Today is my nephew's 11th birthday. He is like many, many other boys his age. He plays in the backyard with stick-swords with his 9-year-old brother and 5-year-old sister and neighborhood friends. He loves being spoiled by Nana & Papa. He plays sports like his dad and brothers. He goes to public school and has to do homework. He complains about doing chores and bickers with his siblings. He swims like a fish in the backyard pool in their ho-hum midwestern suburban Ohio neighborhood. He has a cat.
Nothing out of the ordinary. Right?
Not so fast on the judgement there, friend.
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This is Marco.
This is where Marco would have grown up, had his birth mother not had the courage to let him go so he could have a better life than she could give him.
My sister and her husband already had the "nuclear" American family going on with two children - one boy, one girl. Why mess with that?
But they heard and answered God's call to adopt from Guatemala.
I'll never forget the day she told me on the phone that they were considering this. It was such a significant moment that I remember exactly where I was.
My reply was tears. But I don't think she knew that - because we were on the phone, and tears rolling down your cheek make little noise.
Perhaps her heart heard them anyway. Sisters are like that.
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This was Marco
when Mark & Aimee met him in Guatemala
for the first time.
when Mark & Aimee met him in Guatemala
for the first time.
As I have already pointed out,
he came home to a typical American family.
he came home to a typical American family.
He does silly things
with his siblings.
He loves Halloween.
He's a typical American kid whose life just happens to be the result of God's hands guiding two families toward one another from thousands of miles apart.
Two different worlds, two opposite cultures.
One Big God.
Two different worlds, two opposite cultures.
One Big God.
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But there was much more at work here than that. God often works like that, doesn't he?
That sly deity.
Clearly from the photos above, you can see that Marco isn't the youngest of the Davis clan. There were two more children waiting to be conceived and born into our family half a world away.
Listening and responding to God asking them to live out their faith and take a blind leap led to this beautiful family:
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| Mark, Marco, Zack, Gus, Katie, Ana, and Aimee |
and my sister's deep, abiding love for the people of Guatemala,
whom she has worked tirelessly for both there several times a year as well as from here - as (among other capacities) an adoption coordinator bringing other families together with their waiting children, and the coordinator of a group of families who have all adopted children from Guatemala so they can grow up with others from the same culture.
I love my sister and her heart and all she is.
I wanna be just like her
if I ever grow up.
Happy birthday, Marco!
See how God has already used you in a big, big way? I can't wait to see what the rest of your life holds!
