"GOTCHA!!!" - A treasure found in a field

This week we will observe Hudson's "Gotcha" Day, the day we celebrate Hudson joining our family.  The “Gotcha” Day is quite commonly observed in the adoption community.  In our family, it is a fairly simple celebration – we usually just go out to dinner together as a way of remembering and celebrating.  The actual Gotcha day was a really memorable day with a Giving and Receiving ceremony followed by a long van ride through rural Vietnam and capped off with a midnight visit to a nearby hospital with an infant running a 103⁰ temperature.  Unforgettable day, the day Hudson joined our family and we became parents.
 
A few months ago I was reflecting on the day we first learned about Hudson.  The day we committed to adopting him.  Another memorable day filled with spiritual meaning:

Earlier this year I visited the USDA-ARS station at Wooster, Ohio, to meet with a group of plant pathologists.  Upon arrival my colleague from Kenya and I were shown to the plant pathology library which also serves as a small conference room.  The room was filled with journals and text books.  As we sat waiting for the USDA scientists to join us, I was reminded of one of the most meaningful days of my life and an unforgettable event that unfolded at the Plant Pathology library of the University of Minnesota.

It was early June of 1997, June 10^th perhaps.  I shared an office with five other people, and so I used to disappear to the Plant Pathology library to study on days when I really needed to get down to business.  I was studying for finals.  It was afternoon, a bright sunny day.  I was tucked away in a corner of the quiet library when Carrie found me with tears in her eyes.

“We have a referral.  Healthy boy, born May 6^th.  Nguyen Dung Trung.”

There was a picture of a little boy with thick black hair and jet black eyes covered in a small blanket, lying on a woven mat with his tongue protruding just slightly.

We prayed together there in the Plant Path library, thanking God for this little boy and asking for wisdom and grace.  We were about to become parents.  The home-study was finished, the nursery alcove prepared in our one-bedroom apartment.  The next step was to wire the adoption fee to Vietnam.  We were living a fairly modest lifestyle on a nurse’s salary and a graduate student stipend.  The adoption fee amounted to everything we had saved together during the previous four years.  We drove our used car to the bank and wired our life savings to an agency in Ho Chi Minh City.  It was a joyous day, a memorable day, but to say that there was not a little trepidation would not be completely honest.

There are moments in life when the Holy Spirit confirms a decision, when the peace of God fills your heart.  That day in June was one such day.  By the time we reached our apartment, there was only joyful anticipation.  Since that day, I’ve had a new appreciation for two parables of Jesus in the gospels:  the parable of the man finding a treasure in a field and the parable of the merchant finding a pearl of great price:

“The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up.  Then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.

Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls, who, on finding one pearl of great value, went and sold all that he had and bought it.” 

Matthew 13:44-46

 

The two parables, I believe, reflect the two sides of our relationship with God.   In the first parable, the kingdom of heaven is the treasure that is found, a reference to the joy of discovering the presence of God and how this joy compels us to pursue God with all we have.  In the second parable, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant who is seeking something of value, a reference to the love of God in seeking and redeeming us at a very high cost.  The decision to build our family through adoption was a decision Carrie and I made together from the outset of our marriage, a decision made in response to the love of God in our lives.  We ourselves have been adopted into the family of God, we are loved and treasured as children of God.  For this reason, we consider it is a very high honor to be entrusted with Hudson and My Linh as our children, a joy that is beyond words.

I am grateful that these two parables resonate so keenly with our experience.  I understand more fully the wonder of the presence of God and I value it more completely.  I am awakened to the love of God and to the goodness of a Father who loves and enjoys his children beyond comprehension.  And I am grateful for the 16 years we have had with Hudson, for the person he is and for all that his wonderful character teaches me.

And I’m grateful for quiet, small libraries and for the grace of God breaking in upon our lives in unimaginable and beautiful ways.