What Time Has Taught Me

Every year during national adoption month, which is also our 'Gotcha' month,  I am challenged to look back over the years of our journey and do a lot of contemplating.  This year even more than in past years because of the challenges this year has brought.

Yes, during National Adoption Month I feel a need and a responsibility as an adoptive parent to inform and encourage people about the wonders of adoption, but this year I thought long and hard about encouraging anyone to jump into another person's pain.  That may sound harsh, but the reality is 'hurt people, hurt people'.

Now I can hear many of you thinking, "They were so little when they came, how much can they remember?"  or "After 8 years in a loving family, surely their past is their past." or  "It is just being a kid or a teenager, nothing unusual.", and the most painful "Surely if you prayed enough and asked God for healing you would not be dealing with these things."
 

 The truth that many people are not able to comprehend, I know I could not before we adopted, is that kids with hard starts are going to have a lot of hard work to go through to deal with the trauma locked up in their minds and hearts.  Think about a soldier coming home from a war zone trying to deal with what he has seen and the PTSD he deals with, they were adults with functioning reasoning skills, the ability to protect themselves and fight back, and they had lots of other guys on their team.  These children have none of these things on their side.  They have immature reasoning skills, they are too small to fight back or protect themselves, and many times the ones who should be on their side are the one harming them or doing nothing about the harm.

Now before you say it, I know this is not true in all scenarios, praise God.  And I know that all children will deal with trauma differently.  And I know that many adopted children go on to live very typical lives with little affects from their early losses.  And I know that some children will mold into their families with not a thought of looking back at what they have lost.

That being said, I do believe that the majority will not fall into this category, especially with the trends to children being older and older when they enter their forever homes.

 SO WHAT HAS TIME TAUGHT ME THAT IS HELPFUL?

1) The biggest thing I am learning is that adoption is refining me in ways that I never knew I needed refining!

When you have a child who can find every button to turn on your anger, bitterness, selfishness, and the unforgiveness in your heart.  A child who desperately wants in his deepest soul to believe that he can trust again, but in order to do this he is going to test and manipulate every part of you to say, "Are you trustworthy?  Are you going to stick with me?"

I have been on my knees searching out God with tears of desperation and dying to self repeatedly.  What better place to be than to know you can't do it-----only God can.

2) That God is more than enough!

I am a control freak, I admit it.  Stepping into the lives of hurting children, I wanted to 'help' to 'fix' to 'control' to 'make it better'.  What parent does not want the best for their children?  But as time went on I was daily reminded 'I can't fix this'.

Don't read this wrong.  I fight for my treasures!  I read and research and implement all sorts of different techniques.  I have new friends all over the country that have become part of my rallying squad and I a part of theirs.  We use therapists and therapies to engage hearts and minds.  We have prayed over, cried over, and loved over a hurting soul.

But in the end I have to trust that GOD IS ENOUGH!  Only His love can reach a lost soul.  Only His touch can heal a broken heart.  Only His mercy can cause a heart to trust again.  Only His forgiveness can release a ripped up heart to forgive others. And all of this takes time and it is in God's time, not mine!

3) That love is a moment by moment choice---for all of us.

Sometimes love is easy, the sweet tender face of a sleeping new born, the sweet smile of a six year old handing you a bouquet of dandelions, the smile of triumph in the face of a child who aced the test.

But what about love when you have been lied to again, or they found the answer keys and cheated again, or the child who is screaming in terror over what seems like nothing, or the silence and trembling for no apparent reason, or the fists balled in anger again.  Where do you find the love here?

I tell you, you find it in the choice.  You choose to love this child in his pain.  You choose to forgive again and again and again.  You choose to teach the same lesson again and again.  You choose to look past the anger for the hurt daily to see the child.  You choose not to wait for the 'I'm sorry' but remind them again it is needed for restoration again.  You choose not to be easily offended again.  You choose to try again.  You choose not to let the offending words pierce your soul.  You forgive those outside your family who do not understand.

 YOU CHOOSE!

