THIS IS NOT MY HOME

During the time that we were preparing for our international adoption, I became intrigued by the concept of home. We were about to go get two children and take them out of the orphanage that we had horrible impressions of and bring them to our super blessed home. But one thing that I had not really thought about before was that the orphanage was their home—at least right now it was. And the idea hit me that the orphanage was not their home, just like this earth during my lifetime is only the temporary holding cell for me while I am waiting for my Father to take me home. And the seeds for this book had been planted.
As I continued to walk through this adventure that you are about to read about, many ideas kept coming to me that seemed to be parallels between my adoption as a child of the King and the adoptions that we were undertaking. I began to feel that in the same way that we had been called to adopt, I had been called to write down what I learned and compile this book. Now, what I cannot understand is why I was called to write this book instead of Jenny, my wife, a former employee of a library and a person that probably loves books more than she loves me. But, after twenty-five years of being under this calling, I have finally completed the task.
In the beginning of this adventure, I had decided to write down in a journal everything I thought and experienced during our trip to Russia. When we returned from Russia, life suddenly began to take a turn in so many different directions that the book fell off the shelf and never was written. Then I remembered my journal and decided to at least type that from my handwritten notes. Upon completion of that task, the rest of the book became officially born in my head. All I needed to do now was type what was in my head.
One day, before I could really get a good start on the rest of the book, our computer crashed. We didn’t really lose anything major, but we did lose my progress on this book. So I started over again and was really not getting it done very fast. I wanted to blame my lack of progress on living life, but the truth is, laziness had become a major character flaw for me. So when I mentioned my book to a brother at church, Stanley Anderson, he asked me, “Do you believe that God is calling you to write it?” When I replied positively, he promised to hold me accountable and make me write it. And whenever I started procrastinating, I would get a text from him asking me how the book was coming. So, thanks to Stanley, here we are.
Another reason that it took me twenty-five years to write this is that I just recently realized that when our entire lives totally changed from what we had expected to continue forever to the new lives that we eventually embraced, we had experienced the same type of change that our two children from Russia had experienced. It was another lesson God taught me that took me twenty-five years to learn. So partly because of laziness and partly because of me being a slow learner, I am finally accomplishing what I was called to do many years ago.
After writing this book, there are three prayers that are prominent in my future. First, I pray that after reading this book, some people may be inspired to consider adopting an orphan in an international adoption. Despite the many setbacks that you will definitely endure, there is no limit to the positive results of your endeavor. Not only would you get to be someone’s hero, but also you will be shown the blessings of God in ways that you could never imagine.
Second, I pray that after reading this book, some people would be inspired to recognize that this is not their home. And if they have never allowed the actions of Jesus Christ to satisfy the debt of their sins in this world and made sure that they have been adopted by God to spend eternity with Him, then this might help them to pursue that eternal home.
And my third prayer is for the vast majority of the readers of this book. For those who are already believers and are adopted children of God but will definitely not be undertaking an international adoption, I pray that you will enjoy reading our story. And in a sort of unexpected way, you will feel like you are also a part of our family because one day, we will all be together with our Father in our eternal home.