Surprise Me God - Seeing Musa In The Water

Sometimes I drive my Monica crazy...

Last week, in our annual meeting here at Elim Church, our missionary friend Pam Isenhower mentioned a little baby boy back in Indonesia, unwanted and sold for $50, before being rescued by Pam and her friends. She said the little guy had been given three different names in his first three weeks of life. She and her friends were now calling him Musa (Moses to you and I).

As she was requesting prayer for wisdom in the situation, the only thought running through my mind was, "We'll take him! Give him to us!" Later that afternoon, as Monica and I were out walking, I asked her what she was thinking as Pam was talking about the little baby. She chuckled and said she was thinking the same thing I was.

A couple days later, I stopped Pam in the hallway and asked her how impossible it was to adopt an Indonesian baby. I've heard international adoptions were a nightmare and I assumed a Muslim country like Indonesia, in these times, would be even worse. Pam said she didn't know, but that she would check. When I told Monica about this conversation, I got the distinct impression my dear wife thought I was crazy. It is one thing to think about something loopy in the abstract, it is entirely another to take action on those urges!

When Pam didn't get back to me immediately, I did a little checking on my own. Sadly, I discovered this morning Monica and I are three years too old, we are too Christian (not nearly Muslim enough!), we would need to live in Indonesia for two full years before even beginning the adoption process, we would need to foster the child for six more months before ever going to court and yada, yada, yada - on the bureaucracy droned. In a word, this thing just isn't going to happen, Kevin.

Bummer.

While I can't say I'm surprised at the news, I continue to be sadly surprised by a world that will throw a baby away or sell it cheap instead of making it easy to give it to someone who wants it. I am not naive to the complexities of this conversation, but honestly, when all is said and done, why should adoption ever be hard in these situations? Shouldn't there be some sort of "his parents sold him and nobody wants him; sure you good people can have him immediately" rule for these situations? Shouldn't there?

As a general rule, I'm not big on street protesters of almost any stripe, but I read the story last week of a quiet African American pastor named Walter Hoye in Oakland jailed recently for his protests outside an abortion clinic. Even though security cameras will eventually, inevitably exonerate this quiet guy on appeal, this pastor chose to do jail time instead of probation to draw attention to his heartbreak over abortion among African Americans. His heart is breaking over an abortion rate among African Americans contributing to a death rate now overwhelming their birth rate. "We are not even replacing ourselves anymore," he lamented.

Can't we all agree that's just a plain, old-fashioned, bad thing?

The late Ruth Bell Graham, wife of the famous evangelist, reportedly commented toward the end of her life that "if God doesn't return soon, He's going to have to apologize to Sodom and Gomorrah." You've got a real point there, sister, although I'm not so sure it's a good idea to be telling God His business! At some point soon, this situation is going to have to reach critical mass.

I know I shouldn't be surprised by the crud I see around me in the world these days, I know I'm full of a lot of crud myself, but when kids become disposable, when a baby has three names and no parents before he's a month old and when paperwork and politics trump even the very most basic human kindness...it seems to me we ought to sit up and notice things like these.

I am surprisingly saddened by all this today. I sure would have liked to draw little Moses out of the water. Even more, I wish little Moses had never been tossed in the water.

I was hoping for a different kind of surprise.

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p.s. If you're not already sponsoring a child or a responsible organization caring for poor children, you should be. Go to www.compassion.com to do so immediately.

p.s.s. Before anyone starts sending me feisty opinions about the Walter Hoye situation in Oakland, please thoroughly check out his situation. This guy is not some crazy Fred Phelps hate monger.