Wednesday, December 24, 2008
The Grinch Didn't Steal It
Every year we celebrate Christmas on the 24th at home and then on the 25th at my mother's. So today was the day. Will post some pics later but had to share a quote from Vitalik: "This was the best Christmas ever. The grinch didn't steal it!" Any of you with children who came by way of adoption will know that the Grinch often steals the fun out of special days. But our day so far has been blessed with peace and happiness. Vitalik, in fact, said he was so happy, he wasn't even hungry! Now that, my friends, is happiness! So we pause for a moment during our busy, fun and incredibly special day, to wish you all the happiest of Christmases that even the Grinch cannot steal!
Sunday, December 21, 2008
I'm For You, Vitalik
We met Vitalik the summer of 2007. I have told the story before of how God whispered to my heart "that is your son" as I stood in the Hall's kitchen. When I left the Hall's that evening, it was with a great burden, for I did not know if we would be able to adopt Vitalik; I only knew that we must take care of him as we would a son. As I pondered this burden, Toby Mac's song "I'm for You" came on the radio.
Tell me where its hurting
Are you burning?
Running just to catch your breath
And going nowhere
It's getting old when you feel like you got nothing left
Well it ain't over 'til its over
I told you since the day we met
So let me be the voice through all the noise
Whatever I gotta be
I'll be for you
Whatever you need from me
To see you through
Everyone of us has stumbled
Everybody's humbled
We hit the ground and our lives crumble
Whatever I gotta be
I'll be for you
I'm for you
If you never knew .....
So that became my song for Vitalik. Everytime I heard it on the radio I would recommit myslef to doing whatever I could for this boy so far away. Toby Mac is one of my favorite Christian artists and we saw him several times during the year we waited to adopt Vitalik. Every time we would go to one of his concerts, I would long for the day that Vitalik could attend with us. I told Vitalik about this song; sent him the translation in Russian; let him listen to it when we visited. He acted nonchalant about it. Then when we were in Ukraine adopting I would catch him often listneing to the song on the Ipod, over and over. Then I began to catch him singing it as he went about his day.
A few weeks ago, we attended another Toby Mac concert and this time Vitalik and Eli were able to go with us. Vitalik kept asking (or shouting in my ear, rather) "when he sing I'm for you?" We both anxiously awaited the song that spoke of this mother's commitment to her son: "whatever I gotta be, I'll be for you...." When the song started, I put my arm around him and tried singing it to him. In his best teenage boy fashion, he shrugged me off with "Ah, Mom." But then I noticed during the rest of the song, he was watching me sing, not Toby Mac. It was a moment a mother treasures in her heart for a lifetime.
Has anyone on this earth ever been "for" Vitalik? Before now, I mean? Has anyone ever lent an understanding ear:
I know the feeling
I know its real when the drama's all in your face
You see a mountain
I hear a promise “ its never more than we can take"
Well it ain't over, 'til it's over
We can turn from our mistakes
So let me be the voice through all the noise.....
My dear sweet son, there is a God who understands. A God who has promised that he is for us, not against us. He has promised to never leave us or forsake us. It is only because of his promises to me that I can say the same to you. I am FOR you. I will always be FOR you. And I am so happy that you were by my side in Huntsville, Alabama, along with your brother and sister and friends listening to Toby Mac sing my song to you.
Saturday, December 20, 2008
The other side of the story
In a recent post, I wanted to discourage the fear some have of adopting older children. In this post, I want to encourage anyone considering adoption to do all they can to prepare for issues that may arise after an adoption. It is my personal opinion that there are certain potential problems that can be averted if you understand where a child is coming from. These thoughts have been prompted by a discussion on a yahoo group that I am part of. They have been discussing the issue of whether or not hosting a child before adoption will help prevent problems such as were recently presented on the television program, 20/20. That particular program exposed some very serious issues with some children that had been adopted from Russia. Sometimes these issues can be serious enough that people "disrupt" the adoption, a way of saying families voluntarily give up their rights to their adopted child and seek placement elsewhere.
Because the issues that our boys have are relatively mild, I cannot speak to why parents disrupt adoption. I can speak to the issue of hosting, however, and I know enough through our experience and speaking with friends who have adopted to encourage adopting parents to BE PREPARED. I think that I can honestly say that if anyone starts the adoption process needing a guarantee that their child will not have any psychological issues, they need to rethink adoption. It is virtually a guarantee that they will have issues of some sort. Some issues may be apparent during hosting; others will not. It is very important to read, read, read everything you can on post-institutionalized children, not so that you can weed out the undesirables, but so that you, as the parent, can appropriately respond to whatever happens along the way. In a previous post, I relayed the sunny side of adoption via Eli’s story; you can be assured, however, that my children are insecure (who wouldn’t be in their shoes?), fearful of failure and abandonment, afraid to love, hypervigilant, and a host of other things.
