We stood in the Moscow Holiday Inn lobby and waited on our driver, Vitali, to pick us up and head to the airport. We were to catch our flight to Astrakhan, Russia to see our daughter for the first time in three months and finish the process of bringing her home. Like I usually do I looked through the big rack of tourist brochures while we waited. I noticed several pamphlets for “gentlemen’s clubs” and “escort services”. And I guess it was the daddy welling up in me, but I couldn’t help but ask myself “wonder how many of those girls were orphans?”
Had Rebekah remained instutionalized and never received a family, she would be turned out on the street at 16. A reality that could keep me awake at night. The little girl we have loved and cherished for the past three months, years from now, alone in this dimly lit place. Now, some will tell you that after the age of 16 there are opportunities for housing and further education and a variety of other benefits available to the children, but I doubt seriously that there are many successful transitions into the world outside the orphanage through those means. In all reality, prostitution or organized crime is a likely destination for the young men and women that institutions produce, not because the Russian government steers them there, but because a lack of parenting does. I am so thankful that God has brought us here to rescue her from things like that.
My heart is full and overflowing with emotion that our “gotcha day” for Rebekah will coincide very nicely with Easter. We were hoping we would get her on Good Friday, but in a way I find it fitting that her new life will follow the celebration of the resurrection, and not before. Adoption is in so many ways a resurrection. Our adoption and salvation in Christ is the crucifixion of our old self, and the being raised to new life in Him. An event not at all possible had Jesus Himself not been raised.
Tomorrow will likely break Rebekah’s little heart and she will be removed and separated from the only safe and stable thing she has ever known, Baby Home #2. She will be with us forever and she will never again see the wrinkly faces of the Russian caregivers, or the belligerent orphanage director, or the bubbly social worker, all of whom kept her emotional life support until God could bring us to her. Her old life will pass away and a new life will begin, and if she could only know what waits for her on the other side of the Atlantic. The family, the friends, the warmth of her quiet home on Crossley Avenue, and two parents that love her and will pursue her little heart as long as it takes. When that plane lands, an earthly resurrection will be complete.
When Allison and I came here on our first trip in December we went through hell. I have never known fear, trial, and fatigue like I knew it then. We faced many challenges and were subject to many attacks by the enemy. And we came frighteningly close to saying “this is too much” and walking away. And it was only through wise counsel and support of family and the light of God’s grace that we had the clarity to do what God had called us here to do, begin the process of bringing this child home. Now it is my shame that we almost failed to stay the course, but praise be to God that He did not allow us to fall. The Grace of God came with every lost hour of sleep, every frightening diagnosis, every meal missed, every blister on our feet, every tear shed, and every night we lay awake in our own personal Gethsemane asking God “If you are willing, remove this cup from me…”. And that same Grace sits here with me now. Praise be to God Almighty who ushers us through when we are too afraid to go any further.
When we left from that first trip, we left a small picture album, with pictures of Allison and I, and Family, and even Gracie the hound with Rebekah. We wanted her new home to at least be familiar to her in picture. We were told when we came back this trip that it had become her favorite thing. That she would sit in the corner and look at it again and again and again. Allison and I fought back the tears on the playground that day, I have never been filled with more love and heartbreak than I was that day. Oh how I wanted to pick her up and tell her “precious girl, if you only knew...” Little does she know that with those pictures she is merely looking at a mirror dimly, but soon she shall see it all face to face. It will be real, the past will be gone, and she will receive a new life. Blessed be the name of the Lord.
And now Allison and I stand together, holding onto each other and a Resurrected Savior. I am fearless about tomorrow, it will be hard, but in the end we will see the Glory of God unfold in the life of this beautiful little girl.
So, this Easter is special, we will celebrate Christ’s resurrection today, and in a practical way we will celebrate it tomorrow as well. Rebekah will leave everything behind, and we will dress her in new clothes and finally we will step, as a family, beyond those rusty iron gates forever.
Rebekah Grace Boman will walk out of an orphanage tomorrow, because Jesus Christ walked out of a tomb today.
