Lesson #1: The REAL hard part

Wow…2014.  That was the year we received our foster parent license.  It was also the last time I wrote a blog post.  Since that time, we have had a total of 10 kids come to our home to “hang out for awhile” (code words for “to be fostered”).  Four were just short “respite” stays to give their regular foster parents a break.  The other six were ours for a period of time.  Every one of these placements has taught us valuable lessons.  Lessons worth sharing.

First, I would say “Whoa!”  We were prepared for hard things when we signed up for this gig, and I think we’ve managed fairly well when it comes to the things we expected to be hard. Things like behaviors and worries and grief outside of the norm.  We were prepared for the hard questions, the “why's,” the “what if’s,” and the "when's."  I think we are pretty good at helping our little ones unpack the heavy baggage that they bring with them, carrying on their little shoulders more than most adults.  I’ll admit, I lose my patience more frequently than I’d like.  When I get mad, I yell. I hate that, but it’s true. I do have to apologize once in awhile, and once in awhile, I have to shut myself in my bedroom to count to much more than 10 (sometimes AFTER slamming my door…sometimes BEFORE allowing myself to boil over).  We are so imperfect, so flawed…but we do try.  We do give it our best.  Sometimes our best just seems so inadequate. 

The first 2-3 months are usually the most trying, because that’s when boundaries are still being formed, and tested!  That’s when rules are being learned, behavior charts are in full swing, and trust is being built.  That’s also when a lot of holding and rocking is going on.  It’s so important for trust building and for bonding in the midst of what often seems like a chaotic storm.  Basically, what I’m saying is, I think we have a handle on that part.  We fully expect chaos and that expectation has proven true with every placement for at least the first 2 or 3 months. 

So what’s my “Whoa!!” all about?  It’s because of the part we weren’t prepared for, the unexpected hard stuff.  One thing we always hear from non-foster parents is something along the lines of “How awesome that you are foster parents!  I could never do that!  I would never be able to handle giving the kids back.”  I really, really hate that (just saying).  You see, it’s hard for me to see it as a compliment, because I thought that same thing before we dove in head first.  Then when we had a couple of kids who were going on weekend visits with their parents and we were enjoying every single minute of it, I started to feel guilty.  When the target date for them to return home permanently came and went, and I felt disappointed by that…I thought, “It’s suppose to be HARD to give these kids back!  I must be a bad person, a bad foster parent…cold-hearted at the very least.”    You know, it took a long time for my mind to work through that.  People…including other foster parents…always talk about the positive emotions.  The attachment they’ve created with the kids and the grief they experience when the kids leave their home.  Nobody ever talks about the opposite emotions, so when I found myself feeling like I WANTED the kids to go home, I felt inadequate.  I have since figured out that is total nonsense!  Yes, some kids are harder to let go than others. Some kids have a greater attachment than others.  Yet, no matter what, we love on every one of these kids, and treat them as we do our own.  

I have cried every time our regular placements moved on, yet they were happy tears rather than grief tears. Tears of appreciation for the teachers, counselors, social workers, daycare providers, and even judges & attorneys who helped to mold them into kids who are respectful, responsible, trustworthy, and kind.  Tears of pride in these kids, knowing how their journey began and how their character developed through it all.  We have had GOOD kids.  Good in a very different way than what we traditionally think of, but GOOD.  

We go into every one of the placements with the goal of “reunification,” (a.k.a., going back home).  We partner with their parents.  We co-parent.  We help them maintain a bond.  We supervise phone calls, send them pictures, and pray for them, for their healing, for their ability to step up and care for their children in a safe and appropriate way.  I have cried and felt emotions I couldn’t express when witnessing a Mom about her to lose her kids forever.  FOREVER.  That’s a long time, a long, long time. That’s longer than any mom can stand.  THAT is the part that is harder than hard, the part that hits like bricks and doesn’t go away in a day or two. Giving the kids back…or passing them along to the next family, the “forever family,” is the easy part…and I have come to realize that’s truly okay!  So please, don’t ever tell me that you couldn’t be a foster parent because you couldn’t give the kids back...or that your OWN kids are your priority (I've actually heard that)....as if MINE aren't?  Instead, just wish us well, and pray for these kids and their little hearts as we muddle through, trying our hardest, even when it seem so inadequate.

