A New Home

“…I will come again and take you to myself, so that where I am you may be also.”
John 14:3

In February 2002, with the Ukrainian government’s approval, Susan and I went to Ukraine to adopt our three youngest children. Based on what we were told, we expected to be in Ukraine only two weeks. We planned to stay three in the event of an unforeseen obstacle. A very hostile anti-American judge astounded us by imposing the maximum thirty-day delay that she could put on our case. Much to our disappointment, I had to return to the US alone due to preaching commitments, while Susan stayed in Ukraine with the children to see the adoption through. It turned out to be five more weeks, a total of eight.

After I left Ukraine to return home to work, Susan moved with the children from the village where they were born and where the orphanage was to an apartment in the closest city. She and the children had to adjust to life in an apartment with ’60s-era Soviet furniture. Susan’s adjustment was very different from the children’s. The children were amazed that just one family had a whole apartment with a bedroom and bath.

The children took lots of baths, though the water was lukewarm at best. Before coming to the orphanage, the children had no indoor plumbing. Their occasional baths were in an icy cold lake. In the orphanage, they took rare, very short baths in a single tub of water shared by all. Though the only hot water in the apartment was heated by a tiny gas heater in the kitchen, the children found it delightful to be in water that was clean and not icy cold. Susan missed hot showers but was blessed to hear the boys in the bathtub snorkeling with plastic straws for hours at a time.

Instead of the outdoor market stands in their village, the children were introduced to a Western-style market in the city. While the city market was only the size of an American convenience store, it seemed massive to the children. They were fascinated by the food in brightly colored packaging. The shelves were fully stocked and the market was clean. Those kids felt so wealthy shopping in that store with their new mom.

It made sense that one reason God allowed the hostile judge to delay Susan’s return to the US was so that the kids would have a gradual transition to the relative extravagance of our Tennessee home. In discussing the major culture-shock about to occur for these kids, one of the missionaries in Ukraine pointed out how much more easily a person adjusts to a more comfortable lifestyle and how quickly expectations change. It is part of sinful human nature to take God’s blessings for granted.

Those who go from a posh environment find the adjustment to an impoverished environment devastating. Learning how to use a microwave is so much easier than learning how to live without one. Building a wood fire in order to heat water that must be boiled in order to drink it is a painful adjustment.

These kids got a new sense of home in stages. The children had been taken from a place of abject poverty, abuse and neglect to an orphanage. They knew the orphanage wasn’t home, but at least they were safe. When they moved to the city, they knew the apartment wasn’t home; it was a temporary place, but it was full of new wonders. But they couldn’t imagine the place we kept telling them about that would become their home in the mountains of Tennessee. The children lived with a new mom in vastly improved circumstances in Ukraine, but they weren’t home yet.

You and I need to know that we’re not home yet. No matter how far we’ve come financially in this life, this world isn’t it. The most impoverished condition on this earth compared to the most opulent is a much smaller gap than the chasm between earth’s greatest riches and the glories of heaven.