Should you share or not, and what is friendship?

I am a very confused state and not feeling well on top of it, so I am sure not what to do.

We tend to be pretty upbeat, downplaying the struggles we go through, so unless someone asks or tries to know us well, hopefully they don't know the issues we may be dealing with. You know, the old, "keep moving, do what needs to be done, be helpful, protect others, don't gripe, and no one wants to really know what is going on". The intent is always to not add to others burdens and to complain certainly does, and the issues we deal with really are ours to deal with. But what do you do when that stack just crashes down on you and you cannot hide it - no one has seen all that you have been dealing with, so totally misread your reaction. And you cannot explain. It looks like what tipped the scales was unreasonable, but it was just that last thing on top of everything else. And of course, then they react and you just cannot explain.

How do you deal with this? This has been a long couple years in our lives, dealing with things we never ever thought we would have to deal with, trying to be diplomatic, honest, quiet and caring. Lots of good and bad, not all ours, but some. And wanting to be there for others too. So, what do you do when it all crashes? When you have just been overdone and it looks like that last thing was the issue, rather than all that went before. It's like that water torture thing - the slow drips of water on the forehead that eventually send you over the edge even though it is just a drip of water. It isn't that last drip, it is all that went before, it just tipped on that last drip.

I want to handle things in an honest, compassionate, Christian way, but what do you do when you have nothing left? It becomes impossible to explain.

Okay, now before anyone worries, the kids are fine, hubby and I are fine. This has been the most intense few years of our lives. We seem to spend all of our time reaching out, but when you need it, it comes back empty. And that hurts.

So, what is a Christian way to respond? Do you stuff it and just go on? Do you try to explain? Do you separate from the issues? Do you work through the relationships (not kids and hubby, just to be clear)? What do you do? Friendships get extraordinarily sticky when we go through intense times in life. Are they worth it? Is it always one sided? I just don't know. My human side wants to strike out after being so broken and misrepresented. That isn't what God has called us to do. But what do we do? Is friendship something that is important? I don't know anymore. It used to be I would say "absolutely" and my first question was "what can I do?". But.... I guess I am at a time when I need something back too, and it just isn't there. So, what do you do? Just step away? That is all I can see to do at this point. Just don't know.

Birthdays are fun!!!

Today Zeri turns 14 - he picked a time, because we really don't know what time he was born - so at about that time (we had a bit of delay) we had the requested cinnamon rolls for breakfast, put the candles on the cake and sang happy birthday! Of course, the presents were first and a huge hit. Thank goodness for knowing what really appeals to him!

We head out for our fingerprinting appointment (kind of a bummer to be doing this on his birthday rather than being at home - a few hours in the van doesn't really appeal to anyone) and to top it off then we are going to an Ethiopian restaurant - bringing the cake with as that is where he would like to do it!!! That redeemed the day in his eyes, plus the knowledge that getting this done is a big step to getting this adoption completed! So, the consensus ended up being that this is a good way to spend a birthday! LOL!

I am so proud of this young man, all he has been through and all that he has accomplished. He is amazing. And to top it off, after really seeing no progress in reading for quite a while, suddenly it is clicking and he is really reading fairly well!!!! The new things he is learning are sticking! I am just so pleased for him as it has been a long road. Perhaps it is also just the time learning English or whatever, but I will take it. And his vocabulary is growing by huge leaps and bounds! Amazing.

Well, the remote control cars are racing around, and we are getting things ready to go for our trip, so I had better run, just wanted to honor the young man's birthday!

Advantages to being sick...

An advantage to being sick - you have to stay home for at least part of the day. Whoa. In my current life, that is totally unheard of. Though I am sort of grateful that it waited until after my Bible study last night (amazing by the way - Fields of the Fatherless with a hands on bent!).

Other advantage, I cannot sleep because I am used to the alarm going off at five. Have I ever mentioned that I am a slow starter and hate mornings? Yep, terrible. This season is stretching me, and now I cannot sleep past 6AM. The advantage of that is that I can return emails and check out some blogs. What else can you do when the house is quiet and you really don't quite want to be active yet, and if you wake anyone up then things go full tilt the rest of the day? Yeah, just an excuse, but there are some amazing blogs out there!

