For those who have yet to hear, on Sunday, May 18th at 6:35 p.m. we welcomed Eliza Iranzi Thompson into the world. Her birth, which I hope to write about at some point, was a gift and incredible experience. We can't say enough great things about our midwife Jocelyn Jelsma, who made us feel medically and emotionally safe and secure in our home in Rwanda while we prepared for and as we birthed our fourth child into the world. We're so thankful for her and to the Lord.
We chose not to find out gender and I was so exhausted after pushing the baby out that I just held her for about five minutes before Hunter finally convinced me to hold her up to see if she was a boy/girl. My dear friend Tiffany caught the moment on camera:
But this post isn't the birth story; it is the story of her name: Eliza Iranzi. Naming each of our children has felt like a big responsibility. There are lots of ways people name their kids, one of them not better than another (okay I know someone who named their kid 7. not seven. 7. I guess I do think some ways are better than others). "Our way" has been to pray for vision for their lives and give them names that reflect that. Names that are prayers and hopes we have for their future. The kind of people we hope, pray and will intentionally seek to shape them to be (though of course the Lord is the One who will give them their identity, their "name", purpose, gifts...we feel like God has also given parents a role in speaking life and vision into children, naming being one of many opportunities to do that.)
Lucy means "bringer of light" and she knows it. She proudly tells people what her name means. We want her to be the type of person that brings general joy and light into the world, and specifically the light and hope of the gospel. Lucy Pevensie is one of the children in the Chronicles of Narnia series. Lucy can see Aslan (God) in difficult/scary situations even when others cannot. And she points Him out to others to follow and learns to bravely follow Him even if others don't. We pray that for our little girl.
Isaiah means "Salvation is from God." Adoption is a beautiful part of a broken story. I feel so sad about the brokenness in the world that leads to adoption even as I celebrate our own family's dearly treasured son through adoption. But even in his name we wanted it to be clear that our salvation, his salvation--all of our salvation is from God. His name's meaning has even been a part of Eliza's story already, which I'll mention below. We also love and respect the Old Testament prophet, Isaiah, who wrote hard, bold and beautiful truths from God whether people listened to him or not. Whether he was hated for it or not. He had a strong voice to speak for the LORD and many of my favorite passages come from his records of what the LORD spoke to him. We pray our son will listen to God and always speak His truth, whether that makes him likeable or not.
Micah is another Old Testament prophet whose most known verse says: "do justice, love mercy/kindness, and walk humbly with your God." (Micah 6:8). We pray Micah will be a man who will continually hear that call from God and point others to it, like his namesake. My pregnancy with him also came at a time when learning that--especially the last part "walk humbly with your God"--was something that God was teaching me, even in becoming surprisingly pregnant again when we thought we would probably pursue adoption here on out. My zeal for children having families was becoming something that made me "do justice and love mercy"...but I was not walking humbly. I was self-righteous, pushy and sometimes arrogant. And the LORD in his kindness was working that out in me.
And now our sweet Eliza Iranzi. "Iranzi" is the kinyarwanda (language here) word that means "God knows me". A big question I asked (out loud with lots of emotion) when we found out we were expecting a baby--just 2 months into living here--was "does God see/know us?" The gentle and scared accusation in my question was multifaceted. Does he see me? I've prayed and longed to live in a place like Rwanda for so long...but my thoughts about what I would do when I live there didn't really include a nursing/not sleeping well aged child. I had been humbled and kindly but firmly shepherded out of that through the past several years of the Lord's pursuit of me...but I still wondered, am I really not going to get to serve Him in the ways I feel so guttorly and emotionally called and wired? "Does he see me?"
"Does he see Hunter?" His job takes SO much out of him most days/weeks--how can we love and raise another blessing of a child starting from scratch in the midst of that?
"Does He see Lucy/Isaiah/Micah" who have already handled a huge transition where their worlds were blessed for sure...but also turned upside-down when we moved across the world? They need a lot of shepherding and care from us at this point in their lives...and now we're dividing that attention up again. Does He see/know them?
But the biggest question of all was really related to my Isaiah. Oh Jesus don't you see him? Are you sure? I cried on the phone with a dear friend with those exact words (I think) when we were sharing the news. It wasn't that I was unhappy or ungrateful for the gift of life in my womb. I was just confused and concerned. We had hoped to be able to have four kids (we thought but weren't sure) but we had hoped to be able to pursue adoption again at some point. We hadn't pictured our family being bigger than it was and continuing to have Isaiah be the only adopted one, the only one whose skin tone is so different than the rest of ours.
