Beyond adoption...

Lately I've been struggling with some things that seem to have consumed my heart. While I rejoice with some of the completed adoptions I've been a part of lately... I have wondered if all that could of have been to keep the family together was?? After reading through my own adoption paperwork, I continue to wrestle with the fact that the boys biological mom could not sign her own name.

While being an advocate for orphans has been for me adopting and providing orphan/ foster care ..... Lately I've felt there is more than just that. Real advocates are eventually led to prevention.

I came across this blog that articulates some of what has been on my heart but couldn't describe in words. Please read and open your heart to some of the ideas presented.

"There are two sides to the orphan crisis: finding families for children without, and preserving families that are intact. Prevention is the side that is not addressed by adoption. If we profess to care about orphans, then we must care about the circumstances that lead children to be orphaned. If we care about adoption, then we must care about seeing less children enter orphanages to begin with.

It is not as easy to care about the pregnant teen or the struggling mom. But it might be the starting place in this whole scenario.

(And if we care about orphans, then we must care about the children in foster care in our own country.)

I am so glad to see adoptive parents championing these issues. But this should not be a cause left to adoptive parents. As a society, we should all care. A child without a family is the most disgusting form of poverty."

For the entire article and to see ideas on how you can help at risk children... Go to

http://www.rageagainsttheminivan.com/

Mother's day thoughts... legacy of an adopted child

Today my heart is burdened for a woman I love and who has made my life so blessed. Her name is Solange, she is the biological mom of Jimso and Jedone. Her name in French means "angel of the sun" which is very fitting because she has brought so much sunshine into my life! Happy mother's day Solange!!! (Jackson's biological is deceased and has been since he was an infant, although I never met her, she has an indescrible place in my heart as well)




"Legacy of An Adopted Child"Author Unknown





Once there were two women,

Who barely knew each other.

One is in your heart forever,

The other you’ll call mother.



Two different lives,

Shaped to make yours one.

One became your guiding star,

The other became your sun.



The first gave you life,

And the second taught you how to live it.

The first gave you a need for love,

And the second was there to give it.



One gave you a nationality,

The other gave you a name.

One gave you the seed of talent,

The other gave you an aim.



One gave you emotions,

The other calmed your fears.

One saw your first sweet smile,

The other dried your tears.



One gave you a family,

It was what God intended for her to do.

The other prayed for a child,

And God led her straight to you.



And now you ask me

Through your tears,

The age old question through the years.

Heredity or environment…

Which are you a product of?

Neither, my darling… neither,

Just two different kinds of love.

ROYAL WEDDING- my love hate relationship with Cinderella stories

As an avid KU basketball fan and more of a girly girl than I would like to admit...I have a love hate relationship with Cinderella stories.

In March, I hate the Cinderella stories that interfere with our hopes and dreams of a national title. This year I found out Cinderella comes from Virginia. Last year, she stomped the jayhawks "happily ever after" in an UNI uniform instead of the traditional ball gown. Hence the hate part of my relationship with Cinderella.

As a little girl, I couldn't get enough of Cinderella and all the fairy tales that ended in a charming prince rescuing the overlooked or forgotten fair maiden. After watching more Disney movies than I can count, I dreamed of the day when my prince would come riding in on a white horse to save me. Then and only then would I finally feel "complete" and life would just fall in a place of sheer perfection. We would wed in a wedding that would be magically perfect and 2.5 children later we would live happily ever after. Hence the love part of my relationship with Cinderella.

Needless to say, life has dashed my idea of what "happily ever after" really looks like. Unlike the fantasy world of Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, or Rapunzel, reality has hit me like a ton of bricks.

Marriage with my "prince" takes a lot of work, sacrifice, and compromise. Although I can honestly say that after 15 years of marriage I am still madly in love with him.... He does not "complete" me. He is not perfect (just perfect for me, imperfections and all). He is still the man I love but some days it's hard to "like" each other.

Living in the not-so-fairy tale world of 5 kids, full time jobs, carpools, full time ministry, and pure exhaustion the goal of "happily ever after" has been replaced with just trying to survive.

The media has been bombarding us with all the hype of the royal wedding glitz that will come to a head tomorrow morning. But who can blame them? That is what sells. As much as we can claim to hate it... I think deep down every woman still longs for the Cinderella story that has a fairy tale ending. (I'm the first to admit it bothers me that instead of focusing on all the unrest in the middle east, the war in Iraq/ Afghanistan, or even the weather related devastation here in the south... our media would rather report on the royal wedding happenings or the presidents birth certificate). But the pain of reality doesn't give us the warm fuzzies that a love story of a commoner (fair maiden) and her prince can.