I am going to end this post here.  Yet, I have so much more I want to share about what we’ve learned along the way.  I have an incredible story of God’s plan and his ability to see the whole picture, long before we even know there is a picture.  I was given permission by our last foster siblings’ adoptive parents to share their story.  It is worth tuning back in for, so you will certainly want to watch for my next post!

And so it begins...

And so it begins...

We don't get our mail very often.  On the surface, it may seem pathetic, because its not as though we have to go across town to the post office to gather it up.  No, its right on our curb, 20 or 30 feet from our front door.  In fact, we're so bad about getting our mail that our box was so full once, our mailman thought we were on vacation.  So, yes, its a little pathetic, but its not out of laziness that we do not get our mail, its out of "its just going to land in a pile of mail on our counter until we're ready to sort through it and we have enough messes already, so just leave it in the mailbox for now."  However, this month, our mailbox has been cleared out regularly!  Why?  Because M knew our foster/adopt license was suppoes to be arriving sometime this month, and she has been asking for months "when are we going to get another kid?" So most days, she has checked the mailbox for the long-awaited package!

M was not around on Friday to check the mailbox, but I did...and guess what?  It was there!  That means we are officially foster parents and we will now start getting phone calls about kids in need.  These kids will have parents of their own, and we will have NO rights over them.  We cannot even get their hair cut without permission.  We will be doing our best to take care of them and help them adjust to life at our house, while still working with them & their parents on getting back home.  Over 80% of foster kids go back home, so most of the time, it will be short-term (although there are always exceptions to the rule).

So, just to fill you in...be aware that HIPAA (privacy) laws do not allow us to talk about the kids or to even tell you that they are foster kids.  We can't even tell teachers that they are foster kids.  We cannot post pictures or stories on social networks, etc.  So just know that if you see us with an extra child or two, they just may be staying with us for awhile....or they just may be neighborhood kids here to hang out for a day!  We are a house that is always overflowing with kids!  You just never know who you may find around here!

When that call comes in from "matching" for the first time, we will have butterflies in our stomachs!  Sometimes, the kids need an urgent placement...within 2 hours, other times, we may have a few days.  Either way, the need is so great for good foster homes, that we've been told to expect lots of phone calls until the point our "licensed openings" are "full."  For us, the limit is 2 since that's how many more people we can fit in our car!  :) 

So with nervous hearts, we move forward.  Prayers for our family are certainly needed, as we listen to the stories of the kids we are called about, we need to be able to discern which ones are right for us and which ones would be better served by another family.  More often than not, we will need to make that decision quickly.  We know that God has a plan for us, but don't know exactly how it is suppose to play out.  Yet we know that He will work it out for us as we start this journey of faithfulness. 

A Perfectly Happy Family of ...

We have had such a roller coaster of a year when it comes to this adoption stuff, wondering what the heck we are really suppose to be doing, but it seems the answers have finally come in unexpected ways.   We stayed silent about it initially, and have since only had little snippets that we have shared.  Well, our decision is final, and it’s time to share.

I have to take you back to 2006 when we first considered adopting.  We were thinking of adopting a child who had been through the foster care system.  We completed the initial orientation and had to sign up for a 10 week course in order to become licensed.  Instead, we put our house on the market.  We were unsure where we going to be living, and eventually ended up pregnant with our Little Bo Peep.  We didn’t do it.  After all, we were busy, we lived in what felt like chaos, and we were a happy family of soon-to-be 5.

It was about 4 years later when our church friends brought their first child home from Africa, turning their family of 6 into a family of 7.  Bruce and I had a conversation once again about the idea of adopting.  We brushed it aside…after all, we are busy, we live in chaos, and we’re perfectly satisfied being a family of 5.  Then a second family from our same little congregation brought home their son who was from Haiti.  We had the conversation again, but still…we were very busy, lived in what felt like chaos, and we were quite satisfied as a family of 5. Then, the first family brought home two more kids, siblings, from Africa.  We are very busy, we live in what feels like chaos, and we are quite happy as a family of 5…maybe someday, when our chaos is in order.  We didn’t just have excuses…we had VALID reasons that we shouldn’t adopt.