And I realized it that day. I think we can line up the cards for our kids. Get them most of the way there when it comes to an easy life. Yeah, yeah "salvation is from God" like his name says...but let's help em along the way. God slowly showed me that yep--Isaiah might be the only child in our family through adoption and whose skin will be so different...but if that's "his big issue" as he grows up...having 17 other kids more like him in our family wasn't going to be enough. Salvation is from God. There was an appropriate ache and prayer for Isaiah that came along with this pregnancy, but over the 9 months of pregnancy with Eliza I feel like God has confirmed that indeed He sees and knows each of us. He knows better than we do what we need and how to weave our life story together. And he is helping me to yield to him.
Iranzi: God knows me.
Eliza means "God is my oath" or "God is my vow." As I've thought and prayed about that name I've thought of all the things I've wanted to stand on as my credibility in this world...all that I've thought I can do to justify my existence in this world (as if I'm on the stand in the courtroom of this world where my oath is where I stand) and for so long it has been "if I only do enough" then I'm justified. If I love people well. If I do enough good deeds. If I'm funny enough and smart enough. If I please enough people. But as the Gospel slowly and continually pursues and changes my heart I know and believe that really it is all from God. He is my oath. I stand because of Him alone. I can't do anything to make myself lovable in his sight--I've blown it but He has provided salvation for me through Jesus and so I don't even need to try. I can do lots of things that are beautiful and pleasing to Him, but none of them are necessary and none of them are enough. There's a passage in the Old Testament where God is making his covenant with Abraham but Abraham sleeps through the whole covenant ceremony. And God is the One who doubly puts himself on the line. The covenant didn't rest on Abraham's shoulders. And nothing rests on mine. God is my oath. And He is Eliza's. We want her to know that's where she will stand firmest. Where she'll never be shaken.
Living here in Rwanda in a place that is most tempting for me to pursue the kinds of means of self-justification that keep me from allowing God to be my oath, I love that we have a child's name that will continually point me and us back to the truth of the gospel.
As she was born (and as Micah was, too) the song Rock of Ages played quietly and repeatedly in the background:
"Not the labor of my hands
can fulfill Thy laws demands
Could my zeal no respite know
Could my tears forever flow
all for sin could not atone
Thou must save and Thou alone
Nothing in my hands I bring,
Simply to Thy cross I cling
Naked Come to thee for dress
Helpless look to Thee for grace
Foul I to the fountain fly
wash me Savior or I die."
Eliza Iranzi: God is my oath and God knows me
a friend not knowing her name or the story of our pregnancy gave this to me as a gift at our baby shower. See, God does see and know me.
We chose not to find out gender and I was so exhausted after pushing the baby out that I just held her for about five minutes before Hunter finally convinced me to hold her up to see if she was a boy/girl. My dear friend Tiffany caught the moment on camera:
 |
| Yes, it was a water birth. In our home. Guys it was amaaaaaazing. Until transition it felt like a spa treatment with candles, white lights all around, soft music, people bringing me drinks and offering me anything and everything. Those were my famous last words though..."this is kind of embarrassing, this feels almost like I'm at the spa"... on one of the next contractions my water broke and transition began. Spa treatment over. |
Lucy means "bringer of light" and she knows it. She proudly tells people what her name means. We want her to be the type of person that brings general joy and light into the world, and specifically the light and hope of the gospel. Lucy Pevensie is one of the children in the Chronicles of Narnia series. Lucy can see Aslan (God) in difficult/scary situations even when others cannot. And she points Him out to others to follow and learns to bravely follow Him even if others don't. We pray that for our little girl.
Isaiah means "Salvation is from God." Adoption is a beautiful part of a broken story. I feel so sad about the brokenness in the world that leads to adoption even as I celebrate our own family's dearly treasured son through adoption. But even in his name we wanted it to be clear that our salvation, his salvation--all of our salvation is from God. His name's meaning has even been a part of Eliza's story already, which I'll mention below. We also love and respect the Old Testament prophet, Isaiah, who wrote hard, bold and beautiful truths from God whether people listened to him or not. Whether he was hated for it or not. He had a strong voice to speak for the LORD and many of my favorite passages come from his records of what the LORD spoke to him. We pray our son will listen to God and always speak His truth, whether that makes him likeable or not.
