Is Adoption the Answer to Ethiopia's Problems? Part 2 of 3

Part 1: The Question for Adoptive Parents
Part 2: Adoption Plan for Moses
Part 3: The Master Plan for Our Children

Moses Was Adopted and He Married an Ethiopian Woman

The Bible is filled with accounts of children and the circumstances of their births. One of the most known stories is that of Moses the Hebrew who interestingly enough married a woman from Ethiopia. When Moses, the Hebrew was born, to save him from certain death, his mother placed him in a basket and sent him afloat on the Nile River. She thought that she was sending him to safety.

As the story goes, Moses was pulled from the water by Pharaoh's daughter, the same Pharaoh that wanted to kill him and all of the other first born Hebrew sons. Pharaoh's daughter found the abandoned baby floating on the water. She pulled him to safety, adopted and raised him as her son. He was raised in the house of Pharaoh getting stronger. Without even knowing it, Moses was simultaneously being nursed at the bosom of his natural Hebrew mother while learning to be an Egyptian ruler. Think of the contrast of what he must have learned.

All of it was the unfolding of God's plan for Moses and his life. Moses who had been raised to rule and oppress, freed the same Hebrew people he had been raised to rule over. Instead of being the great ruler he is known for telling Pharaoh to let the people go. That was always God's plan.

God's plan was not altered because of the circumstances surrounding Moses but rather Moses was strengthened and shaped because of them.

Moses grew up and walked right into his purpose. He finally had a conversation with God where God finally reveals His plan. God tells Moses that he is to bring the people out of Egypt. Look at what God says to Moses in Exodus 3:17. I think is so consistent with this Ethiopian adoption struggle.

God said to Moses, tell them that:

• I have seen the affliction of my people in (Egypt)
• I know their sorrows and I have heard their cries
• I AM come down to deliver them
• I will bring them up out of that land into a good land flowing with milk and honey
• Come now, I will send thee into the land of (Egypt) to bring the children of (Israel) out of that land.
  

Are these all things that God might say about us in Ethiopia? What is important to me in this is that God makes it clear who is going to save and deliver. While God is working through Moses, the plan and the power all comes from God.

God called Moses to be a witness and a vessel but not the savior. That's how I feel about this adoption.

But, like some of the parents involved in the discussion, Moses wasn't sure that he was doing the right thing. He momentarily got caught up in all the issues that made this plan improbable. He could have wasted time asking God why his mother put him in the basket, why Pharaoh's daughter pulled him out, or how his mother could go to the palace and breast feed him. Instead, Moses confessed his uncertainty and ask God why him? Moses told God that people would want to know under what authority they should follow him. Just like people ask us why we are adopting.

And God said, "I will be with you. And this will be the sign to you that it is I who have sent you: When you have brought the people out of (Egypt)... - Exodus 3:12

He asked God what he should say and who should he say had sent him? And, in a way that only God can speak he told Moses to simply say, "I AM sent me to you!"

When my children begin to ask questions, this is how I will explain the story to them. I will tell them that God has a special plan for their life. Adoption is only one small part of that plan.