There is much about the personalities and behaviors of our children that bear this out. For example, our oldest is especially prone to saying exactly what he does not mean. “I want to go back to Ukraine” means “I am scared you are going to send me back to Ukraine.” One poster on the yahoo group commented that she has told her adopted daughter that she would take her back to the orphanage and let them find her another family. I know that my boys have that fear and are going to test me to see if they are correct in their fear that I would abandon them. Our oldest will go through a list of things, asking “If I do this, will you send me back to Ukraine?” He always shows astonishment that NO MATTER WHAT I will not send him back to Ukraine. Yes, he often begs to go back, but that is just so he can hurt me before I am able to hurt him by sending him back.
There are also habits ingrained in an older child that will take time to break. These are often sinful habits. One of our boys has the habit of lying. All the time. About everything. What is helping more than anything with this bad habit is simply recognizing it for what it is and addressing it directly. "Honey, thats a lie. I know for many years you felt like you had to lie and it has become a bad habit. You have to start practicing telling the truth so that truth-telling can become a habit. So let's try that again." And we will rehearse the truth. In certain situations, he still gets offended by this exchange but most of the time he goes along with the "re-programming". This same child also balks at obedience. I attribute his resistance to authority to his never having had reliable authority figures in his life that he could trust were putting his best interests first. In other words, he is fearful of obedience. But at least he is learning that obedience to parents is the foundation of successful family life and he is willing to put forth the effort toward improvement.
Our other child’s issues are less challenging but still require understanding. He is unable to do much at all without direct instructions. Even when told to do something like “plug in the Christmas tree lights”, he will ask a dozen times “Can I plug in the Christmas tree lights, Mom?” before he actually does it. He apologizes constantly, for what I don’t know. He is a very smart, thoughtful child, but often becomes so engrossed in thought that we can all get up from a table at a restaurant, walk to the door, and leaving him sitting there not aware that we have left. He is unable to "play" on his own. He often chatters about nothing continuously. He told me once that he does that so that I will not forget that he is here. Minor stuff, but there are psychological issues at the root. Might any of these issues manifest themselves in more serious ways as they get older? Yes, they might. Would I love them any less? No way. But the point I want to make is that if you are not prepared for even these minor issues, they can easily escalate into more volatile ones.
There is so much patience and understanding required. My kids want to be underfoot at all times. They are constantly accusing me of loving the other more. They bicker over everything. They fight for my attention. It is not an easy task by any means and I wanted to make sure that my previous post did not come across that way. Even Eli has difficult moments. But with the right attitude, the proper preparation, and by the grace of God, we can grant these precious children the gift of family that they so need and deserve.
I, personally, could never have considered adoption had God not been a part of the equation. He called my husband and me to this task and He equips us to handle the realities of it. I would never, in my own strength, be able to handle the challenges of adoption, even with children whose issues are comparatively mild. It is only by grace that we were able to begin this process and it is only by grace that we are able to persevere daily. Adoption is not for the weak, the prideful, or the idealistic. But neither is parenthood of any sort. All of life is a gamble on our side. That is why I, personally, find faith indispensable. If we can see everyone, our children and especially ourselves, as sinners in need of grace and mercy, we can forgive, we can overlook, we can perservere, we can love sacrificially. But even as Christians we should not take the call to adopt lightly and refuse to be prepared for the challenges. There will, without a doubt, be challenges and to think otherwise is to ignore reality.
Because the issues that our boys have are relatively mild, I cannot speak to why parents disrupt adoption. I can speak to the issue of hosting, however, and I know enough through our experience and speaking with friends who have adopted to encourage adopting parents to BE PREPARED. I think that I can honestly say that if anyone starts the adoption process needing a guarantee that their child will not have any psychological issues, they need to rethink adoption. It is virtually a guarantee that they will have issues of some sort. Some issues may be apparent during hosting; others will not. It is very important to read, read, read everything you can on post-institutionalized children, not so that you can weed out the undesirables, but so that you, as the parent, can appropriately respond to whatever happens along the way. In a previous post, I relayed the sunny side of adoption via Eli’s story; you can be assured, however, that my children are insecure (who wouldn’t be in their shoes?), fearful of failure and abandonment, afraid to love, hypervigilant, and a host of other things.
