Party Like the Angels

The Boss and Lucky have been attending AWANA Club at the church where their favorite VBS of the summer was held.

Lucky basically uses it as a time to chase her friends around the parking lot but it has been a cool experience for The Boss as he is very goal driven and loves cranking through the book to win badges and awards. Pretty darn cute. He is in the "Sparks" group and has thus far memorized John 3:16, 1 John 4:14, Psalm 147:5, 1 Corinthians 15:3, and 1 Corinthians 15:4.

I'm amazed at his ability to memorize a verse each week along with the concepts that go along with it, at least on a kindergartener's level (i.e. sin is the bad things we say, do, and think; perish means to be separated from God forever, etc.) He is at this very moment hounding me to iron-on the new hang glider badge he earned last week onto his vest for tonight.

Best of all, he has been given more advanced language to talk about the things of God and I had the happy privilege of praying with him a few weeks ago as he trusted Jesus as his Savior.

Party on all of Heaven!

This is Fun

I was poking around YouTube looking for something else and I came across this video from our church a few years ago. It is from the day that my daughters and three of our foster kids were baptized (back then they were all still foster kids, I guess). There are a few quick glimpses of them in there. Kinda cool. Baptism days at our church are crazy awesome.

Crazy Love

Just finished this very intriguing book by Francis Chan.

I've been outside of my comfort zone so long that I've been spending too much time recently missing my safety "bubble". No more! My life is far too comfortable and not radical enough.

Ana and I sold our house and quit our jobs so we could commit our resources and time to meeting the needs of hurting kids in the foster care system. Our finances and ourselves got pretty used up and beat up along the way. We've done what we could but so far haven't been doing it long enough (only eight years) to even have any success stories. Most of the kids have moved on and we will never know the rest of their stories. We've given our lives to caring for and loving kids who often hate us or steal and destroy our stuff in return.

When we began to feel resentful that our stuff was getting ruined we sold it or gave it away so that we would not be tempted to love stuff and comfort more than the kids. We needed the cars so we couldn't get rid of those but now we view them as "just stuff" too, tools to be used to help others. The intentional scratches, dents, and dings inflicted by the kids on my once-nice car bear witness to the troubled, angry kids that God has allowed us to care for. When we heard through our church that a recently widowed young woman with six children had lost her van we were able to give her one of ours....because it wasn't really ours any more anyway. We gave it over to God for his use and purposes as we did with all of our remaining belongings.

I like to take charge and be in control of my surroundings and Ana loves peace and hates conflict. How did we end up living lives of such constant conflict with situations over which we have no control? And to be honest, most days it doesn't feel like we're all that great at it. Nothing showed me more vividly what a wretched person I can be than having to live with and love people who are hateful, mean, destructive, and often give nothing back at all. It was so easy to love those in my "bubble" who loved me back (or at least pretended to). The "bubble" was such a nice place to live, work, and play. If not for the love of God and the desire to do what he commands, I'd be there still. I once visited a church that had a sign over the door going out into the world that read "You Are Now Entering Your Mission Field". I need that same sign over the door going into my home.

Crazy stuff. But not crazy enough to match the amazing, overwhelming, radical love of Jesus. What else can I do or give up so that my kids will know how crazy God is about them? How can I reach more kids? How can we help families who have taken in these hurting kids and had their lives turned upside down because of it?

I can't wait to find out.

Where Credit is Due

Last Sunday I felt some twinges of guilt and regret as our pastor talked about honoring others and gave an example of honoring your kids. Ouch. Often I feel very dishonored by my teenaged kids, especially my middle child. I go into "survival" mode and it becomes difficult to honor the good things about them the way I should. I decided last week that I would do better at that even when it is not reciprocated.

So Squeaker went ahead and had a gnarly, hate-the-world-and-everyone-in-it week as if to put my fledgling commitment to the test.

She screamed, stomped, sassed, cussed, slammed, eye-rolled, over-reacted, ignored, cried and even got kicked out of after-school tutoring after just three days for her "nasty, negative" attitude.

However, this week she also reconciled with her adult sister, offered to help out in the kitchen, got along with Lucky, recovered from a tantrum and improved her behavior, pulled a failing grade up to a passing one, got an A on project that she completed without any prompting, did all of her chores every day, and braved school each day even though she hates half her teachers and she feels like she has no friends.