Then, the infamous book came along.  The one that talked about how God has a plan for you, and its usually crazy.  If it sounds easy, it’s probably not actually his plan!  If it sounds hard, you’d better just buckle your seat belt and surrender.  Very specifically, it talked about having VALID reasons to not follow that plan.  Excuses that make perfect sense.  That's not good enough.  That’s when we surrendered to the idea of adopting.  International adoption was all around us, so we chose Haiti.  We were pretty sure we got it right.  The idea of adopting through the foster care system was scary to us.  So much “baggage.” That’s the kind of stuff that we try to shelter our kids from.   We are a happy family of 5, and the kinds of emotions and behaviors that result from the type of abuse that gets your kids removed from your home is not something we can really deal with.  We know that adoption is hard, no matter what.  Every one of these kids, whether overseas in an orphanage, or here in our foster system, has had trauma in their life, and every one of these kids has to learn how to deal with the aftermath of that trauma.  Yet, somehow knowing that over half the kids in orphanages in Haiti have loving parents who visit them, was reassuring.  They tried their best to care for them, but simply did not have the financial means to keep up, because they live in the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere.  Here, in the US, it is more likely that the kids in foster care have been neglected or physically & emotionally abused, because their parents are on meth…or have hit some other sort of rock-bottom.

 As you know, the road to Haiti was not very smooth.  We had to do everything twice…expensive and frustrating. To make a long story not quite as long, we had reached a point in the Haiti adoption where we were at a crossroads.  We either had to spend thousands of more dollars and move forward, or we had to change courses.  We had asked the home study social worker to hold off on writing the updated home study until we knew where we’d be living (our house was on the market again).  In the meantime, we chose to take a foreign exchange student.  We thought it would be a good experience for our family, and we truly didn’t even hesitate.  It was an instant decision!

During the last few years, the idea of foster care kept popping up.  (Remember, that’s how this whole thing started).  We didn’t give it any thought at any point. We are a perfectly happy family of 5 who is planning to adopt from Haiti.  Not only that, we have announced it from the rooftops, and we’ve done fundraisers to pay for each step along the way…twice!  Very valid reasons to ignore the foster care thing.  After hearing several times from various people, “you should be foster parents”…we heard from one last person.  She didn’t tell us we should be foster parents at all.  We had no reason to defend our Haiti decision.  She thought it was a noble gesture to be adopting from Haiti and had no intention of swaying us otherwise.  She is the local exchange student coordinator.  (Love her!  She oozes with wisdom that we like to soak up!)  She told us how she & her husband saw a need for good foster parents, so they became licensed and eventually adopted two of the kids they fostered.  She didn’t tell us that we should give up what we thought was right in order to pursue fostering.  We were just told someone else's story, as a matter of fact.  Hmmm...the words echoed, “there’s a real need for good foster parents.”

No.  It would be hard to foster.  How could we give the kids back to their parents?  Another valid reason.  Yet, Ksusha has “real” parents.  She’s going home in 30 days, to be exact.  Yes, but she has GOOD parents.  These kids don’t!  “There’s a real need for good foster parents.” Alright, fine. We’ll do the orientation…AGAIN.  That was December.  We weren’t impressed.  Now what?  “There’s a real need for good foster parents.”  In January, we told our adoption agency that we were going to take a course on becoming foster parents...just to see if it felt right or wrong…it didn’t mean we were committing to becoming licensed after all.  In fact, maybe we could just adopt from the system…not actually foster.  “There’s a real need for good foster parents.”  In February, we received a phone call from Iowa Kids Net. “We have an opening for a course that starts TONIGHT in Cedar Rapids and runs for 10 wks...the class lasts for 3 hours each night.”  Really?  We have so much on our plates already!  Whatever….we just need to start taking the course and we can decide along the way if this is right for us or not.  This is not what we want to do, God…are you listening!?!?!?  We want to ADOPT.   

