Several times a week, I drive about 45 minutes from home to a counseling office where I get to serve adoptive families in a formal way. There, I get to come alongside parents to help them build stronger connections with their children and empower them to be agents of healing in their children’s lives as they process hard things. It very well be one of the best gigs in the world.
I was there last week, sitting on the floor with a mom and dad and their daughter, talking about her hard start and the orphanage where she had spent the first several years of her life. As I helped her imagine what the orphanage may have been like for her, we talked.
“You know, I have been in an orphanage in China. I visit one every year actually.”
“What do you do there?” she asked.
In intentional simplicity, I answered, “I teach.”
“And, do they teach you?” she asked.
“They do.” I answered with a smile.
“So, you’re one of them?” she asked warmly.
“I am.”
“Then, you’re friends with each other because that’s what friends do.”
“We are. We’re very much friends.”
It was a profound conversation in the midst of my efforts to help her better understand her own history. Her questions and her “therefore-conclusion” in the end have kept playing over in my head.
I’m a detail person. I confess that sometimes the who, what, and when take more up more room in my mental priority list than the how. On the floor last week, she brought me back to the how. We are there to serve as a team and to do that in the context of relationships. We are there to be friendship builders.
I can’t wait to serve there again with whoever it is He calls to go with me.