Many, many days lately these choices have been made though puddles of tears and piles of prayers, but they are made none the less as I fight my flesh for my children's future and God's glory.

There is so much more running through my mind, but for today on this eighth anniversary of our children's home coming, I wanted to share what I am learning about myself, about love, about God.

And to decide, "Do I encourage others on this journey?"

Well the answer is yes!

Is the journey going to be all roses?   No

Is the journey going to be all thorns?  No

Some days, weeks, months or even years it will lean heavily in one direction.

But if this is the journey you are called on, you will be called to die to yourself daily, to pray harder and longer than you believed possible, to seek the TRUTH in everything, even things you long thought true, and to grow through trials, pain and joy unspeakable.

May the God of all Truth be glorified in our lives and our journey!

When Grief Looks Like Anger

I have been pondering this statement that the Lord gave me for the last few days.

When grief looks like anger......

How does one wade through the ugliness and harshness of raw anger?

How do we find the pain locked deep inside?

How do we uncover trauma and fear and pain that has laid buried for years?

How do we seek out reasons when communication is hindered?

Is it disability or adoption or age?

Will we ever reach a point of total healing?

How can I better help to draw out the hidden?

Should it be drawn out?

Or is it better to wait till they are ready and it surfaces?

Do you point out to them the fears they may be unaware of ?

Or will it only add to the confusion of the mix?

Parenting treasures from hard places is HARD!

 Sometimes we are stretched way beyond what we know...

But we have been blessed with family and friends to help fill in the gaps.

 Sometimes we cry with our kids in their pain because we are lost too....

But tears can bring great healing and bonding when we are drowning in sorrow.

 Sometimes we all make mistakes and wish we were able to undo them....

But in our house we do RE-DO's and second chances and I'm sorry really well. 

So rather than wallow in shame, we do grace.

And we seek to have our eyes opened to the reality of what is occurring in our family!

We see hope!

We see growth!

We see healing!

We see promised futures!

We see treasures sent by God to bless our family!

To teach us about redemption!

To teach us about compassion!

To teach us about forgiveness!

We see a picture of Christ working in our lives!

We can be ugly, yet He forgives us!

We can be unlovable, yet His love never fails!

We can be full of pain and bitterness, yet His tender mercies never end!     

Praise God He is not finished with any of us yet, but we are being transformed daily into His glorious image!

A blessed visit

Today I had a blessed visit with my friend Rebecca.

Rebecca met my youngest treasures before I ever did when she was in Liberia picking up her two youngest treasures.  She brought us the only photo we have of the kids with their birth mother.  A precious thing to a child that has lost so much.  She is also the one who told us to push to get our kids home as fast as possible because Hannah's health was deteriorating fast.  We may owe her Hannah's life---literally.

So you can see we have a special bond.

It was such a joy to be able to talk extendedly with her about joys and sorrows of parenting 'kids from hard places'.  

To speak and be understood about things most parents can never imagine.

To hear words of encouragement and be able to share words of encouragement.

To talk about educating and understanding kids with disabilities and diagnosis's that were caused from malnutrition and trauma.

To dream of futures and possibilities for all our kids from the oldest to the youngest and how varied those futures may look.

To know that God planned our families and their diversities of blessings and challenges for our good.

There is no way to explain how wonderful it is to just be with someone who knows and understands so much of your daily challenges and the excitement that can be had over the smallest of victories with a child from a 'hard place'.

I feel blessed, filled and at peace tonight.  

Thank you Lord for the blessing of friends!

What you need to know about adoption, race and invisible special needs and were always afraid to ask!

I was planning on writing a post on fear, in fact I did, and after prayerful consideration, decided to scrap it and try again later.

So this post is inspired by a sweet little girl we met at the store today and her wonderful mother!  And a couple of sermons our pastor has preached along with some special Facebook posting by friends.

So here we go with:

What you need to know about adoption, race and invisible special needs and were always afraid to ask!

