Deus e Fiel

Deus e Fiel. In Portuguese it means God is Faithful. It was painted on a wall in an open-air pizza restaurant where we ate on my last night in Jeremoabo, Bahia, Brazil. That was two years ago this month.










It was more than just the writing on the wall, it would become my anthem for a journey I wasn't even aware I'd be taking. It would be more exhausting and taxing than the 48 hours, 3 plane rides, and 2 bus trips it had taken to get to Jeremoabo.

In that little town, word spread quickly about a baby that had born. He was 15 days old when I held the little brown-skinned bundle. His mother looked at me, with four other small children around her and asked me to take him. She couldn't provide for a fifth child. I could see the pain in her eyes. He didn't even have a name. She didn't want to become more attached than she already was.

I put it out of my mind because I knew there was no way I could somehow bring this baby home to the states. But a week after I had gotten home, friends contacted me from Brazil and said she was waiting for us to adopt the baby. I should back up and share that prior to going to Brazil we knew we were going to adopt - we just hadn't decided when or from where. We weren't quite ready yet. But when this seemed to fall in our laps, we both felt it must be of God. Ed's response was "Don't push open any doors."

It had gotten as far as the mother asking us what we wanted to name him and her putting that on his birth certificate. We were planning a trip in October...and then it all fell through.

I am mindful of a little boy who turned 2 this month. His name is Elias. It means Elijah in Portuguese. That is the name we had chosen and that is what the mother put on his birth certificate. Elias is a reminder of the beginning of our adoption journey. After we knew we couldn't adopt him, within weeks we began our process at the Godparent Home. Up until that point we just hadn't been ready.

Here we are two years later. There is a team from our church in Brazil even as I type. I have worn my Brazil bracelet all week as a reminder to pray for them and the ministry they are doing. Already lives have been eternally changed. It has been bittersweet for me because something happened the first time I travelled to that country in 2006. I left part of my heart there. Their faces and names are forever etched in my mind. So it has been hard knowing they are there this week and I am not. And yet, I know that for now my ministry is here with a little boy named Elijah. My boy. My son.

I believe God allowed me to meet and hold, and even name, Elias to get us started at just the right time so we'd be ready and waiting when Elijah was born. Deus e Fiel. God is Faithful.