Like this one: Motives.

Check it out. This may have to be another blog I add to my list to follow. Oh, my, another one. That is what I do when I cannot sleep. Sleep is overrated - that is what I keep telling myself.

And check out this post too!!! How we afforded adoption

Or this one: How we are paying for our adoption

Okay, now I had better go flip that load of laundry. And the natives are rousing so my time here is done! LOL!

Great song!!!!

Listen to this one!!! I heard it on the way to work this morning - really needed it! I am a country fan, but a Christian artist fan and have had a bit of a challenge finding both at times - I know they are out there but I don't know too many. Well, anyway I also heard it on the way home tonight with three of the kids - and one piped up from the back that we had to find out who that is! Whoo-hoo, raising a kid with good music sense! Well, maybe, but it sure was nice to have something that we both liked in common! So, take a listen to this - no video but a great song! I plan on ordering the CD when we have funds that aren't tied up in adoption! Maybe I can convince the wonderful guitarist in the family to learn it and at least one of the vocalist to sing it for me! LOL!

Long days, long season

You ever have one of those seasons that you know must just be gotten through, but the getting through gets so tiresome? I think that sums up where we are right now. Good news and bad news. Can I start with the bad news?

Just crummy hours over booked, overworked and no way out. I think that covers it. I know, I know, I know why we are doing this, and it is working - we are watching the adoption fees owed go down day by day nearly. But did you ever reach a point where you just didn't think you could make your self do it one more time? Yeah, that is it. Maybe it is spiritual warfare, but I am the rat stuck in the wheel and very tired. Looking forward to seeing that ZERO balance due and then I am so much done!!!!

The good news, which is actually really, really good.

On a health front, we finally got in to a doctor who knew what was making our youngest repeatedly sick and the cure did not involve surgeries and likely not even medications!!! Praise God. We are working on that and seeing progress already!!! Whoo-hoo! Wish we had seen this same doctor six months ago (and several thousand dollars ago).

And older daughter who had broken the top of her tibia, in her knee, on Good Friday, is finally weight bearing and seeing progress now that she can do that!! Again, great news. We will be taking her to physical therapy for quite some time (add that to the intensity) as we have been, but it will get better!

The four kids who are playing soccer this year - the only one who didn't want to play broke her knee to make sure mom and dad didn't try to convince her! LOL! Not really, but is is a funny coincidence. Anyway, soccer practice starts this week, and of the four kids, we had three pairs of cleats that fit our rapidly growing crew!!! Whoo-hoo again!!! Only one pair to buy! Whoo-hoo! And the excitement of soccer is huge! This soccer mom sort of cringes as we have four kids on three teams, but it is also so much fun!!! Hooray for soccer season - now the kids can quit counting down and making me loony!

The silly chickens are very prolific as are our milking goats so that really adds to the family larder! The chickens are free range - their eggs are so much tastier and healthier - but the downside is that it is a daily egg hunt!!! And when the egg count dwindles, it means that they have found a new hiding spot!!! LOL! Five kids are really good, but those chickens are amazing!! The count has been down the last couple days (over ten a day, but down from the 15 to 20 we had been getting) so we knew that they had found another spot! The two eldest were dispatched to go hunt! Mighty hunters found 38 eggs in addition the the usual!! Whoo-hoo!!!!!! We left one small nest in a good spot so hopefully the hen will raise a batch of chicks for us! It is so cute to have the little peepers wandering around and then growing into good layers (or dinner) for us! The egg hunt will continue - it adds to the adventure! And having goat milk again is so nice! I forgot how much I missed fresh milk!

Our fundraisers for the adoption have been wonderful, doing well. I don't know what we will do next but we finished our donut sales and will be selling daylillies a friend cleared out of her garden! If you are in the area and want daylillies, they are huge and we have about 80 of them!!!! We don't have a set price, just are accepting donations - so you name what you can afford and I will get them to you!!! LOL! What a great gift! It has been encouraging in a tiring time to have some support - oh, and two families have asked us to help them find out about adoption and to get started!!!! I am so excited! We meet with one family next week and I can lay out all that we have done, the requirements and all! Our greatest hope, beyond getting all our kids under one roof, is that we can somehow help others to adopt or to consider adopting a child who needs a loving family. I am so excited that we can do this!!! So, we are on top of the world about that all!