Silly us.  We finished the 10 week course last Wednesday night.  It was an emotional, wonderful journey that we were initially dreading.  We had a great class, learned an unbelievable amount of “stuff,” and we feel we are prepared to be “joint” parents.  To parent a child who already has a parent.  To parent a child who we have NO rights over.  We cannot even cut the child’s bangs, let alone sign a school permission slip, or tell anyone (not even their teacher) that this child staying with us is our foster child.  We are prepared to parent a child who was taken by a stranger from the only thing they know…it doesn’t matter that it was abusive…that’s the child’s “norm.”  That’s what is comfortable to him/her.  Not a warm bed in our home with a plate full of hot food at the dinner table each night.  We are strangers.  We are NOT who they want.  We are prepared.  They tell us that it’s not a matter of “if” you get turned into DHS with allegations against YOU…either by the birth parent or by the child themselves, it is truly a matter of “when.”  Oh man…that’s a deal breaker, God.  Yet somehow, we’re prepared.  I guess what I’m saying is that we are prepared to ask for help and guidance and to keep our minds open to change and to be willing to learn from those who have dealt with the myriad of issues these kids must deal with.  We are prepared to talk with birth parents and be role models…crazy…our chaotic lives that are so imperfect can actually be used as a role model?  One of the scariest moments is the first interaction with the birth parent.  To call them on that first night when their kids have been removed and say, “I have your child.  I will do everything I can to keep your child safe and comfortable until he/she can come back home with you.”  Meeting birth parents who lost their kids, and learning how important the foster parents were to them in their attempt to straighten out their lives was an emotional eye-opener.  It was the foster parent who one of those birth parents called when all she wanted to do was use meth again.  It was the foster parent who held the phone to the crib, so that birth parent could get through just one more night of sobriety by listening to her baby breathe.  That family is reunited, Mom is clean and sober and teaching US how to be good foster parents.  We are looking forward to reuniting families.  Oh, but it doesn’t end there.  We have chosen to become dually licensed as both foster and adoptive parents.  That way, at any point along the way, if a child is not able to safely return home to his/her parents, we can adopt.  Our licensing worker told us yesterday that she is recommending us to DHS.  It will take about 2 months for the license to be final, and from what they tell us, we will have more placement phone calls than we care to get, so I am sure we will be jumping in with both feet sooner than later.

To everyone who helped with fundraising for our Haitian adoption, and who gave, just to give...we thank you.  We feel the need to apologize for not doing this in the first place.  We are not able to get a refund for any of the expenses we incurred during the process of adopting from Haiti, but we do have some left over which we will donate to Children of the Promise in Cap Haitian, Haiti.  I would call it an orphanage, but that's not all it is.  It’s an oasis whose mission is to heal malnourished kids, reunite them with their families, and provide them with an on-going nourishment program when needed.  Oh, and, yes…they care for orphans as well, and help find them forever families through adoption.  Good people.  That's who they are, and we are happy to send them a donation.

Prayers Without Words

Wow!  It's been a long time, but here I am again!  I must say that the last several months have been a flurry of Orphan Annie activity which took off waaaaaaayyyyy more than I ever intended!  We are now sharing a little shop in Dysart where we are continuing to create and sell our fundraiser items.

But, the real purpose for this post?  My heart needs it!  I have had a LOOOONNNNGGGG four months of traveling about 3 hours each day to see patients at a wonderful nursing facility that I enjoy very much while I'm there.  It's the thought of hitting the road AGAIN and getting home late AGAIN that is wearing me down!  So the other night, I sent the kids to bed early for no good reason...only because I was tired and crabby and they were laughing...how dare people laugh when I'm tired and crabby, right!?!?  So I spent yesterday feeling like a pretty rotten Mom, but then I got a phone call that reminded me this rotten Momma has room for giant hugs, a lap for snuggling, and a heart that's ready for more!  Oh boy,  I feel a bunch of disorganized thoughts coming on, so bare with me in this post!  Disorganized seems to be the theme around here anymore and its wearing on me!

During the last four months, I have allowed myself to feel irritated by little things...just making the crabbies worse.  I'm usually much better about patience and about brushing things off my shoulder.  One thing that had been bothering me was this entire adoption thing.  We had first inquired about this journey a year and a half ago, but last fall Haiti came to a screeching halt for awhile.  They were not accepting new dossiers as they were preparing their systems for Hague Accreditation.  The beginning of March, I emailed our agency to see what the status was in Haiti.  I learned that day that our agency was one of a few that was chosen by Haiti to be an accredited agency.  Great!  Except I also learned that Haiti will currently only allow one adoption per agency per month.  What I didn't know, was whether we'd be one of those families or not.  So the wait began again.