I am bothered yes... but do I plan on waking up early to see the blessed event, yes. So why the obsession with the media? Why waste my time watching the wedding with the masses???

Because fairy tales and the hope of a happily ever after ARE REAL. This woman's heart has been transformed by the love of a prince!!! I am recognized, known and even extravagantly loved by the King. And He has promised me a kingdom that holds more "happily ever afters" than I could imagine. I trust this king with EVERY aspect of my future. And while fairy tales in this present kingdom is not reality... He has promised one hell of a "happily ever after" to come!!!

"Then I saw “a new heaven and a new earth,”for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God.‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” He who was seated on the throne said, “I am making everything new!” Then he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.” He said to me: “It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. To the thirsty I will give water without cost from the spring of the water of life." ~ Revelation 21:1-6


"Listen, daughter, and pay careful attention: Forget your people and your father’s house. Let the king be enthralled by your beauty; honor him, for he is your lord." ~ Psalm 45:10,11

She did not know... International Woman's Day

Five little words have haunted me the last several days and kept me up at night ... "she did not know how". Five words that describe a woman I love a world away from me. This woman shares a lot in common with me yet could not be more different than me at the same time. She shares a love for two precious boys in my life (Jimso and Jedone)yet life has not been as kind to her as it has to me. We have different colors of skin, different cultures, different life experiences and live in two very different worlds. Yet today on international woman's day, she is all I can think about.

On Saturday night I couldn't sleep. I started thumbing through some of our tax documents. We had to get all of our adoption paperwork translated in order to submit it to the IRS. I was sorting through a sack of documents that I have held 100 times before but those 5 little words stood out BOLD in the midst of a bunch of legal jargon. On several official court documents it read "SHE DID NOT KNOW HOW to sign her name so her thumb print was submitted in lieu of her signature."

I've filed in the blanks in my mind on many occasions trying to wrap my mind around what led to Jimso and Jedone's abandonment and their mother's choice to terminate her rights and sign over custody to the orphanage and ultimately to us when we began pursuing the adoptions. I know that no mother could have came to this decision lightly and it must have been heart wrenching to admit that she couldn't provide what they needed. I have came to terms with the fact that SHE COULD NOT be the mother they needed but until now had never considered the possibility that "SHE DID NOT KNOW HOW."

And it is just not something that happens "over there", it happens right here too. When we did foster care, I saw first hand this vicious cycle of foster kids who grew up in the system repeating the mistakes their parents had which in turn led to their children and their grandchildren growing up in the system. Unless someone was successful at intervening, they did not know how to be a healthy mother.

I have previously blogged about my experience at my first Haitian wedding and the way my stomach turned upside down when I realized that the bride could not sign the marriage certificate. The picture of illiteracy in Haiti was burned on my heart as I watched the Pastor sign the bride's name for her because she could not. My heart physically ached for the bride because of what may have been the best day of her life, she was reminded of the reality that she could not read or write. I then watched the mother of bride require assistance signing her name as well and the portrait of cultural and generational illiteracy was etched onto my heart.

As an avid reader and writer, if I woke up tomorrow morning and somehow lost my ability my read and write, that would be near torture for me. Yet 55% of Haitian (more than half) can not read or write. According to UNICEF, more than half of the nation's children fail to reach the fifth grade, and only one in five young people reach secondary school. As a bachelors degree prepared nurse (who is currently enrolled in a masters program), I am humbled when I think about how easy my education was to access (THANKS DAD!). And as I try to wrap my mind around how different my life and the boy's biological mom's life must be, I can't help but to wonder why I have been so blessed? She will never know the joy of reading God's precious words to her. She will never experience how awesome it feels to curl up with a good book on a rainy day nor the excitement of passing a difficult exam or acing a college thesis. Yet because I was born where I was born, I have somehow been given the privileged of knowing how to do so many things we take for granted. As I have served women in poverty, I have thought to myself a million times " there but for the grace of God go I"
(meaning I might have suffered a similar fate, but for God's mercy.)

