normal, safe, suburban family. Then, last year we met a family who adopted a son from Ethiopia. At the time we didn’t know them well, but their decision to adopt internationally greatly impacted us. We lightheartedly threw around the idea of adoption for a few days until Brian and I began researching a bit more about adoption, specifically from Africa, on the internet. We began reading numbers, astounding numbers representing the amount of children without parents, living on the street, or most heartbreaking the high infant and child death rate, sometimes due simply to the fact that there is no access to clean water! I “In my 27 years on this earth why am I just now getting this?!” I often thought. And that was only the beginning.
We began the path toward Ethiopian adoption that December. We were fingerprinted, interviewed, we filled out applications, asked for reference letters, and fundraised until the last bit of paperwork was complete in May of 2011. We were so very close to having our complete file sent to Ethiopia and officially be on the wait list for our future child. We should have been celebrating and full of excitement, but a very new and unexpected path soon revealed itself for us. The very evening before our file was to be sent out of the country, I felt like Congo was pressed upon my heart. I couldn’t shake it. I didn’t know much about Africa and what I did know was all about Ethiopia, “So why am I feeling this pull toward another country and why now?” I thought.
I shared my concern with my husband and that evening we stayed up well into the early morning hours scouring the internet for information about Congo. We thought we were somewhat aware of the deplorable conditions, high poverty, disease and death rate of many children in Africa, but we were again shocked when reading stories of very young girls in DRC forced into prostitution and the enormous amount of people who had been killed or displaced because of war. I can’t remember who stumbled upon the Falling Whistles site first, but both my husband and I were completely intrigued and heartbroken by what we were learning about DRC. As I was reading about young boys with hands too small to carry guns bearing the responsibility of taking the first round of gunfire I pushed the laptop away and just wept. A few days after we switched agencies and began pursuing an adoption of a child from the Democratic Republic of Congo.
We have our whistle to serve as a reminder about the people of DRC, we share the story of how the organization came into existence and we talk about the past and current injustices in the beautiful country. We love Falling Whistles because of the way they are working with the Congolese for positive change. We love knowing that there are people like us who also care about DRC. However, we are most thankful to your organization for making us aware. It is that reason we will be welcoming our baby girl home from Kinshasa in the coming months. Our eyes have been opened, our hearts forever changed.
Lindsay