There comes a point in the process when it isn't even real anymore.  When I started questioning God about whether this is really what we were suppose to be doing or not...because if it is, surely we would be moving a little faster, wouldn't we?  We met some wonderful families along the way who were in the midst of adoptions, and both have brought their families together this year...yet we wait.  My standard answer to people's questions has become, "we're at a standstill." 

God seems to know when we need a standstill, even if we do not.  I have felt the world on my shoulders in the last few weeks, only compounded by that darn 3 hours seemingly wasted each day doing nothing but driving when I have so much to do.  I must say, there is no sugar coating that dreaded drive...I still see it as nothing but a giant stresser to me.

But it was during that drive yesterday that I received that phone call.  I really needed a rainbow in my rainy "rotten Momma" day.  It was a call from our agency that I had been not-so-patiently waiting for since the beginning of March.  We are the family being selected to submit our dossier in September (remember, one family per month).  That means we HAVE TO BE READY.  We were ONE WEEK away from being required to pay for another FULL home steady (a couple thousand dollars...so its a big deal), but that phone call yesterday was just in time for us to squeak in with a simple update.  It's still an expense, and its still re-doing everything we had previously done, but we feel like the ball is rolling again and we feel like it was a blessing in the midst of what I have felt has been a storm of stress.

That same phone call went a little farther as well.  She told us that she would like to match us with a different orphanage than she originally had chosen, this one is called Children of the Promise in Cap Hatian, Haiti.  It is said to be an "oasis" in the midst of this third world country.  I have been very impressed by everything that I have seen and read so far.  She also talked about a specific child she would like to match us with and is going to get the development and medical info for us to review.  The problem is that Haiti has made a change...they no longer allow the agencies to have any say...their social services department will choose.  There are a few exceptions and this little one MAY fall into that exception, so we are waiting to see.  Children of the Promise has a website with photos of  their kids, and I'm pretty sure I know which child she was referring to.  So while I'm very much aware that this may NOT be our child, it is exciting to know that this one MIGHT be ours! It at least makes this process seem real again!

Now we are starting a flurry of activity once again as we are having to re-do almost everything.  This time it MUST be done by the first half of June or there will not be time for translation before submitting in September.  My recent prayers have been filled with pleas for patience and guidance and removal of the load I felt I was bearing.  I still feel like I'm bearing a heavy weight...that drive is my nemesis that I feel pulls me away from my family and I'm struggling with viewing it in any other way...it brings me to tears, quite honestly!

So, I need prayers.  I need to find some peace in the midst of what feels like chaos right now!  I need to find the right speech therapist to take my place, so I'm not "wasting" my drive any longer, so I can be here to pick my kids up from school and not be a crabby Momma any longer.  We also need prayers for our Orphan Annie's business, as this is the driver of dollars for this adoption and we are going to need LOTS of it by September!  I have prayers right now that have no words, but thankfully, I have a God who knows what those prayers are, even when I'm not sure.

Orphan Annie's: be-YOU-tiful in the making!

Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy!  We have been working like crazy over the last two weeks, and our laundry piles show it!  Two weeks ago, we decided to take our creative juices to a new level and raise some money for our adoption.  We have been dappling here and there in various creations that we have sold to raise money; however, the last two weeks have been intense!  We decided to purchase a space at the Little Prairie Girl Barn Sale, and feel like we were incredibly blessed to get a great space inside their barn...we had expected to start with an outside space, hoping to find room in the barn "some day."   Prairie Girl just started her sale weekends in March, and has wildly successful shows! 

Friday night was literally shoulder to shoulder at times...crazy busy!  Saturday was also amazingly busy...slowing down just a bit at the end.  Morgan was along for the duration both days, and LOVED being a shop "owner."  As people would purchase items, Morgan would help re-arrange and straighten things up a bit to keep our space looking good.  Then, despite pure exhaustian afterwards, the two of us teamed up for a "junking" Good Will adventure where we found several orphaned treasures that are beauty-waiting-to-happen!  Our new business adventure is called "Orphan Annie's"...with 100% of our procedes going toward our adoption...and once we have funded our own, we will be raising funds for others who are wanting to adopt.  Thus the concept of "Orphan Annie's"... orphaned items re-created to help actual orphans.