Most of you know that I can get pretty fired up when it comes to certain social justice issues. To say that I am passionate would be an understatement and I have stuck my foot in my mouth more times than I can count but I'm gonna go out on a limb and make an assumption.... I think that many of the social issues we face (the orphan crisis, the AIDS epidemic, extreme poverty,human sex trafficking etc...) could be greatly reduced, remedied, or completely eliminated if we make education more readily available to girls growing up in developing nations.

"How many Rosa Parks or Marie Curies have we lost to poverty? How many Maya Angelous or Sandra Day O'Connors never had a chance to learn? How many Mother Teresas have lost hope due to neglect and abuse?"

Please spend a few moments of your time watching this powerful video....

the thank you cards staring back at me...

The last few months the "thank you" cards on my desk have been staring back at me. In fact one might even say that they are glaring at me! The cards along with a growing list of names are a constant reminder of my failure to do something that has been on my heart for months but yet remains on my to do list week after week. Let me explain....

It had been a challenging year for our family so far. Having a 360 spinal fusion of the majority of my back in busiest month of the year, challenges of the continued transition of newly adopted children into our home, financial burdens from taking an extended medical leave of absence at my work, and daily life with a busy family of seven were just some of the stressors we experienced. Yet through it all, we have gotten by with a little help from our friends. Some friends have brought meals over and watched our children while I recovered from surgery, some have helped us make ends meet at the end of the month, wrapped Christmas gifts for us during the holiday season, and most importantly prayed for us during this season of our life. All of this reminds me of one of my favorite stories in the life of Moses...

"When Moses' hands grew tired, they took a stone and put it under him and he sat on it. Aaron and Hur held his hands up - one on one side, one on the other - so that his hands remained steady till sunset."~ Exodus 17:12 (NIV)

I love how this story illustrates how Moses, just like us, needed support. While Joshua and the Israelite soldiers battled the Amalekites, God asked Moses to hold up his staff, representing God's power, throughout the battle. As long as Moses kept the staff raised, the Israelites experienced victory. It was a long battle, however, and Moses dropped his arms in fatigue. Then the Israelites began losing the battle. That's when Moses needed help and encouragement from his friends,

As I try heal from surgery, I can't tell you how many days I have felt like just having the strength to get out off bed was a battle, yet I am so blessed to have AMAZING friends. I have battled with depression and self doubt as I find myself in a slow dry season with lots of questions and not a lot of answers. Yet the encouragement of faithful friends have meant the world to us.

"The Israelites ultimately were victorious, and a key to their victory was Moses' obedience to God as he held up the staff. But he couldn't have done what God asked him to do without the help of Aaron and Hur.

In the same way over the past couple of years I've needed my friends to hold me up, so I can be the wife, mother and woman God has called me to be. Friends have listened, prayed and helped me with practical matters of everyday life. Their support has given me courage to press on, to remain hopeful, and to find strength in them and the Lord.

Just like Aaron and Hur did for Moses, my friends have held up my hands and lifted my heart so I can be obedient to God's call on my life. We all need the help of faithful friends" (Melanie Chitwood)

So this blogpost is dedicated to those friends fighting the battle alongside us and helping us to be victorious. Thank you from the bottom of my heart!!!

CHOOSE TO SEE

On some days it feels the earthquake that changed our lives forever was years and years ago. On other days it feels like just yesterday. Regardless of how long it feels like…. Tomorrow is the one year anniversary of the day my families life (and everyone connected to Haiti) was shaken to its very core.

As part of the community based nursing course I teach my nursing students, there is a section in the course on disaster nursing. I know foreword and backward the different phases of grief and shock victims and in-direct victims go through during a natural disaster but when you and those you love personally experience this kind of trauma, its nothing like the textbook or any class could prepare you for.

Last January was the most difficult and the most beautiful season of my 32 years of life. Difficult because although I knew human suffering like this existed, I was forced to see it through the eyes of children and people I love. Beautiful because in the midst of all that suffering I saw God move in so many beautiful ways I can not even count them all.

Rather than bore you with our story… here is a link if you do not already how the earthquake changed life for our family and 12 orphan children.

http://diaryofayouthpastorswife.blogspot.com/2010_02_01_archive.html

I know that tomorrow I will spend most of the day glued to the TV watching the one year anniversary coverage and reliving the events of those days. But in the midst of all the suffering I will see and have seen, I WILL CHOOSE TO SEE beauty! Rebuilding Haiti has proven to be a marathon not a sprint. But some of our dear friends tirelessly working there day in and day out share some of the most beautiful stories of God working in their midst. Long after the media left to focus on other stories, they unfortunately missed some of the most heartfelt stories of true heroes and the epitome of perseverance.

