katie shaw ficker

I saw the name and number pass across my phone and didn’t think too much of it. We had been receiving phone calls from the Guatemalan National Adoption Council somewhat regularly because we were still finishing out some of the follow-up process with our adopted daughter Genesis. Seeing as I was visiting with a precious friend that I hadn’t seen in months on my fifth day into a short two week trip to Guate, I silenced the call, and focused on my friend again… but, when I received a call from the same number only moments later, I decided that I should probably answer it. I stepped away from our place under her covered front porch and took a short walk down the dirt lane outside of her home, stopping under a shade tree.

“Alo?” I said into the phone as I picked up the call.

“Hola, Katie,” came the sing-song, sweet voice on the other line from one of my favorite social workers. 

She asked how I was doing, how our family was, and we chatted for a moment before she came to the point of the phone call. Very appropriately and professionally, she then calmly, clearly and concisely relayed that our Genesis had a one-year old biological brother named Moses who had just been declared adoptable. Because Guatemala gives preference to siblings, we were called before they opened up his case to match with anyone else. After sharing a few details about him, she trailed off, leaving a silence on the phone that I was sure I was supposed to fill. While my brain raced, I was grateful for my ingrained-after-fifteen-years-of-marriage response: “Ok. I will talk to my husband and get back to you. Would that be okay?”

“Of course,” came her gracious response. We quickly and politely got off the phone, and I attempted to turn my mind back to my current situation while returning to my visit with my kind and unassuming friend.

That evening, when I could steal a quick private moment with Aaron, I relayed the conversation, and we moved into five days and nights of prayer asking the Lord to make His direction in this situation clear. We were very clear on the Biblical view of adoption, but we were also very aware of the reality of adoption – not just because of our experience, but also the experiences of friends and family – and we did not want to take lightly the responsibilities that come with adoption or the way that it would affect our family and life. Two days later, I sent Aaron a text mid-morning saying “Babe, I think we should do it! It doesn’t make sense, but I think this is from God” only to get a reply that said, “me too.” My head sat in a happy cloud for a couple of hours until mid-afternoon when a slow dread started to rise up. It was as if just thinking of saying “yes” had opened up a door out of which poured all of the obstacles and reasons to say no…

Just a couple short years earlier, after fifteen years in Guatemala, God had led us unexpectedly to the States to repair one of the ministry’s airplanes that had been in an accident. Slowly, our children had adjusted and become accustomed to a life there. We all had commitments and responsibilities lined up for the next year, including finishing up repairs to the aircraft so that it could return to service in Guatemala. We knew that this decision was not only about bringing a precious child into our family and the responsibilities that come with that, but also would require us to return to Guatemala for a few months to complete the adoption process, leaving us unsure when we would be able to return to the US. My husband’s job involves overseeing maintenance for ministry airplanes in Guatemala as well, so we knew that he would be able to work on those planes (along with other projects), but it would require us prematurely putting a pause on the plane in the States. But more than any of these concerns, we struggled with wondering what this would do to our kids who would be facing another sudden and unexpected change after having just settled down from the last one?

I also confronted head on my own insecurities: would I, as a white forty-year-old woman really be the best choice as a mother for this child? A healthy one-year-old boy is many Guatemalan adoptive parents’ dream, and I knew that we were not adopting a child that no one else would want… could I really be the one that God was choosing for this child?

That night, we resigned ourselves to the fact that this timing didn’t make sense, and that this was probably not what the Lord was leading us to… but, the next day as morning dawned and we went about our day, neither of us felt a peace about saying no.

We wrestled a couple more days.

Early on the morning of our last day to decide, after a few restless nights of sleep, we chewed through our confusion once again, and we decided to seek some counsel. One of the questions posed to us was, “which parts of this decision are eternal and which are temporary?” It struck me. So many of the things that we were battling against were temporary (the airplane in Ohio, finding someone to cover our responsibilities in Ohio, housing in both locations, and even our children’s lives being uprooted for a little bit) while bringing this child into our family was an eternal decision – one that we were excited about and believed in strongly despite the temporary challenges in front of us. We saw another small, solid footing on this dimly lit path we were staring at…

For me, I was now left looking at my own insecurities…

I decided to fast and spend some extended time in prayer. I laid my insecurities and concerns before God and let the tears flow as I asked Him to please speak into my fears. Our children’s names have all been significant in our lives, and so I decided to start with the story of Moses. I opened up my Bible and read through the story of Moses, finding supporting details that relayed that Moses is the very first story of adoption in the Bible. My heart quickened. I always think of Moses as the Godly man who led the Israelites through the Red Sea and the desert, but I hadn’t thought of his childhood story in a while. As I continued to read the words on the page, asking God to speak to my heart, I was further struck by the fact that God used an Egyptian woman – a woman from a culture in direct odds with the Hebrew people, their beliefs, and their God – to raise up a man after His own heart. While there was no sign that fell from the sky or an audible voice booming in my ear, a sweet peace filled me as I felt the Holy Spirit whisper: if I could use her, do you not think that I could use you?

It was not a peace that wiped out any other fears that could arise. As I went to find my husband, I still felt more than a little shaky about all the changes and ripple-effects that this decision was going to make in our lives. Trying to “figure it all out” was pointless, and I knew that I was going to have to hold on to that place of peace from the Lord and trust that He would work out all of the details that I could not. When I found Aaron, I took one look in his eyes and knew that he had come to a similar decision.

“I just keep feeling like this is a gift from God, and I can’t get around that,” he said.

He relayed the same fears that I had – the same ones we had voiced during all of those sleepless nights – but we both also knew that there was a still, small voice deeper than the fear that was leading us through this all.

Aaron took a deep breath, looked sideways at me, and slightly smiled. “It’s a step of faith for sure.” Then he got a twinkle in his eye and grinned, “we’ll do it scared, right?”

I laughed as I looked at this man who hates clichés, and I took his hand firmly in mine. Yes, we’d take this leap of faith and do it scared, trusting that our good Father who had taken care of us and led us faithfully so many times in the past would do it once again.