We sold the last of our Haiti fundraiser bracelets...pretty amazing to have sold 250 of them in less than 4 weeks!  We will be sending off those funds to The Apparent Project this week, and will request more in time for Prairie Girl's October sale. 

Here is a peak at some of our favorite items...some of them are still available, so let us know if you are interested in these pieces!

I do love this little desk...perfect for a boys' room.  It says, "Work hard. Play hard" on the surface and comes with the little stool.  It was an ugly little thing that I picked up at a used furniture store in Sheffield.  I had a different vision in mind when I bought it, but after I made a mistake in my painting technique, it turned into this rustic little thing...I love it...there are truly no mistakes in this biz...only re-direction & re-invention!  And paired with the gigantic, old, wooden "No Parking" sign donated by a friend helping our cause...it is even more cool!

Oh, yes!  This is my favorite dresser ever!  It was an ugly find from a used-treasure store in Hampton.  He is now called "Dapper Dan" and is filled with classiness.  Morgan wants to keep it! 

"It is Well with my Soul" signs are another of my favorites.  They serve as a gentle reminder that

"when peace like a river attendeth my way, when sorrows like sea billows roll...whatever my lot thou hast taught me to say, 'it is well, it is well with my soul'.....no pang shall be mine for in death as in life thou wilt whisper thy peace to my soul."

And here is an old pallett-turned-wall shelf.  With its yellow background and water spicket flowers, it is its own little piece of sunshine!

Speaking of sunshine...I found this little rocker at an estate sale filled with dusty, dirty, rusted out goodness!  She did not look very sunshin-y when I found her, but what a cutey she is now!

My favorite garage sale find?  A pair of water skis that Bruce skillfully turned into a leaning ladder-type shelf.  It's pretty cool, I must say!  Oh, and the Pepsi crate on the top shelf...matchbox car storage...perfect!  I went out of my way at this sale to create cool things for boys, because it is so very easy to create cool things for girls, and I think those little guys get left out!

Somehow, someday, I will get better at this blogging thing.  For instance, I don't know why my photos are little, and I don't know how to fix it!

Take care...I'm off to tackle the laundry pile!  (in between putting a first coat of paint on one of my latest finds, of course!)

A girl named "Lovely"

Bruce and I brought the girls to Missouri for a wedding we will be attending tomorrow night.  Carson had NO DESIRE to drive 8 hours to go to a wedding, so he is hanging out with Grandpa...the girls on the other hand, are excited to see the princess-like vision of a wedding they have in their minds come to life!  So, knowing that we are pinching pennies as we save up for our adoption, we settled for a hotel that looked like it would be clean and that had a nice-ish looking pool.  Of course, online photos don't tell you that the room smells like an old grandma house that has been shut up for years.  It doesn't show that the 1982 "gold" plated lamps are tarnished or that the hunter green carpet is torn by the door.  Oh, and the funny thing about the pool...that is actually kind of decent...its in a huge open area with a wedding set up for tomorrow...facing the pool!   And there is a teddy bear wearing a wedding gown on the guest book table.  Its kind of funny.  I'm pretty sure the wedding we are attending tomorrow will not be amidst a bunch of strangers in swimsuits splashing around in a cheap hotel pool.  Actually, by the looks of it...we will be attending two weddings!  One just happens to be one we were NOT invited to...and we will be attending in our swimsuits!  Egads...I already don't want to take off my swim suit cover-up, and now I have aisles of chairs lined up to watch me take off my swim suit cover-up.  Oh boy.

I was really going to try not to complain in this post, but there is this human part of me that just cringes at the thought of touching my bare feet on the carpet below me.  Why am I like that???