While Jake was in Haiti after the earthquake, communication between us was nearly nonexistent. We relied on facebook and satellite phones but connection was sketchy at best. He knew that we were working on trying to visas for the children already in the adoption process but we all knew it was a long shot and would take an act of God to make it happen. So while Belinda in Haiti and those of us at home tirelessly worked on making phone calls and gathering the necessary paperwork, Jake was consumed to providing relief work and literally in the trenches with those suffering.

But I love hearing him tell the story of when he finally got the news that our boys were reunited with me and on US soil. He was in a make shift tent, talking, on a satellite phone, and literally surrounded by human suffering. And at that moment he had a choice to make…. He could allow his heart to be heavy and burdened by all that he was experiencing and seeing or he could CHOOSE TO SEE the beauty of the moment.

I believe with all my heart that in every dark moment we face, there is beauty in the midst if we choose to see it.

I just finished reading a book by Mary Beth Chapman called “Choose to See”. It is their families’ story…. from their adoption journeys to the suffering and grief that they have endured the last few years. Grief is a journey many of us take at one time or another. For the Chapman family their journey began with the accidental death of their 5 year old daughter, Maria Sue, whom they adopted from China. In Choosing to SEE, Mary Beth Chapman shares her struggles with the tragic loss of Maria Sue, her journey to heal, and the unexpected path God has placed her on. Even as difficult as life can be, Mary Beth and the Chapman’s choose to see with faith and hope. I love her openness about healing journey and the way they are proclaiming to see beauty rise from ashes! This is their story

http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/FallConcert/video/steven-chapman-nominated-15th-grammy-award-12498934

Sometimes I feel like a Debbie Downer but the last few years have been the most difficult of our 15 years of marriage. It just seems like God has allowed one thing after another into our life (all of which have been opportunities to CHOOSE TO SEE beauty in the midst of suffering).Ecclesiates 3:1-8 talks about the different seasons in life. I used to believe those seasons were at separate distinct and different times in our lives. Now I realize that we can weep and laugh, mourn and dance, search and give up, tear and mend, kill and heal, tear down and heal ALL AT THE SAME TIME AND SEASON.

It started with the loss of our 21 day old niece Hope to a congenital heart defect (hypoplastic left heart syndrome). In the middle of walking through the grief with my brother and his amazingly strong wife, we saw so much beauty. Beauty in learning what it truly means to offer the sacrifice of praise. At baby Hope’s memorial, we sang the song “Blessed be your name” with lyrics like “you give and take away, my heart will CHOOSE to say Lord blessed be your name”. We also sang “How Great Thou Art”. The beauty was I am 100% convinced that when my family sang those lyrics we meant them even though we were saying good bye to a precious baby we barely got to know and love on.

Shortly after that our foster daughter (whom had live in our home nearly a year and we loved as our own) was unexpectedly moved to another placement. It broke our hearts in ways I can’t describe. The range of emotions associated with it ranged from shock, anger, to pure grief. But today as I look back on our time with her…. I don’t focus on the day she was removed from our home. I choose to see beauty in all the wonderful memories we have with her. I see her in the rear view, in her car seat, with eyed closed and her chubby little hands raised singing “oh how he loves us” by David Crowder (one of her favorite songs). Or I choose to see her running around with her footie pajama’s dancing around being silly like she did every night after her bath. I choose to see the way she would wait at the door for Daddy to come home or the “big kids” to get off the bus and then squeal with delight when they pulled up.


Then we faced the earthquake and the agony of watching the nation we love suffer. Not long after that we faced a crisis at our church that turned our lives upside down again. But now I choose to see beauty in God’s perfect plan and the way His ways are higher.

As the boys have transitioned into our culture and our home, we have unpacked some very deep and heavy stuff. I knew trauma and abuse like that existed but hearing about and searching for healing through the heart of their mom has been a difficult process. A mom’s natural instinct to protect her children and most days I feel ill equipped to know to bring healing to their broken childhoods. But I choose to see beauty in the painstakingly slow progress they are making in therapy. I choose to see and celebrate the glimpses of trust and attachment being established between them and us as their parents. I choose to believe that God has awesome things planned for these boys and He will use them not IN SPITE OF their past but BECAUSE of their past to do great things for the kingdom of God.

