Conversation at the Soccer Field

We had our usual morning of soccer games mixed in with their team picture day. The weather is beautiful and it is a lot of fun to watch. It is also a great place to meet people in our town that I don't already know.

Just as our last game was finishing up a mom with her three children spread out a blanket and started to eat lunch. The youngest little boy I had seen playing earlier and he looked to be foreign. So I decided to be brave and strike up a conversation with her, I'm not particularly good at that. As we talked I asked her about her little boy and she said he had come home about 6 weeks ago from Ethiopia. Our conversation for a short time was interrupted with celebrating and picking up lawnchairs and quilts, but then it continued. She had seen Nathan and asked me when he had come home.

This is the fun part (I think) - I asked her if she had some support around her and she told me that in our town in the few blocks around her home there are 5 families in some part of the process of adopting from Ethiopia and they were getting together for their first Ethiopian fellowship very soon! Now you may wonder why I found this exciting since we have not nor are we planning to adopt from Ethiopia. Well, my reasons are three-fold.

First, any adoption excites me as it is a chance for a child to have a permanent family and because of a mutual friend I am lead to think that this is a christian home. Second, this is a great thing for these children coming to a little town in America to have other children from their home country nearby. Maybe they won't be best friends forever, but they will have some things in common: their country of birth, the color of their skin, and the experience of adoption. Thirdly, as I spoke with her she asked me if I had support during our adoption and I mentioned our church's adoption ministry and she immediately asked me if I went to Bethany. That's how I heard of the mutual friend. It is good to know that people are aware of the ministry at church. It is a great conversation starter and also a great way to offer support to families any where in the process of adoption. I shared with her about a family coming home with their little girl just last night and how we have another family waiting for their referral any time. We were strangers but could celebrate in a small way together for these families.

It was a lot of fun watching our kids play soccer on a beautiful day. And it was a sweet time of hearing how God is using ordinary families to do wonderful things.