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TwitThisAdopting the World
Her new sons never pressured her, although calls to Liberia were clearly difficult for them. On one, Mercy asked to speak to Debbie."Oh, Mom," she said. "We are so happy David has a home! Thank you for taking care of him. We love you so much for adopting our brother."
Debbie was touched. The girl was so happy, without a trace of jealousy or guile. Debbie kept thinking about her during a Bible study class in early March. Two safe and well cared for, the others living in a land of horrors. Maybe raising six children wouldn't be as hard as she imagined.
David and Debbie Alexander decided to adopt Mercy, Joe, Teta, and James in mid-March.
Josh, their younger biological son, couldn't believe it. He was just starting to build a relationship with David and Seeboe, and now his parents were adopting more. Would they stop at six? Did they think they could adopt the world?
In April, David and Matt flew to Liberia. The country was more devastated than David had imagined. Buildings had been drilled with bullet holes. The road to Monrovia was dotted with United Nations checkpoints, where peacekeeping officers with submachine guns would examine drivers' credentials.
Yet the children were so loving. From the moment they met, the four clung to his or Matt's arms.
David assumed it was because they knew he had come to adopt them. Yet Mercy was surprised when he asked her, "Are you excited about being adopted?" Neither she nor the other children had been told why he had come to see them. That night Mercy broke down sobbing in her dorm. "What's wrong?" the girls who shared her bedroom asked. "Nothing," she said. "I have prayed every night for years for a family. Now I have one."
David called Debbie at home. "They are beautiful and sweet and wonderful. It will take you half a second to fall totally in love with these children."
Though Liberian officials had approved the adoptions by David's last day in Liberia, immigration details had not yet been completed in the United States. The children couldn't return with him.
Before leaving, he called them into a quiet room. He told them all, one by one, how loved and special they were. At the end, Teta and James curled up in his lap and cried themselves to sleep.
It took five months for U.S. officials to complete the adoption and immigration process. Debbie and David called their children every week, sometimes trying for four hours before a call went through Liberia's precarious phone system. The children would implore, "Dad, when are we coming?" Month after month, it was the same. June, July and August.
David assured the children he was doing everything he could to speed things along. In a way, Debbie was relieved they weren't coming right away. She recalled that when she was pregnant, she had nine months to prepare for a new child. Now, she had little time and four children expected at once. She often wondered if she had done the right thing.
The visas were finally approved in mid-September. David and Debbie flew to Washington, D.C., where the children would arrive. They waited for four hours, camera in hand, for the kids to pass through immigration and customs. One detail they didn't have to worry about was suitcases. The children arrived with nothing but the clothes they wore. Everything they had was left behind for other orphans.
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