What I'm Reading: Until We All Come Home....

Before the holidays I was excited to find Kim de Blecourt's recent book Until We All Come Home waiting in my mailbox.  Though I have traveled internationally, our personal adoption journeys have always stayed within the borders of the of the United States which leaves a murky fog on the international side.  In Kim's book she carefully leads us into the harsh reality and utter unpredictability of her temporary Ukrainian life built along the god-ordained pathways of adoption.  It helped clarify many things for me.....

Please Note: I am choosing to use her first name here as we have exchanged emails and I consider her an Adoption Sister.

As I flew through the pages I heard echos of other stories.  Ones I had heard first hand through email and around kitchen tables as my girlfriends had returned from adoption trips into the Ukraine.  Stories scarily similar to the de Blecourts ones - stories I hadn't really had a place to understand until Kim built a framework to hang the stories on.

Years ago I had been told about the strange way families were allowed three trips to the adoption office to 'choose' children.  I understood -sort of -  how the system worked but as Kim chronicled her journey through the labyrinth of Ukrainian adoption I gained a much better appreciation of the governmental workings of a post - Soviet country.

She gave me a foundation to understand one friend who had been accused of illegal activity and not allowed to leave the country while another was in the process of adopting a certain child who then disappeared into the depths of the orphanage system.  She helped me see the scary reality of bringing American ideas of safety and rights into a place where those notions are rare and corruption is much more accepted.  Kim helped me to more clearly see the battles my friends faced to bring their children home 5 and 10 and 15 years ago.

As an adoption advocate I am very glad to have read this book and had every intention of giving my copy away here on the blog.  But that wasn't God's plan. Instead I have passed it on to a family who is caught in the adoption crossfire of the Ukraine's biggest neighbor - Russia.  Even as my friends hearts are breaking over the current closure of Russian adoptions I believe that there is a word of hope to be shared through this book. 

I see God's hand in the perfect timing of this books publication - it came out in Nov 2012-  as Russia moved toward seriously closing adoptions and families started panicking. On page after page I hear Kim reminding us that truly the hearts of the governors and law makers are swayed and ruled by the God who knows the names and destiny of every child waiting to someday come home.  Regardless of how bleak the day looks or how hard the road....God is still in control.  Thank you Kim - I always need that reminder.