There is much about the personalities and behaviors of our children that bear this out. For example, our oldest is especially prone to saying exactly what he does not mean. “I want to go back to Ukraine” means “I am scared you are going to send me back to Ukraine.” One poster on the yahoo group commented that she has told her adopted daughter that she would take her back to the orphanage and let them find her another family. I know that my boys have that fear and are going to test me to see if they are correct in their fear that I would abandon them. Our oldest will go through a list of things, asking “If I do this, will you send me back to Ukraine?” He always shows astonishment that NO MATTER WHAT I will not send him back to Ukraine. Yes, he often begs to go back, but that is just so he can hurt me before I am able to hurt him by sending him back.
There are also habits ingrained in an older child that will take time to break. These are often sinful habits. One of our boys has the habit of lying. All the time. About everything. What is helping more than anything with this bad habit is simply recognizing it for what it is and addressing it directly. "Honey, thats a lie. I know for many years you felt like you had to lie and it has become a bad habit. You have to start practicing telling the truth so that truth-telling can become a habit. So let's try that again." And we will rehearse the truth. In certain situations, he still gets offended by this exchange but most of the time he goes along with the "re-programming". This same child also balks at obedience. I attribute his resistance to authority to his never having had reliable authority figures in his life that he could trust were putting his best interests first. In other words, he is fearful of obedience. But at least he is learning that obedience to parents is the foundation of successful family life and he is willing to put forth the effort toward improvement.
Our other child’s issues are less challenging but still require understanding. He is unable to do much at all without direct instructions. Even when told to do something like “plug in the Christmas tree lights”, he will ask a dozen times “Can I plug in the Christmas tree lights, Mom?” before he actually does it. He apologizes constantly, for what I don’t know. He is a very smart, thoughtful child, but often becomes so engrossed in thought that we can all get up from a table at a restaurant, walk to the door, and leaving him sitting there not aware that we have left. He is unable to "play" on his own. He often chatters about nothing continuously. He told me once that he does that so that I will not forget that he is here. Minor stuff, but there are psychological issues at the root. Might any of these issues manifest themselves in more serious ways as they get older? Yes, they might. Would I love them any less? No way. But the point I want to make is that if you are not prepared for even these minor issues, they can easily escalate into more volatile ones.
There is so much patience and understanding required. My kids want to be underfoot at all times. They are constantly accusing me of loving the other more. They bicker over everything. They fight for my attention. It is not an easy task by any means and I wanted to make sure that my previous post did not come across that way. Even Eli has difficult moments. But with the right attitude, the proper preparation, and by the grace of God, we can grant these precious children the gift of family that they so need and deserve.
I, personally, could never have considered adoption had God not been a part of the equation. He called my husband and me to this task and He equips us to handle the realities of it. I would never, in my own strength, be able to handle the challenges of adoption, even with children whose issues are comparatively mild. It is only by grace that we were able to begin this process and it is only by grace that we are able to persevere daily. Adoption is not for the weak, the prideful, or the idealistic. But neither is parenthood of any sort. All of life is a gamble on our side. That is why I, personally, find faith indispensable. If we can see everyone, our children and especially ourselves, as sinners in need of grace and mercy, we can forgive, we can overlook, we can perservere, we can love sacrificially. But even as Christians we should not take the call to adopt lightly and refuse to be prepared for the challenges. There will, without a doubt, be challenges and to think otherwise is to ignore reality.
Monday, December 15, 2008
Redemption
So many facets of adoption remind me of God's love for me. One day last month, our son felt the need to just get away and out he went into the cold pouring rain. Several hours later he was at the front door, not asking to be let in, but asking for dry clothes. He was cold, wet, and bedraggled. We would have let him in if that had been what he wanted. But the question we were faced with that day was: do we give him dry clothes so that he an go walk around some more in the cold rain? What a picture of the smallness of our faith oftentimes as we go before the great and mighty God of the universe. Even as His adopted children, we often go to God asking for nothing more than "dry clothes" when he wants to give new life, an abundant life, blessings beyond measure. He says to us, "Come in out of the cold rain; find love and warmth in Me." And we say, "Can I just get some dry clothes and stay in this cold, harsh, but familiar world?" I am convicted anew today of my wanderings away from the love of my Father and thankful that as I return, just as our son did, He opens the door and welcomes me back into fellowship with him.