How is that for a nice short (NOT) title :)

First about the sweet little girl in the store~~~She was about 3, to young to understand the social cues of our society.  She was following Hannah around the store, very obviously staring, Hannah was nervous and sidling up to me.  This wonderful mom walked up and got down on her daughter's level and said in a normal voice, "She has very pretty braids, doesn't she?"  And to Hannah, "They are beautiful, who did them for you?"

She very wisely interjected into the situation where everyone could hear and be affirmed!

You might be amazed at this fact, but this was only one of a handful of times that this proper technique has been used in the whole 7 years the kids have been home.

The girl was not shamed in her curiosity and Hannah was affirmed for who she was.  I would suggest following this up later with more training at home since the opportunity presented itself.  Was it the hair or what is the skin color, I will never know, nor do I need to,  but I was blessed by the wonderful interaction.

It would be good to note that the beautiful little girl wore glasses and probably had Strambismus, cross eyes, so they probably faced some of the same situations themselves, thereby preparing them for this interaction.

You should also be aware of correct racial terms:  Use black, Liberian (in my kids case) or 

African-American if you must talk about racial issues.  For my friends with beautiful treasures from the various Asian countries, I know they would like you to know that the term "oriental" is incorrect.  Use Asian or again the country of orgin.

All this to say, yes be sensitive, yes train your children at home, it is just kind :)

Secondly let me inform about some technical adoption language that you may have wondered about.

Please do not say in front of my children, "You have changed their lives"  or 

"you are such a blessing to them".   This amazing saying from the movie The Blind Side is very true and every adoptive parent would tell you that.  My life is blessed beyond words and I have grown in ways so unknown to me by this wonderful experience.  We are just "normal" people raising our family that we have been blessed with, we are no-more, no-less spiritual or "good" because of our choice to adopt

This also rolls into part two of this:

All adoption is proceeded by a loss, an unimaginable loss, no matter the age or the country of origin.  But in my kids scenario just think about it:  

1)  They lost their father due to war

2)  They lost their childhood due to war and famine--they did not know safety or full tummies.

3)  They lost their mother due to circumstances beyond all their control.

4)  They lost their country and heritage

--just to name the 4 big ones.

To say they are "LUCKY" or "BLESSED" , though true in some ways, belittles the feelings of loss they may be dealing with, and I assure you they are.  It is not "lucky" to loose both of your birth parents.  It is not a "blessing" to deal with fear daily due to past trauma.

Find words to affirm who they are and the fact you are glad they are here so you can get to know them!

OK so some of the no-no's of adoption language.  Please take this in the spirit it is shared, with love and the desire to inform, not to condemn.

1) REAL/NATURAL PARENTS---To use this term infers the opposite is true--that there are unreal or unnatural parents.  I assure you we are all real and natural.

First parents are known as birth parents, or sometimes we may have a name or a special name we call their birth parents.  But for most people "birth parents" is fine if you run into a time where you need to use it.  Though asking the kids about their birth parents is really something that should only be used in very close and special situations.

2)  ADOPTIVE PARENT--Though this is a technical term for us, it does differentiate our kid into two categories  Birth vs. Adoptive.   We are seeking unity in our family and all our kids are just that our kids, our treasures, our blessing, our passions--We see no difference and we would prefer it if others did not also.  We are just their Mom and Dad.

3)  Inform your kids to hold their curiosity about anyone different.  We have fielded some of the most intrusive questions.  Most kids can go through life without having to bare their most frightening moments, and to be honest, if you child asks mine what his most scary thing in his life was, is he really going to understand the fear a child has when he is running from machine gun fire?

This is a picture taken in the city where my kids were born!

4)  My kids have been informed that they have the right NOT to answer questions about themselves if they so desire.  Their stories are their own, so if they choose not to answer your adoption or racial question, please do not be offended, instead know they are choosing privacy.

5)  Have fun learning geography with your family!  Know your countries and continents, so when you hear of a new place you might know where it is, or for goodness sakes, go home and pull out a map and find out.  It is true my kids are "African"  but more than that, they are very proudly Liberian.  Look at this beautiful country, with a beautiful heritage.  Remember Africa is a continent and Liberia is a country:)  The same with Asia and Europe!

