On Friday three Priority Mail envelopes arrived with our passports. My picture makes me look creepy. Doesn’t help that Lexi and I had to retake our passport photos because ProEx screwed them up (don’t worry, we got our money back). But we have our passports, so we’re one step closer.

This week we go in to get fingerprinted for the Department of Homeland Security. Another step closer.

I’ve also started reading There Is No Me Without You, a book Abby already read. It’s the staggering story of orphans and HIV/AIDS in Ethiopia and one woman who took in dozens of orphaned children, turning her two-bedroom home into a makeshift foster care center. I haven’t finished it yet, but it’s already challenging and convicting, both because of the incredible indifference of Westerners to the plight of the poor and oppressed around the world, and the incredible need.

Adoption is a drop in the bucket compared to the overwhelming need throughout the world. I try to remind myself that it is something, that it matters immensely to that one child.

I just wonder how long we can standby, focused more on the future of Jim and Pam or the debut of the Terminator on TV (starring Summer Glau from Serenity/Firefly) than the plight of real people; or spending our money on another book or another Pepsi (nothing wrong with either) when people die for lack of a few dollars. And I’m talking to myself here. This is my challenge. I haven’t figured it out for myself, so I’m hardly ready to push these questions on you.

Despite all the questions and struggles, I do appreciate that adoption forces me to consider these questions. Something has to make me consider them. Otherwise I’m blissfully unaware and completely numb to anything that matters.