This was brought to mind today when I came across this blog post from a couple in Ukraine adopting. I have taken out the names to protect their privacy; but what a beautiful essay on redemption:
R and I are sitting in the office of a telephone company in Ukraine; using wireless internet. We are in the middle of adopting three special needs boys from an orphanage here. Two of the boys have Down Syndrome. R is high functioning, energetic, and happy; D has serious mental retardation, failure to thrive, and though he is five years old, he is the size of a 1 yr old. He has sores on his face, a distinct smell of death on him, and yells out if we try to do anything with him other than hold him. Because he has less ability to respond and learn, he naturally gets less attention and care from the orphanage workers in this world of limited resources. The harsh reality of the “survival of the fittest” principle is a life and death struggle that this little boy is losing fast. Our third boy S, is a brilliant six year old who has Spina Bifida (the condition our son Josiah died from in 1996). He is like a learning sponge that can’t get enough! He is happy and alert and thirsty for knowledge and experience. So with two of our boys we get an immediate return on any investment we make. With D, there’s not much immediate gratification. In fact, it’s unknown when and if there will be a return at all. This is the kind of situation that makes the carnal, fallen, human reasoning think, “Why try? What’s the point? What will this produce? What good will this do? Why not select a boy who has more “potential”? This looks like a lost cause”.
Two days ago we drove for hours into the Ukrainian countryside to the village where D was born. We met with officials there and signed papers and answered their questions. We also went and saw D’s house. The day had been long, we were still recovering from jet lag, I was beginning to really miss my six daughters at home and all the familiar things our fragile human hearts entangle themselves with in feeble attempts to feel secure. Sitting in the dark on our very long drive back to Novograd that night, the Holy Spirit began to whisper to my heart, and new understanding about redemption began to take shape.
I was thinking, “Man, adopting this little boy has been so much work. This is exhausting, expensive, uncomfortable ... and it doesn’t feel very rewarding right now.” What am I doing in some little Soviet car in the dark, in the middle of rural Ukraine in frozen December, as the driver dodges cats and potholes? What if D doesn’t improve at all? What if we get “nothing” out of this? … Ahhh, there it was; that dark, fallen, unreedemed, selfish human love, rooted in the tree of the knowledge of “good and evil”. The love the Greeks called “erao” love. The love where we treat someone as precious and treasured for what we can get out of it. This is unlike “agapeo” love, the God kind of love that treats someone as treasured and precious for their good, not for my good. It’s when I love a person in order to meet their needs, having no expectation of them meeting any of my needs. At a whole new level, God is working His kind of love into my weak heart, and He’s using little D to do it.
On the drive home that night, the Lord whispered in my ear, “This is Redemption. D, do you know how far I travelled to get you and bring you back? I had to be separated from my Son, in order to get you, just like you are separated from your children in order to get these boys. Do you know how expensive it was for Me to purchase you? It cost me everything. Do you know how broken, sick, damaged, twisted, dirty, smelly, and hopeless you were? And at the end of it all, you had nothing to give me or add to me. I did it for you. I emptied myself and became nothing so that you could have it all. This is redemption.
My friends, adoption is redemption. It’s costly, exhausting, expensive, and outrageous. Buying back lives costs so much. When God set out to redeem us, it killed Him. And when He redeems us, we can’t even really appreciate or comprehend it, just like D will never comprehend or fully appreciate what is about to happen to him … but … he will live in the fruit of it. As his Daddy, I will never expect him to understand all of this or even to thank me. I just want to watch him live in the benefits of my love and experience the joys of being an heir in my family. This is how our heavenly “Papa” feels towards us.
Today, settle your busy heart down and rest in the benefits of redemption. Enjoy the fruits of His goodness, and stop trying to “pay Him back”. You'll never get close you goofy little kid.
This was brought to mind today when I came across this blog post from a couple in Ukraine adopting. I have taken out the names to protect their privacy; but what a beautiful essay on redemption:
R and I are sitting in the office of a telephone company in Ukraine; using wireless internet. We are in the middle of adopting three special needs boys from an orphanage here. Two of the boys have Down Syndrome. R is high functioning, energetic, and happy; D has serious mental retardation, failure to thrive, and though he is five years old, he is the size of a 1 yr old. He has sores on his face, a distinct smell of death on him, and yells out if we try to do anything with him other than hold him. Because he has less ability to respond and learn, he naturally gets less attention and care from the orphanage workers in this world of limited resources. The harsh reality of the “survival of the fittest” principle is a life and death struggle that this little boy is losing fast. Our third boy S, is a brilliant six year old who has Spina Bifida (the condition our son Josiah died from in 1996). He is like a learning sponge that can’t get enough! He is happy and alert and thirsty for knowledge and experience. So with two of our boys we get an immediate return on any investment we make. With D, there’s not much immediate gratification. In fact, it’s unknown when and if there will be a return at all. This is the kind of situation that makes the carnal, fallen, human reasoning think, “Why try? What’s the point? What will this produce? What good will this do? Why not select a boy who has more “potential”? This looks like a lost cause”.