Micah is another Old Testament prophet whose most known verse says: "do justice, love mercy/kindness, and walk humbly with your God." (Micah 6:8). We pray Micah will be a man who will continually hear that call from God and point others to it, like his namesake. My pregnancy with him also came at a time when learning that--especially the last part "walk humbly with your God"--was something that God was teaching me, even in becoming surprisingly pregnant again when we thought we would probably pursue adoption here on out. My zeal for children having families was becoming something that made me "do justice and love mercy"...but I was not walking humbly. I was self-righteous, pushy and sometimes arrogant. And the LORD in his kindness was working that out in me.
And now our sweet Eliza Iranzi. "Iranzi" is the kinyarwanda (language here) word that means "God knows me". A big question I asked (out loud with lots of emotion) when we found out we were expecting a baby--just 2 months into living here--was "does God see/know us?" The gentle and scared accusation in my question was multifaceted. Does he see me? I've prayed and longed to live in a place like Rwanda for so long...but my thoughts about what I would do when I live there didn't really include a nursing/not sleeping well aged child. I had been humbled and kindly but firmly shepherded out of that through the past several years of the Lord's pursuit of me...but I still wondered, am I really not going to get to serve Him in the ways I feel so guttorly and emotionally called and wired? "Does he see me?"
"Does he see Hunter?" His job takes SO much out of him most days/weeks--how can we love and raise another blessing of a child starting from scratch in the midst of that?
"Does He see Lucy/Isaiah/Micah" who have already handled a huge transition where their worlds were blessed for sure...but also turned upside-down when we moved across the world? They need a lot of shepherding and care from us at this point in their lives...and now we're dividing that attention up again. Does He see/know them?
But the biggest question of all was really related to my Isaiah. Oh Jesus don't you see him? Are you sure? I cried on the phone with a dear friend with those exact words (I think) when we were sharing the news. It wasn't that I was unhappy or ungrateful for the gift of life in my womb. I was just confused and concerned. We had hoped to be able to have four kids (we thought but weren't sure) but we had hoped to be able to pursue adoption again at some point. We hadn't pictured our family being bigger than it was and continuing to have Isaiah be the only adopted one, the only one whose skin tone is so different than the rest of ours.
And I realized it that day. I think we can line up the cards for our kids. Get them most of the way there when it comes to an easy life. Yeah, yeah "salvation is from God" like his name says...but let's help em along the way. God slowly showed me that yep--Isaiah might be the only child in our family through adoption and whose skin will be so different...but if that's "his big issue" as he grows up...having 17 other kids more like him in our family wasn't going to be enough. Salvation is from God. There was an appropriate ache and prayer for Isaiah that came along with this pregnancy, but over the 9 months of pregnancy with Eliza I feel like God has confirmed that indeed He sees and knows each of us. He knows better than we do what we need and how to weave our life story together. And he is helping me to yield to him.
Iranzi: God knows me.
Eliza means "God is my oath" or "God is my vow." As I've thought and prayed about that name I've thought of all the things I've wanted to stand on as my credibility in this world...all that I've thought I can do to justify my existence in this world (as if I'm on the stand in the courtroom of this world where my oath is where I stand) and for so long it has been "if I only do enough" then I'm justified. If I love people well. If I do enough good deeds. If I'm funny enough and smart enough. If I please enough people. But as the Gospel slowly and continually pursues and changes my heart I know and believe that really it is all from God. He is my oath. I stand because of Him alone. I can't do anything to make myself lovable in his sight--I've blown it but He has provided salvation for me through Jesus and so I don't even need to try. I can do lots of things that are beautiful and pleasing to Him, but none of them are necessary and none of them are enough. There's a passage in the Old Testament where God is making his covenant with Abraham but Abraham sleeps through the whole covenant ceremony. And God is the One who doubly puts himself on the line. The covenant didn't rest on Abraham's shoulders. And nothing rests on mine. God is my oath. And He is Eliza's. We want her to know that's where she will stand firmest. Where she'll never be shaken.
Living here in Rwanda in a place that is most tempting for me to pursue the kinds of means of self-justification that keep me from allowing God to be my oath, I love that we have a child's name that will continually point me and us back to the truth of the gospel.
As she was born (and as Micah was, too) the song Rock of Ages played quietly and repeatedly in the background:
"Not the labor of my hands
can fulfill Thy laws demands
Could my zeal no respite know
Could my tears forever flow
all for sin could not atone
Thou must save and Thou alone
Nothing in my hands I bring,
Simply to Thy cross I cling
Naked Come to thee for dress
Helpless look to Thee for grace
Foul I to the fountain fly
wash me Savior or I die."
Eliza Iranzi: God is my oath and God knows me