I'm pretty proud of her.

Love is Spelled R-I-S-K

Someone's got short-timer's attitude big time around here. It probably would have been better for Sparky to move the day things were decided in court but it's a long weekend and the social worker didn't want to do any paperwork until after the holiday. The required 7-day notice has stretched into 3 weeks.

Every time Sparky gets an answer he doesn't like he says, "That's why I'm glad I'm leaving." When we remind him to follow the rules or comply in any way, he says, "I don't care. Don't talk to me." He has been oppositional, disrespectful and defiant. Nothing new there. And he continues to find a willing conspirator in Drama Boy.

The fact that Drama Boy is so easily influenced by his little brother's much stronger personality is disheartening. He has stated that he thinks he will do better here without Sparky because he "won't be so tempted to do bad things." Maybe he will just have to learn to take responsibility for his own actions. He will no longer be able to exploit his brother by blaming or deflecting as he has done in the past.

In recent days, he has found it necessary to stand up for what he wants and take some responsibility for his behavior even in the face of pressure from his mother and grandmother. I am amazed that he was able to do that. Although he wasn't able to oppose them directly, he later told the social worker that they told him to say things and "stared him down" until he did. I have no doubt that this type of coercion will continue and that, because Drama Boy is often manipulated by all members of his family, we take a risk in allowing him to stay here.

We are willing to take the risk because it gives Drama Boy the security and stability that he so desperately needs. His mother believes that he is strong and adaptable and able to succeed wherever he goes. There is some truth to that but the constant upheaval has been at the cost of his emotional and social development. Her attempts to disrupt placements due to her own insecurity and need to control has hindered her children's ability to trust and to form meaningful attachments. Drama Boy is only just beginning to realize all that he has lost and all that he still stands to lose if he continues to move from place to place. He has started to talk about and work through some of the pain of the past four years. That's huge progress.

Sparky's emotional trauma comes out as anger...anger that is out-of-control and misdirected. We did the best we could and loved him despite all of his efforts to prevent it. I'm not sure how much we were able to help him during his time with us but, as a friend commented at church yesterday, "At least you were able to put something into him."

Last week, he came home from a Christian camp and told me that he wants to be more like God. A real disciple. That's something, all right. I think God can work with that.

"God of All Comfort"

Christian recording artist Steven Curtis Chapman was on James Dobson's Focus on the Family radio broadcast over the last three days talking about the death of his five-year-old daughter, adopted from China. Amazing and powerful interview. Go here and click on Daily Broadcast to listen.

This and That

Last day of summer vacation. We went to the beach in the afternoon.

Sparky acted like a stinkweed most of the day but did have some occasional non-oppositional moments. One of the first things Peaches said to me this morning is "They're all being mean." She was right and it continued throughout the day.

Just to add some interest, Ana got a flat tire on the freeway on the way down to church. My carload was late too because the city is doing some roadwork which apparently required taking a quarter of the church parking lot for humongous piles of dirt and gravel. They closed off some of the parking aisles, requiring a line-up of six cars to try to figure out how to three-point-turn their way out of the little bitty remaining space. Peaches was driving so she had all the fun with me gasping and grimacing in the passenger seat. Ana and her crew were, of course, much later than us. Our church is awesome and we hate to miss any of it. Especially because it's really hard for late-comers to find a place to sit.

Stickers took the train down from L.A. and met us at the beach and will stay for a few days. Her train was delayed and she actually thought we would leave without her. No way!

The Boss didn't get a chance to have another scream-free day because I had to wash what seemed like a bucket-load of sand and crud from his spiky updo. That boy has some hair.

Meanwhile the mental gymnastics continue as to what to do about Drama Boy. He admitted to the social worker that his mom, grandma, and Sparky forced him to say this was a bad place and he wanted to leave. He still wants to stay but lots of concerns about potential false allegations by his family and by him if he continues to cave to their pressure. Very upsetting situation and a decision needs to be made soon.

What's Your Sign?

I caught this on another blog and for some reason it really choked me up.



Rejection. Mental illness. Behavior disorders. School problems. Poor choices. Physical/Sexual/Emotional abuse. Drug/alcohol exposed before birth. Teen pregnancy. Angry. Neglected. Depressed. Hopeless. Alone.