Finally I wanted to share about invisible special needs. My Hannah has various special needs due to her in-utero and early malnutrition because of the war in their country.  To look at my treasure you would not know it--hence, "invisible".

 Hannah is one that learns, relates, and behaves differently---but she has the most special kind heart that you could every meet.

The first thing I would like you to know, is that I know my child and I love my child, so when I share things that are meant for you to understand her better, please don't shrug them off as an over-protective mom!  I do know what she needs and what will help her.  Your help would be appreciated, your judgement just makes us want to withdrawal, which Hannah is a champ at.  

Second, help your children to understand that all special needs are not visible.  Let them know that some children just need some extra encouragement.  Sometimes they may have to explain the game more than once.  They need to know that laughing at mistakes can be very painful to a child who is already sensitive to their peer.  All that to say, just open dialogue with your kids and see where it goes.  

Third, please feel free to gently let Hannah or us know if her behaviour is "off"  a little.  Maybe their is some training we can work on at home to help her correct it and she can grow from your insight.  We are not against "gentle" information being passed.

 So hopefully you found this informative and not TOO preachy.  I ask that you prayerfully consider what area you can grow in.  I know it is an area I am constantly prayerful about, as to how to be an ambassador for our lives, that our lived out before many, that we may reflect the One who lovingly adopts us.  May we all grow more and more into the glorious image of our Loving Heavenly Father.

Rescued

Rescued: The Heart of Adoption and Caring for Orphans - Trailer from Rescued The Movie on Vimeo.

Watch it!~   Make a choice to take some action!

Six Years Ago.......

Six years ago....

we became a family of 7 at the Portland International Airport (Danielle was at college)!

What an amazing day full of so very many emotions for everyone of us.

Oh the amazing joys and trials and frustrations and victories adoption brings!

It is a journey of love and growth that is incomparable to anything I have ever experienced!

We are so thankful God led us down this path to bring this two beautiful treasures into our family! 

May His name be forever glorified!

Kung Fu Panda 2

A quick warning for any of my adoption friends thinking about going to see the new Kung Fu Panda movie---the movie is great, but be warned, it is full of adoption issues.

We went to see it without reading reviews and were blindsided by the adoption content. I was intermittently irritated, crying, angry and excited with the presentation of adoption.

The movie was very fun to watch and setting aside issues with Chin*se mysticism and finding 'inner peace', which we use as tools to have good discussions with our children.

I should have been more diligent though with the adoption part.

The kids loved the movie, but I must say, that we saw the movie on Saturday and I can tell that Caleb is still processing what he saw by issues we are dealing with. Not to say it will be bad in the long run, but some prep before hand may have been helpful.

This site has a good review of the movie---It does have spoiler content, but I think it would be helpful to prep our special treasures before hand.

I find it interesting that I had heard nothing about this content before from the adoption circles. So here you are.

Hopefully this will help you enjoy the movie and start some conversations with your treasures.

ESL fun!

A little look into what our days with English as a second language can look like:)

So this cute picture shows what?

Yes, the boy is "ABSENT" from school.

Now this unknown word is partially due to ESL issue, but also because of homeschooling he is never 'absent' from school.

Always interesting to find words that are fairly common, yet he has no idea what they mean like: mental, actress, dental, atlas and insult. And these were all today.


But the word that took the cake today was not only a word that he did not know what it meant, but that even after trying a dozen times he could barely say the word--it was fun laughing with him as he tried.

I can not even explain how he was saying it, but we finally got---

EN-CHANT

And yes, we had to totally syllablize to get him to wrap his little tongue around it. In fact, I think he is still saying it as N-chant.

So we finally get the word pronounced correctly and I ask him what it means....

Didn't you know that it meant 'old', you know like ANCIENT!

Wow, you gotta wonder how confusing life must be when so many words are mixed up in a little head.

So I tried you know--enchanted--where have you heard that word Caleb?

