The following is a post that my wife Cassie recently wrote on our family blog, about our son Henry’s fourth birthday. It’s hard to remember life before our trip to Ethiopia to bring him home. It was a nice personal reminder for me of how adoption has changed our lives for the better. Hope you enjoy.
Henry is our 4th child and today is his 4th birthday. He is tiny, spunky, and full of personality. He is smaller than our two year old but has no trouble bossing around “baby” (he refuses to call Isaiah by name). He loves the Beatles, like every other kid in this family, and he may be the only four year old who can sing the entire album, Help. He has gorgeous hair and we all have a lot of fun with his fro. He runs as though he has springs in his feet. He is fearless and rarely cries when hurt. He has the most expressive face imaginable. He can demonstrate emotions on cue (happy, sad, angry, excite…). I am unbelievably honored to be his mother.
Henry was born in Ethiopia and we brought him home to our family when he was nine months old. I was wishing that I had written a post for him on his gotcha day but then this morning I realized how much better this post is on his birthday. Henry spent the first nine months of his life in an orphanage. One of the many tragedies of being an orphan is that no one celebrates the day of your birth (often they don’t event know the date). Because of the beauty of adoption that is not true for Henry. He has a family now, and a multitude of friends that love him and celebrate his existence in this world.
We other view orphan care in number and statistics – 163 million orphans worldwide, more than 5 million in Ethiopia. The numbers are staggering and heartbreaking. But I challenge you to view the orphan crisis with images, faces of real children. Because when you do, you see the one. The one little boy that is now so very important to us. The one little boy that is no longer an orphan. He is a Morgan. He is a brother, a son, a friend.
We always speak of adoption in the past tense, the same way we speak of the birth of our biological children. It is over and done, permanent, and now we are family. The same way God views us. We are no longer orphans. We are children of God. God is our father and Jesus is now our older brother- we are joint heirs with him.
Henry’s entrance into our family has taught us so much. God used it to literally change the course of our life. We now have a passion for the one – the one little boy, the one little girl, all so very special to God.
In the mean time I have a birthday party to plan. I have a puppy loving son who wants a puppy cake and I am going to make it for him.
You can read more from Cassie (and sometimes her husband) at The Accidental Hipsters.