So where does the perspective come in?  The gentle reminder that I should appreciate what I have no matter what?  It came in a box.  A box marked "Priority Mail."  It arrived just as we were leaving home...our big comfy home that is pretty.  We don't have lamps from 1982 and our carpet was freshly vacuumed last night.  (although I DO have a problem with my cat opening the door of the armoire in our bedroom, then opening the drawer that's inside of the door, and then shoving all of my socks onto the floor.  Basically, my house is bigger and prettier than my hotel room, but at least the hotel room doesn't have a naughty cat)  In fact, I wouldn't even CONSIDER having this ugly lamp on my end table at home.  If my carpet looked like this ugly hotel carpet, I would not sit on it or touch my bare feet to it...in fact, I would pull it up and get rid of it right away.  These are the thoughts running through my head as we are searching for cancellation information on this tacky, icky, not-as-cheap-as-you-would-expect hotel room.

So, we open our Priority Mail box, excited to see the treasures inside!  We have been waiting for this box to arrive...so much so, that I brought it with us!  I opened it at home and had a sneak peak, but didn't really look it over good until I sunk into the lumpy hotel mattress that is sure to leave me with aches and pains in the morning.  Bracelets...250 of them!  Bracelets made by the people of Haiti.  Hard-working people who are trying to keep their families together and put food on their tables.  I started reading the information about the various artists on the individual bracelet tags.  There is Vesline.  She lives in a tent and is hoping to earn money from her bracelets to go to school and become a seamstress.  Marise lost her husband in the earthquake, and she now lives in a tent with her 2 kids.  She is saving money in hopes of sending her oldest child to school.  Blondina lives in a tent with her mother and two babies.  She is hoping to earn enough to be able to rent a house.  And then there is Lovely.  She lives in a tent with her husband and three children.  She wants to earn enough money to rent a house and buy a bed & some furniture...she steals my heart.  Even as a kid, I would go straight to the back of the Sears catalog...to the section with bedding and furniture.  I would dream of having my own house with my own bed and furniture.

Thank-you "Priority Mail" for putting things back into perspective.  Reminding me of my priorities...I had no idea that was what Priority Mail was for!  Right now, our priority is saving our money to bring our adopted child home.  Our child who probably once lived in a tent, ate a mud cookie, and slept on the hard ground.  I look forward to bringing that child home to a soft bed, a CHOCOLATE CHIP cookie, and a naughty cat...but to do that...I have to stay in this ugly hotel and appreciate the fact that I have something more sturdy than a tent overhead.

So I'm now going to climb into bed and be thankful for the lumpiness of a hotel mattress while Lovely is sleeping across the ocean...with the lumpiness of dirt and rocks beneath her...just hoping that I will sell her bracelets so she can buy a bed.  I will give it my best, Lovely...I really will.

Faith & Foresight

Oh my goodness...we thought the Haiti door had closed loud and clear when we heard back from USCIS that there was nothing we could do about sending the wrong amount of money with our Orphan Petition.  But that door opened back up on Monday after talking with our agency.  We are still okay in Haiti...don't totally understand the details, but apparently the final step to becoming Hague accredited has not yet gone through the proper channels.  Once that is received in the U.S., there will be a 90-day window that allows adoptions to procede as usual.  So we are still okay!  Praises, praises, and more praises are being sent to our faithful God!

So what was the purpose of the many bumps along the way?  Roadblocks that seemed to be pointing us in a totally different direction?  Well, Bruce and I spent four days thinking we had to choose a different country, potentially an entirely new agency.  That led us to several other agencies' websites, searching again through listings of "waiting children."  These waiting children are kids who are harder to adopt...either because they are older than what most adoptive parents are looking for, or they are part of a sibling group, or they have some sort of special need (medical, developmental, behavioral, etc).

Previously, we applied to adopt a "healthy" child between the ages of 0-5.  While searching for the right answers in those four days of limbo, we found ourselves being drawn to a couple of little boys who would not have met our "healthy" child standard.  These little boys are not from Haiti or another country that our agency works in, so they are not going to be ours...but these little boys made us search deep within ouselves to find out what we really do think we can handle.  Each of these boys had developmental delays related to medical complications as infants...both were three years old and receiving speech and physical therapies.  Well, goodness gracious!  I AM a speech therapist!  And we DO own a therapy company, for crying out loud!  We have our very own physical and occupational therapists.  Why WOULDN'T we consider special needs? 

Gosh, when we hear that everything happens for a reason, it is so very true.  Hindsight is so clear while foresight just requires faith.  Faith that God knows EXACTLY what He is doing, even when we have no idea why.