His answer--

Yep, the movie--LOL.

We finally got that:

ENCHANTED=magical

ANCIENT=old

Then you should have seen his face when I told him in "Beauty and the Beast" the castle is both 'enchanted' and 'ancient'!

It was priceless confusion!

I can never say life is dull around here-LOL!

Children of God

The Rockin' Mama Challenge

I joined up with the Rockin' Mama Challenge today!

As I have talked about many times on this blog, attachment is not always an easy thing.

Even after 5 years we see big gaps for both of our treasures.

After Caleb and Hannah had been home for a year I was talking with a dear adoptive mom friend about the struggle I was still having with Caleb and his attachment. She so wonderfully pointed out to me that I also was not attaching to him!!

Interestingly I had never thought about it in this way, nor heard about it, nor read about it. It was always the child attaching to the parent being the issue.

So at that point we did lots of research and I sought lots of advice from experienced adoptive moms, and we started the 'over loving' phase of adoption.

We praised EVERY small thing, we let some things slide that we never would have with our bio kids, we took every opportunity to touch and hug, we said words of affection at every turn. We found our hearts learning to love in a new way and him responding in a new way. It was great!

This is not to say everything was wonderful. We still had our struggles, but things were so much better.

And I would say now he knows we love him and we will never leave him. He still has behaviours that are related to trauma and loss. But overall we are on a good path.

This challenge with him, is hopefully to go deeper and help him with touch and expressing feelings at a new level.

With Hannah things have always moved at a different pace.

Due to her delays we have always worked with her a little differently from Caleb.

I have missed seeing that her attachment issues are definitely not going in the right direction.

Just in the last week it was confirmed in my heart that some intervention was going to need to happen and soon.

Thankfully my blogging friend, and now face to face friend, Lisa, posted a couple of days ago about a new challenge her great therapist gave her for one of her children with past trauma issues.

It was a rocking challenge!

You simply rock with your child on your lap with nothing else going on. Just you and them and a rocking chair for 15 minutes.

Now for me that is 30 minutes of uninterrupted time.

Not easy to find, but essential as I see it for my family right now.

You can go to Lisa's blog post and read more about it if you are interested. I will be posting here as we move through this process and let you know how I am doing and what responses we are seeing with the kids.

So day one looks like this:

Hannah-after 5 minutes laid back and started looking me in the eye and giving me full dialog of her day with prompting!!

Caleb-after trying for 5 minutes to remove himself sneakily from my lap, relaxed. He told me it was starting to feel comfortable after 10 minutes. He told me how much he liked his building sets and what he was reading about. Never really got more than a few fractions of eye contact.

Let me know if you decide to take the challenge and we can encourage one another!

Depraved Indifference

Allow yourself the time to watch. Allow yourself the time to absorb and change! God change me!

5 Incredible Years Ago.....

November 19, 2005 we were standing in the Portland Airport waiting for one of the biggest gifts God has ever given us!!!!

The day our family of 5 became a family of 7!

Meeting your children for the first time in an airport terminal, is not really the way to go!

But it is the way God orchestrated our story!

They were so tired and so scared!

We were ecstatic!

Hannah screamed with me, but thought her was, okay at least.

She was so small, sick, weak and scared.

It was hard to see. Then she finally rested against---Dad---something she had no memory of---a Father!

Such a treasure.

Impossible to describe the feelings! Caleb, our little charmer from moment one.

Always has his hood on, even now:)

Was liking his new toy.... But as you can see still very hesitant and unsure.

Unbeknownst to us at this point, Caleb had a fear of 'big boys'.

They had beat up on him at the orphanage and refugee camp.

He was not so sure of this 'big brother' yet.

Interestingly, Caleb is now wearing the sweatshirt that Drew was wearing in these photos. We took the kids to the van in the parking garage and put some skin medicine on and some Pj's for the long ride to Eastern Oregon for Drew's first elk hunting season!

Hannah gave us her first smile when we put her cozy little slippers on her feet.