These are just some of the tattered cardboard signs kids have carried with them into our home. It's good to be reminded that our feeble efforts to meet the tremendous need are not the answer. It may take many years but we hold on to the hope that on the flip side of those raggedy signs is a whole new life and reality in Jesus.

Cry Out to Jesus

When I first heard this song by Third Day I was struck by how it nailed so much of the anguish that we have seen since entering the whole world of foster care. Peaches came to live with me just four months after the death of her mom. During that time, Ana had a teenage foster son (who we still love dearly but who no longer lives with us) who struggled with drug addiction as did his parents before him. The brokenness and devastation to lives and families caused by addiction, poverty, abuse, and mental illness is immense and we've seen it multiplied by the hundreds. May all those who are hurting cry out to Jesus and may those who believe in Him have ears to hear and courage to become His hands, feet, and heart to those who suffer.

Happier New Year

One more time around the sun which is about all the traveling we've done this year. Now to resolve or not to resolve, that is the question. We've always been goal-setters, something we learned from our parents since childhood. When I was younger my goals were more about things I wanted to do or have. Now I find myself looking at my goals for the year and they are much more about things I want to BE. We agree that this year we want to be happier. As Dennis Prager says happy people make the world better. This is something we hope the kids can learn this year too. This will require changing their current belief that it's "stuff" that makes you happy. All of our kids have become believers in Jesus in the past year but helping them change a screwy value system that has been scraped and scrabbled together from their pain-filled pasts is proving to be a challenging task. Helping others, doing what we can to make the world better, and pointing people toward Jesus are some things that would be healing for all of us.

Four Years Old

The Boss is four years old today. We celebrated last night with my sisters and their families. The Boss was thrilled with the whole celebration entertaining his fans with funny exclamations of delight at each of his presents, especially the "transforners" . He was funny and delightful the entire evening, enjoying spending time with his older cousins. Actually, he generally is funny and delightful when he wants to be. Sometimes he would rather be demanding, ornery, stubborn, and unbelievably strong-willed. To be fair he's had a lot of modeling of not-so-cooperative behavior spending his whole life with a long succession of traumatized kiddos who often make him the target of their misplaced anger.

He's always been a little bitty guy, born premature and playing catch up ever since. He didn't sit up until 9 months, walked at 19 months, and on his second birthday had a whopping vocabulary of 5 whole words (His first word was "kitty". "Mama" would have been a nice choice). He's very particular about his clothing and food, being overly sensitive to textures and smells. He's still working on some motor skills that Seamonkey has been adept at for some time and on his 4th birthday is yet to be potty-trained. Despite his delays he is very fortunate. His, birth mother was incarcerated for most of her pregnancy sparing him the difficulties and disabilities that afflict most of his five older biological siblings. It is likely, given the family history, that he was prenatally exposed to drugs and alcohol at some point prior to his birth mother's imprisonment.

Yet, especially at this time of year, it's hard not to think about and pray for his birth mother. Case worker reports state that she had "loving concern for all her children" even though she was unable to parent them. Nurses' notes following his birth document their very few days together. He was released on Christmas day and placed in two different foster homes before coming to me at 7 days old. His birth mother never saw him again. He was an unexpected blessing I thought would only be with me for a few months. I thought of her often as I held him when he was so tiny and it made me sad. I wonder if she wonders about him and thinks of him on the day of his birth. I can't help but think of how different his life would be if he had stayed with his original family who stuggle with decades-long drug addictions. I thank God that he has a new family who love him and can't imagine life without him and who will to the best of their ability raise him to love Jesus. Although it is a wonderful and blessed thing, adoption always involves loss. Loss of dreams and expecations, of heritage and biological history. And so I pray for his first mom whose many children are being raised by others, that her loss would be eased, that she would be freed from her addictions, and that any other children that may come after would be protected from the debilitating effects of drug and alcohol exposure. Most of all I pray that she will know Jesus so that when we meet her again one day we will all be part of the same "adoptive family".

Do the Math

According to Barna Research Group there are approximately 18 million adult evangelical Christians in America.

There are approximately 114, 000 foster children in America currently eligible and waiting to be adopted.

"Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress..." James 1:27