For the month of October, leading up to Orphan Sunday on November 3rd, we are sharing stories on the theme of adoption and orphan care – stories of street kids, orphans, and children at risk, and the ways our World Racers have seen God care for them. We’ll share stories of Racers caring for children, fighting for them, and even bringing them home to stay.
And on Monday, November 4th, we’ll share a special story that is close to our hearts.
Today’s story is from Justin and Kristan Gibson, a married couple who left on the World Race with the January 2011 T Squad. Most of the stories we tell are about how God uses people to do amazing things when they choose to go on mission trips – but this one is different. This is a story about what it’s like to quit a mission trip because God asks you to.
As two individuals who thought of themselves as strong Christians, we were surprised in the first few months of our marriage when we had a really difficult time feeling like we were connecting with God. We tried a wide variety of disciplines to help us draw closer to God together. Sadly, all our attempts at quiet meditation, out loud prayer, or singing praise music together led us to feel really awkward and frankly even more disconnected.
“This isn’t how a Christian marriage should work! Shouldn’t we be beaming with God’s love and presence since we are eternally bonded together in a holy covenant? What’s wrong with us?” While we were not connecting on a mystical level, we begin to think more practically about what it meant to be a Christian couple.
About six months into our marriage, Justin was interning as a minister at a church called Carpenter’s Church. The church population was approximately 95% homeless and transient people. Our desire to serve God as a couple quickly grew deeper roots as we shared our hearts, table, home, and lives with the people we knew Jesus would and does befriend. We were people who claimed to follow Jesus, even when his messages were really hard to hear for comfortable young people who seemed to have it together.
Coupled with our struggle to challenge our marriage, we soon found ourselves burdened with the fact that we were living in a very comfortable two-bedroom house while most of our friends and church members were sleeping at the public library or in the alley behind the church.
Our spare bedroom began to literally haunt us. So did our desire to stay so comfortable when we felt like there was something more we could be doing.
With this tension steadily building, we knew that if someone showed up on our doorstep needing a place to live, we would undoubtedly welcome them. Of course, when you open yourself up to be changed by something beyond yourself, someone is always there to help you finish out that challenge.
Justin came home from work one afternoon and was going on and on about a young woman he had met who had the spunkiest 18-month-old daughter. I was thrilled. The church crowd rarely had women who hung around and definitely not with young children. We immediately connected and learned about the hard life and road that had led her to the church. Her life was about as tragic as we had heard, but she had a naturally uplifting attitude that was contagious and we became fast friends.
She informed us that she was also expecting a new baby. While babies are absolute blessings from God, being homeless with an 18-month-old and expecting a new baby isn’t where any woman wants to find herself. She was desperate. With our spare room still haunting us, we asked her to move in.
We were literally coming from two opposite worlds but for some reason, it worked really well. Our original goal was to allow her a place to stay until she was able to save money from a part time job and find a place of her own. A year and a new baby later, we were closer than ever. She informed us often that she didn’t know life could be so chaos-free. She would tell us things like, “I didn’t really think that married people didn’t cheat on each other.”
We also learned that our innocent attempt to help her was a messy process that meant we had to wade through all the baggage that comes with a life of chaos from her end and insecurities from our end. Also, as children have a way of doing, hers drew us in. We were intimately connected with her children and didn’t want to let them leave us to return to the streets.
However, we knew that the time was coming to allow her some independence. At the same time, we had applied and been accepted to the World Race because we were again looking for a way for our marriage and life to be about something bigger than ourselves. We left our friend and her two beautiful children with many tears and hopeful proclamations about what life held for both our families, and we left for India.
Our time on the World Race was an absolute dream come true. We couldn’t have felt more affirmed and eager to be part of something. However, during our second month in Nepal, we received news that our past roommate had asked our parents to please come pick up her children. She claimed to be unfit to parent them and wanted us to adopt them. Our initial thought was, “No way! We cannot leave a trip that we’ve spent so much time preparing for. What will our supporters think? Why would we want to exchange a life of freedom exploring the world to go home on the off chance of adopting two children?”
We followed the story from halfway around the world for several weeks, waiting to see how serious this mother could be about giving us her children. She was serious. She made a legal action to sign away any parental rights and gave us full custody of her children as prospective parents. Did I mention that we were in Nepal on the World Race!?
We knew, from the beginning of our marriage to that moment, that God had pressed us to make bold actions that often created consequences that weren’t predictable but truly divine. We debated finishing the World Race and becoming parents afterwards as a serious option.
But how, if we claimed to follow a Jesus who commands you to care for widows and orphans, could we continue on the Race when we had our own orphans at home to tend to?
We knew the time on the Race would end in a few months, but time as Mommy and Daddy would last forever.
We wanted to be able to tell our children that we would trade the entire world to be part of theirs.
Our teammates were more than supportive and after knowing the situation and walking with us through it, they too thought it was the best decision. The World Race is a tool that makes its Racers more aware of the injustice that goes on in the world and changes them into people that live missional lives, even after the World Race ends. But we had the opportunity to start living that way even sooner.
Therefore, we sadly left the World Race to be greeted in America by a tiny voice asking, “Are you going to be my mom and dad?”
Our adoption became legally final within days of when our squad finished their Race. As their journey around the world ended, our adoption journey came to a close. Our adventure was nothing like we expected when we set out on the Race, but it’s a story God was already writing before we launched.
We have now been a family for two years and can’t imagine having made a different decision. We are expecting a new baby in March, and our family is doing great. Our children have been able to meet our friends from the World Race, dance at their weddings, and even receive birthday presents from them. God has brought our two worlds together into one family. He continually teaches us lessons if we allow ourselves to be open to them and say yes when he asks.
Stay tuned, and make sure you’re subscribed to receive our updates, because we’ve got more stories like this and a special surprise coming at the end of the month.