At almost 3 they were the first time she has worn more than flip flops.

She thought they were pretty cool!Then the incredible happened, she allowed me to hold her for the first time without crying!

This picture brings tears to my eyes every time.

To precious for words. And the bonding had begun.

A unique family formed by God's amazing hand! Praise His Name for His love is everlasting and His blessings more abundant than we could ever fathom!

One Step.....

For the last two weeks I have been kinda bearing my heart through videos on Faceb**k.

As we are moving into Orphan Awareness month and Adoption Sunday (November 7th), I felt a NEED to share my heart.

Adoption has added SO VERY much to my life, it just spills out.

Though we have our struggles, many of which I share here, I would not trade what I have learned, how I have grown, and the love I have gained for the world!

Adoption is a view into the heart of God!

He calls us when we are alone, and sets us in His family.

Forever!

Care for the orphan is still the heart of God!

James 1:27
Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.

Beauty out of Ashes from Lifesong for Orphans on Vimeo.

This video is a wonderful example of some I have shared this week.

At one point in this video you see the kids sliding down the hill on their bottoms!

My son went on his first slide at the age of 5 1/2 on a cold November day on 2005.

He was shaking with excitement!

No, all kids do not NEED to experience a ride on a slide,

But all kids should have the opportunity to experience LOVE.

Of a friend.

Of a family.

And to hear of the Love of their Savior!

Only when we step out of our complacency can this happen.

One step.

That is all it takes.

And if thousands of people took that same step.................

A Thought...

Just a thought as we come up on Orphan Sunday, November 7, 2010. What have you been called to do to "defend the cause of the fatherless." Isaiah 1:7

Hope is Fading – Orphan Sunday from Allan Rosenow on Vimeo.

Lil' Charmer!

Yep, and all the attitude!!


We may just have hit an extremely important pivotal point in this young man's life!!


For a child with extreme trauma in his background, there is much to work through before you can trust, before you can believe in yourself, before you can find your potential.


We have watched much growth in the last year with all the change in our family and stress in our lives.


This week we found a 'football player'!!

Seriously, everyone, coaches, other parents and us, all saw the potential.


Two years ago when we did tackle football for the first time (on the same team) we did not realize how much abuse Caleb had suffered in his young life. The physicalness of the football brought out the things he needed to work through. He was not such a good player, but the healing that was brought about by being able to finally talk about his past has helped him to move forward.


Last year we took the year off so we could all enjoy Drew's senior year of running.


Fast forward to this year. He is on the same football team, with the same coaches, but let me tell you, he is NOT the same player. As of last week we have a FOOTBALL PLAYER!! He has found the trust in his family, coaches, and players, that they are not out to hurt him. He has found the confidence in himself, and his ability to be GOOD at something. So we are seeing the potential that has always lived there bloom!!


Praise God---His mercies are new every morning!!


Praise God---He chooses to keep working with us, his broken, battered children!!!


Caleb and I had a beautiful heart to heart this morning (God ordained moment)!


Praying for continued healing and growth for this special treasure!!!

Watch This!

Watch this video and ask yourself, "What can I do?" and then do it!!

We are not all called to adopt or foster, butif you are a Christian you are called to care for the widow and the fatherless---

Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.
James 1:27

What will be your role?

Interesting...

...how my African treasures don't need much to make them happy!!!

With a backyard full of toys...

Caleb is playing drums with a bucket and pot and broken sticks, and using the post beside him for an extra sound!!

Hannah is entertaining herself with an onion stalk and a stick!!

And in case you think this is unusual, let me assure you this is very normal around our house.

One of the things I think our American born children miss is the imagination to make something out of barely anything and actually enjoy it!!

Remember that to over half the kids in the world, this is their only option of toys!!

Amazing Adoption Video

Our Adoption Blessing!!

Due to the abundance of news regarding the mother who sent her son back to Russia, the Joint Council on International Children's Services has asked adoptive parents to blog about their successful adoptions to combat the negative press.