Two days ago we drove for hours into the Ukrainian countryside to the village where D was born. We met with officials there and signed papers and answered their questions. We also went and saw D’s house. The day had been long, we were still recovering from jet lag, I was beginning to really miss my six daughters at home and all the familiar things our fragile human hearts entangle themselves with in feeble attempts to feel secure. Sitting in the dark on our very long drive back to Novograd that night, the Holy Spirit began to whisper to my heart, and new understanding about redemption began to take shape.
I was thinking, “Man, adopting this little boy has been so much work. This is exhausting, expensive, uncomfortable ... and it doesn’t feel very rewarding right now.” What am I doing in some little Soviet car in the dark, in the middle of rural Ukraine in frozen December, as the driver dodges cats and potholes? What if D doesn’t improve at all? What if we get “nothing” out of this? … Ahhh, there it was; that dark, fallen, unreedemed, selfish human love, rooted in the tree of the knowledge of “good and evil”. The love the Greeks called “erao” love. The love where we treat someone as precious and treasured for what we can get out of it. This is unlike “agapeo” love, the God kind of love that treats someone as treasured and precious for their good, not for my good. It’s when I love a person in order to meet their needs, having no expectation of them meeting any of my needs. At a whole new level, God is working His kind of love into my weak heart, and He’s using little D to do it.
On the drive home that night, the Lord whispered in my ear, “This is Redemption. D, do you know how far I travelled to get you and bring you back? I had to be separated from my Son, in order to get you, just like you are separated from your children in order to get these boys. Do you know how expensive it was for Me to purchase you? It cost me everything. Do you know how broken, sick, damaged, twisted, dirty, smelly, and hopeless you were? And at the end of it all, you had nothing to give me or add to me. I did it for you. I emptied myself and became nothing so that you could have it all. This is redemption.
My friends, adoption is redemption. It’s costly, exhausting, expensive, and outrageous. Buying back lives costs so much. When God set out to redeem us, it killed Him. And when He redeems us, we can’t even really appreciate or comprehend it, just like D will never comprehend or fully appreciate what is about to happen to him … but … he will live in the fruit of it. As his Daddy, I will never expect him to understand all of this or even to thank me. I just want to watch him live in the benefits of my love and experience the joys of being an heir in my family. This is how our heavenly “Papa” feels towards us.
Today, settle your busy heart down and rest in the benefits of redemption. Enjoy the fruits of His goodness, and stop trying to “pay Him back”. You'll never get close you goofy little kid.
Tuesday, December 9, 2008
Happy Birthday, Dear Eli, Happy Birthday to You!
There are a lot of things you hear and read about internationally adopted children; a lot of them are very accurate but they do not all apply universally. I am not generally one to tell others that I have great kids but I want to take this opportunity to tell people not to be scared of adopting older foreign born children and I am going to do it by bragging on the birthday boy. Eli turned 11 December 1, 2008. I gotta tell you, this boy breaks all stereotypes. He has never asked to be “returned” to Ukraine and is aghast at the mere suggestion of it. He tells me quite often how happy he is to have been adopted, thanking Gabe and I for adopting him and “for everything” we have done for him. He got money for his birthday, we took him to Target and he came home with one item and most of his cash left over; he wants for nothing. The rest of the kids have Christmas lists but there is genuinely nothing he can think of that he would like. However, he expects and trusts that we will be generous to him at Christmas time. The boy is smart as a whip; excels at English; and is willing to admit when he does not know something. He is anxious to learn new things and will even ask to do extra lessons in math! He is willing to share anything and everything about his past without shame. He is honest and thoughtful and has compassion on others. Granted, he is not perfect. He is easily offended and often quickly resorts to pouting. But God has had such mercy on Him. Yes, God. There is no way this child could have come through his first 10 years unscathed but for the hand of God in his life. He has a testimony of God’s faithfulness on his lips. He prayed for a family and knows that God heard his cries. He knows that Christ came into the world and died to save him from him sins. He understands that God is loving and tender and cares for him. I thank God for Roman Elijah Davie. I thank God for all He did in his life prior to July 2008. I thank God for missionaries like Shane Duke who faithfully shared the gospel with him and the other children in his orphanage. I think God for bringing him to America in the summer of 2007. Eli says that there are two days he will never forget. One is the day his first Papa left him, his brother and his mother. The other is the day he was adopted by a new Papa and Mama. May the Lord continue to always bring comfort, goodness and love where Satan means him harm. Happy Birthday, son.
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