I still don’t feel like I have the words to express what happened today because merely retelling the events doesn’t seem close to revealing the whole story.
We’ve spent the past few days preparing for our social worker to visit our home to complete our home study interviews. As we were doing our final clean-ups after lunch I went into the living room to change Joon’s diaper before putting her down for her nap. As I stand up from changing her diaper I happen to look out our front window at the exact moment a white car traveling too fast to be believable comes tearing up our driveway. It sped out of my range of vision just as it began to veer to the right, up the slight embankment separating our drive from the college’s rugby field.
Stunned I screamed, grabbed Joon, and ran out our back door. The car was gone. For those of you who have never seen our house, as I said, our driveway is bordered by University playing fields. Our drive ends at a steel cattle gate leading into a pasture. A wood-ish area separates that pasture from and open field behind the rugby field.
Standing in my driveway I am really confused. There is no car. There is not even a sound. I walk up the small hill separating our drive from the rugby field certain that I will see the car flipped over in the ditch and again, nothing. Barely 30 seconds had passed since I saw the white car streak past our window and I’m already second guessing myself. In the stress of preparing for the home study had I just imagined it? Was I simply looking at a wrong angle and only saw a car accelerating down the street? Or had the Delorian blasted back to the future?
Now, less than a minute after sprinting out of my house, our social worker turns down our driveway, in which I am still standing completely dumbfounded. Seconds later a pickup truck also turns down our drive. Our social worker mirrors my perplexed expression, but the elderly man who exits the pickup exclaims, “Did you see that car?!”
“Yes! Yes I did!” I reply, “but where did it go?” He tells me that it barreled up the hill next to our drive, missing the pasture it went into the wood-ish area leading to the field behind the rugby field. I run up the little hill with him, and sure enough, there is the white car resting about 50 feet away. I run to the house yelling for Emerson, leaving our confused social worker in the backyard with the pickup man and his wife, who had already called 911.
Emerson ran out to the car, and I was horrified as I imagined what he would discover. It was one of those moments where a million of the worst possibilities rush through your mind. And then I heard Emerson talking to someone, then another voice joined his, and then he was walking towards us with a very dazed looking young man who he convinced to sit down in the grass on the little hill. Now we begin to hear the sirens. We watch as the first police car turns down the wrong road and then the second car drives past. The third squad car sees the small group of us waving frantically in our driveway (our house sits about 70 yards from the road.) Emerson has returned to the car and within moments our drive and front yard is filled with 7 squad cars, 3 fire trucks and 2 ambulances. As the emergency responders rush to action our social worker tells me her story.
She had initially missed our turn and in the mere moments after she drove past and turned back the car had shot down our drive. She was completely unaware, and yet if she had made the turn into our driveway on her first pass she would have been hit with deadly force by the white blur.
We remained outside and I gave my statement to the police. The young man’s mother was still in the car. She was conscious and we saw her loaded on a stretcher into an ambulance. Paramedics cared for the young man in the yard where he had sat down. He couldn’t recall anything and as far as we were able to discover, he had suffered a seizure prior to loosing control of the car.
Returning to the house we dazedly began our interviews. I didn’t lose it til I finally put Joon down for her nap. There were just so many “what ifs…” We heard the helicopter land shortly after beginning our interview.
Our social worker’s miraculous timing was illustrated again when she told us that she had actually been pulled over by an officer on her way to our house. He stopped her, not for a violation, but to simply ask if she was ok. What? Yeah, he just wanted to make sure she was alright. After asking if she was traveling for work and where she was heading, to which she replied, “Yes, I’m a social worker for an international adoption agency traveling to meet with a family adopting from Africa,” he told her to have a nice day and sent her on her way. The entire stop cost her about 5 minutes. Five minutes that kept her out of our driveway.
The emergency vehicles slowly exited our property, and Ane alerted us each time one departed. Eventually an officer knocked on our door. He was taking inventory of the damage and asked if our mailbox was squashed prior to the incident. “Ummm, no sir, the mailbox was not smashed flat prior to this afternoon.”
Needless to say, the home study was the least eventful part of the day. Our interviews wrapped up pleasantly and our social worker headed back to St. Louis.
Emerson went outside with Joon to gather the eggs and then he walked down the drive to our squashed mailbox to get the mail. I called a dear friend to recount the day’s activity and she invited me over for some wine time with some other Bible study ladies who were already at her house. As I was heading to the car Emerson called me over to see what had come in the mail.
Out of our decimated mailbox he had brought in a small note attached to a large check from a relative who wanted to support our adoption. I lost it again. This time huge, shaking sobs. I pulled myself away from him and composed myself enough to make the mile drive to my friend’s house, where I promptly lost it again in the embraces of my sweet sisters.
And that is the absolutely bizarre incident that revealed to me the depth of the spiritual significance our adoption. Emerson said tonight that Satan hates adoption and I told him that was an understatement. An untold number of what ifs today could have stopped our adoption cold. But our God is greater. Our God is stronger.
This morning in Bible study we watched a video with a godly woman preaching that our anointing with the Holy Spirit guarantees opposition, but it also guarantees supernatural results. God is at work on behalf of our precious baby in Ethiopia. This whole journey is beyond what we could do ourselves both in the physical and spiritual realms. Today, in the face of the unimaginable we are encouraged once again that if God is for us, who could ever even hope to stand against us? For he is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, and he will carry this work within us on to completion. To him alone be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.