So here is our story:


I have always wanted to adopt, actually as long as I can remember it was something I knew I wanted to do. But then came our early marriage due to our unplanned pregnancy and three beautiful children in 7 years. Adoption was not even talked about.


But about 3 years later in 1995 we started talking about wanting to add to our family, but we had done permanent things to prevent that biologically by this time. So this is when we first looked into adoption, actually took classes towards that end.


But something always prevented us from moving forward. I believe God knew our children were not ready for us yet (not even born)! In 2000 David had a reversal, but we knew that the chances of it being successful were slim, due to previous complications. So we started really praying that if God had more children planned for our future that He would make the way clear!!


Interestingly about the time we started praying this, our handsome son was conceived on a different continent!! We continued to pray and investigate adoption, then throw in a couple of moves!


In February of 2005 David just said lets do it!


So we called up the agency we had been looking at who at the time was one of the only agencies doing adoptions in Africa. They had a class starting that week!!!


We attended all our classes and had all our dossier done by May 1, 2005, including our homestudy!!!


We received our referral of Charles and Charlesetta Q. on May 15th. And accepted them the next day with only three sentences of information and NO pictures!!!


Due to the unrest with the first presidential elections in Liberia after 13 years of civil war, we were not allowed to travel when the kids were ready. So we chose to have them escorted to get them home the soonest, especially since our little Hannah was so ill.

We met Caleb and Hannah at the airport on November 19, 2005. The were very tired and hungry. We had a horrible time understanding one another, even though we both were supposed to be speaking the same language! Hannah rejected me on the spot! Caleb had the biggest eyes, think he was crazy scared and excited at the same time.

To be honest some of the bonding issues took me by surprise and some did not. I expected some rejection towards me, as it was women that kept moving them around. I did not expect the rejection towards Drew!! I think it was hard on me too, to see him so rejected. After about a year home I realized I was struggling attaching to one. Through some reading and advice from friends, I put a renewed effort into fully, moment by moment, loving on him. It was a day by day effort to praise and gently correct for the 1000th time. This really moved us to a new relationship.

We have learned:

That it takes a long time to unteach training (or lack thereof) that was learned first.

That children who have been traumatized need consistent loving reminders not to run into 'fight, flight, or freeze' mode.

That malnutrition can have lasting effects on a developing brain.

That needing to protect yourself and your family at a young age, makes it hard to let yourself not be in control of all situations.

That loving a 'child from the hard place' takes lots of time, effort, discipline and patience.

That love is a choice!!

But most of all we have learned---

That taking the risk and loving a child that is not 'flesh of your flesh' is an amazing gift!!!

A chance to experience first hand the miracle of love born of a complete choice!!

A chance to more fully understand how the loving God of the universe can choose to adopt and love me!!!

A chance to learn about who you are deep inside, and watch the Potter's hands mold out the rough spots!

A chance to make a difference for a lifetime!

A chance watch a child blossom with the watering of love and compassion.

A chance to step out on to the water and watch God's love allow you to walk upon it!!

Is adoption all a bed of roses?

No way!

But adoption can change a life for a lifetime.

Not only that of your child, but yours as well!

So step out of the boat and be ready for the adventure of a lifetime!

Adoption Blogger Day--Thursday

For those who are unaware--This last week a 7 year old boy adopted from Russia was returned to Russia, alone, with a note from his single adoptive mother that she no longer wanted to parent him and was returning him to Russia because they had lied to her.

Due to this incomprehensible act, international adoptions are being affected, especially in Eastern Europe.

So here is some action being taken----

From the Joint Council on International Children's Services:

We Are The Truth – An Adoption Blogger Day: To ensure the world knows about every successful adoption, on Thursday, April 15, 2010 blog about your adoption or the adoption of someone you know. It doesn’t matter if your adoption is with Russia, domestic or otherwise international. Let the world know your truth!

Read more about what they are calling for (especially if you have adopted from Russia) here.

Please repost this on your own blog and spread the word!!!

And hop back over here on Thursday and I will be posting on our amazing experience!!!!