The Things We Do For Love Are Seldom Wasted

China’s closed door has opened others

I would be exaggerating if I said I was totally surprised. But it doesn’t sting any less. China has announced that it is halting all foreign adoptions, including that of my grandson. The finality of that decision not only has profound consequences for his young life, but for my family’s.

More than seven years have passed since my son Andy and his wife Jennifer first sensed a calling to adopt a child. In the United States there are usually only two ways to answer that call: 1) connect with a birth mother and adopt her newborn baby, or 2) become a foster parent and eventually adopt an older child through the foster system. Andy and Jennifer already had three children and weren’t looking for an infant, and they decided that the transitory nature of foster parenting would not work for their family. The only other option was to look at children in other countries, especially at kids with physical impairments. They connected with a foreign adoption agency, and in 2019 were matched with a four-year old deaf boy in China. 

Almost one-third of foreign adoptions to U.S. parents have originated in China, bringing nearly ninety thousand Chinese-born children into the homes of loving families here. Most of these kids had some sort of physical condition that caused their birth parents to reject them. 

While my son and daughter-in-law underwent home studies, background checks, mandatory counseling and sign language training, they also began to raise the necessary $35,000 in adoption fees, much of it through the gifts of generous friends, and often taking on extra jobs and selling household items to fund the endeavor. To express their joy in finding their matched boy, they named him Judah, meaning “I will praise the Lord.” They received regular updates on his progress as well as photos of him enjoying the birthday and Christmas gifts they had sent him. Everything seemed on track to finalize the adoption in the spring of 2020. Meanwhile, my wife and I sold our house in Georgia and moved to Tennessee to be close to their family when they traveled to China to get Judah.

A few months later COVID hit, and China’s adoption programs went silent. That was when I wrote a blog about what it was like to wait in the dark for the boy we now considered to be our grandson (you can read it here). It was a difficult time, and as COVID spread, we watched America’s relative slowness to embrace caution fuel China’s continued reluctance to send more children to the U.S. Here at home, the innuendos and anti-Chinese rhetoric during the COVID crisis only added to the mental anguish my son and his wife endured, and we sometimes bit our tongues as people who would never dream of adopting a child themselves didn’t hesitate to give us their “sage advice” on the subject.

Still we hoped for the best and continued to prepare. With photos of Judah on our walls next to those of our other grandkids, my wife and I started our own sign language training. Eventually we followed Andy and Jennifer to Washington State when they realized that Judah’s advancing age would require the resources of a dedicated school for the deaf once he arrived. They bought a home in Vancouver near one of the finest deaf schools in the country. My wife and I moved there a few months later as we continued to pray for doors to reopen. 

They never did, and now after years of waiting, praying and planning for the arrival of our new grandson, China has decided to discontinue all foreign adoptions. Judah’s smiling face in our photos is something we’ll never see in person. 

Our family is still processing this new reality, because a lot of questions arise. What will happen to Judah? What will happen to the hundreds of other families waiting for their own kids and grandkids? When we consider how much of our life during the past five-and-a-half years has revolved around a little boy on the other side of the world, we ask ourselves, “Was it worth it?” We even ask ourselves the paradoxical question, “What is the ‘correct’ way to feel about this?” We can find no good answers. A few things we do know: had we never encountered Judah, chances are we wouldn’t have moved near our kids and grandkids in Tennessee when we did. And perhaps we would never have moved back to Washington State. 

Upon hearing our story, some might be tempted to say, “What a waste of time, energy and money.” In fact, I have friends who have played armchair quarterback, implying (sometimes subtly and sometimes overtly) that my family was foolish to make so many important life changes based on what they saw as faith in a foreign government (though that’s not where our faith was at all). 

Of course we are saddened by China’s decision, but as is often the case, there is blessing in the burden. As we look back, we remember that our move to Tennessee brought us new friends and experiences we will always cherish. Our move back to Washington has brought us closer to my wife’s siblings, and our daughter and her husband also live nearby. We have made additional friends in our new community and have found a vibrant church there that consistently challenges us to a deeper level of understanding. It is no exaggeration to say that although we never will lay eyes on our Chinese grandson, our lives have changed for the better as a result of his influence.

In our church there’s a song we sing to God with these lyrics: “Even when I don’t see it You’re working / Even when I don’t feel it You’re working / You never stop, You never stop working.”

Though we didn’t see it or feel it at the time, we have been reminded that God works in unexpected and often unconventional ways. Though He hasn’t given us what we asked for, He has given us what we need. As a result, we know that nothing is wasted. Even most of the money to bring Judah here won’t be lost; Andy and Jennifer have asked their adoption agency to reallocate it toward another American family’s adoption expenses.

So we thank God for you, Judah. You are a precious child to us, and we pray you will find a family in your home country who will love you unconditionally. We pray that you will find the resources to thrive despite your physical challenges. And though we recognize our separation from you is now permanent, we will continue to express gratitude for the challenges you have brought us and how we have grown through them. Thank you for letting God use you, little boy.

© Nick Walker 2024

Judah at his Chinese orphanage