Romans 8:27-28 says “And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God. And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. 29 For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters.

I am so thankful the “Spirit intercedes in our life according to the will of God” and in the midst of everything (even suffering) God is working in the midst and if we choose to see that, it’s a beautiful thing!

I’d like to share some photos from http://voicesofhaiti.com/photos that demonstrate beauty rising from the ashes. Prints are available to order from that site (I’m asking for my birthday wink wink) The above picture captions read...



“THE WORLD MAY SHAKE BUT HAITI REMAINS IN MY HEART” and “LOVE CONQUERS ALL”

Change is inevitable... except in a vending machine

Can’t believe it’s been since March since I last updated my blog… So much has changed in the last several months. Both Jake and I made some “minor” career changes, we moved into a new house, the kids all start new schools this Friday, and the only constant seems to be that change is inevitable. It seems like life has been so busy, I haven’t even thought about updating my blog. Not that I would have anything worth saying (as if I ever do) or even have the mental capability to articulate thoughts.


Slowly but surely, we have made the transition into becoming a family of 7. Chaos is eerily normal now. I love the reaction I get from people when they ask me “how many kids do you have?” I have close friends who have had the challenge of blending families of children and step children. Some of our struggles have been similar to that with the added element of blending two cultures and trying to learn to be parented when you have grown up most of your life without parents. I’m so proud of the progress the new boys are making and the sacrifices our other kids have made in order to love on their new brothers.


Summer is by far the busiest season in a youth pastor family’s life and with 5 kids this summer was more challenging than most. Over the last 12 years in youth ministry, we love all the bonding and memories that come with summer camps, conferences, and mission trips. But we dreaded the time away from home and family (so much so I have joked about putting Jake’s picture on missing person milk jug) that goes hand in hand with creating those memories. This summer was bittersweet because we knew it would be our last summer serving as youth ministers. Loving teenagers and ministering to them has been our lives for over a decade and knowing that God is calling us to do something else has been exciting but filled with a lot of soul searching and some blunt conservations with the God who first called us into ministry.


After spending some teaching nursing students on labor and delivery floors, I decided that I missed working full time with laboring and new moms so I am putting teaching aside and accepted a new position at a local birth center. It’s been such a long time since I worked in the hospital setting so I feel like my nursing skills and physical body are more than a little rusty but I feel blessed to be where I am at and even more blessed to see the miracle of new life come into this world almost everyday.



Our precious church family is going through an intense time of transition the last few months as our senior minister left. Because we would want to love our church family through this time of healing and because our newly adopted sons have some intense counseling and therapy to walk through the next few years before they will be ready to go back to Haiti for even a short visit, we felt like we needed to put our plans to move to Haiti on hold indefinitely. Jake has accepted the position of lead preaching pastor and is enjoying his new role within the church. I know I am biased but he is really an anointed preacher so I love seeing him serve in this way. This is not the path we would have chosen but we have no doubt that this is where God wants us right now and know that His timing and His plan is always so much better than ours. We had planned to be packing up moving to Haiti right now but instead we are settling into a new role God has led us to. It’s funny how we can keep brainstorming options and plans, but GOD's purpose prevails. Proverbs 19:21 says “many are the plans in a man’s heart but it is the LORD’s purpose that prevails.” We were convinced that God was calling us to be full time missionaries to Haiti last year… never in our wildest dreams did we foresee the boys coming to live with us here BEFORE we went to live there. The January 12 earthquake changed so many aspects of our life and our calling to Haiti. We feel like we ARE full time missionaries to Haiti right now and right here in Oklahoma. We feel that loving our 3 adopted sons and raising them to be solid Haitian Christian men can impact Haiti in ways that we can not even imagine. Our prayer is that one day they will share our passion for Haiti and we can all serve full time there full time but God continues to use us, prepare us and equip us until the timing is right for us to move to Haiti.


So there have been a lot of changes in our lives the last several months. Change is inevitable. Change is VERY uncomfortable for Type A personality people like me. But I can not find anywhere in the bible where the word “comfortable” is found. I’m learning to live in a constant state of being “comfortable with being uncomfortable”. Does that even make sense??


I love this quote from Donald Miller about change and waiting on God’s timing….


“It is always the simple things that change our lives. And these things never happen when you are looking for them to happen. Life will reveal answers at the pace life wishes to do so. You feel like running, but life is on a stroll. This is how God does things.”