We go to Department of Homeland Security on Wednesday for our fingerprinting appointments for Immigration approval. That is Zeri's birthday so we are taking a family outing and going to an Ethiopian restaurant there!!!! Yummy!!!! And, finally, our documents from the Secretary of State have come back authenticated!!!! Really, really fast!!! Last night I so happily assembled our dossier and contacted the courier company!!! I emailed them and gave my cell number, asking if anyone by chance was in to call me any time day or night on that phone. And about 11 this morning (Sunday) I got a call from them!!! They were able to explain what we needed to do, that it actually would cost less than we had thought, and that once we get it to them, it can be done and on its way to our adoption agency in 48 hours, so it should be there before the end of the week!!!! Whoo-hooo!!!! Praise God!!! This is all going so fast!!!! I am hopeful that the dossier can be in Ethiopia before the end of the month, and on its way being translated!!! We could be looking at a potential court date in June, maybe July (hopeful for June!!!). I am so excited!!! We got new photos on Monday and the three kids now know each other - we have several photos of the three together!!! AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!!!! So, that is my hysterical excited rant on this end. Now we just need to pray that God will help us get the funds in time!!! No hyperventilating allowed! I hate that part. I know we can get it done, it is going so much faster than we had ever even hoped!!! Maybe soon we will have our children home!!!! God is good!

So, life will continue its current craziness, but the end is in sight - though I don't know when yet.

Huh?

I am a bit confused this morning. I have a "friend" - someone I once thought a friend obviously - who is also an adoptive mom, who chose to comment on my kids in her blog. It was sad and hurtful, because she chose to say how she grieved for my kids that they left their homeland and the beautiful people there. It went on and on, and was not realistic about the life they lived there. And it was wildly hurtful to our family. Maybe I am being too sensitive, but given the events of this last weekend, our joy at our sons' friends finally being home with their forever family, it was just a very strange dichotomy.

I am trying to process this and to find the correct way to respond. The hurt heart inside me wants to strike out in anger and that is not appropriate. I want to set the record straight, but I am not at all sure that doing so in a comment on her blog would be appropriate.

And perhaps because we adopted older children, our experience is different and not so romanticized.

Don't get me wrong, I love Ethiopia. It is a beautiful place, with beautiful amazing people and an amazing culture. But I cannot look away from the things my sons tell me about things that are not so glorious. A child beaten and robbed of his shoes at 9, a boy locked out from his little hut for days at a time until his father finally arrived home drunk, a child scared and alone, hungry and unsure what was going to come next. Children whose parents died, whose older siblings, no more than children themselves, without any means of support, were trying to keep fed. Children for whom their only hope was the street, no food, no clothing, no nothing. People chewing leaves that were drugs, simply to keep the hunger away, but then addicted and harmed by it. I witnessed it and I do believe my sons when they share. When they open up, when the stories come, the mother in me so wishes I had been there so that didn't happen to them.

The reality of adoption is more balanced - our children's homeland and heritage is beautiful and I respect it, honor it, and welcome it into my home. And I also have to welcome my children's pasts. Their experiences, their hurts and fears.

So to hear that my children were pitied and grieved for because of what they left behind, was simply devastating. They did leave a great deal behind. They did. But it isn't gone. It lives on in them and us, and someday we all do hope to return. On the other hand, they gained a great deal. All I have to do is look at their growth charts in the few months after they came home! They are healthy, talented, valued, cherished, loved, and surrounded by a secure family that is devoted to them and their future as well as their past. They are part of a family, have parents and siblings and security.

When we were considering adopting again - particularly older children from Ethiopia again, I had a very long heart to heart with my oldest adopted son. I was very concerned - I know how hard it has been for him, all the changes, the language, the food, the culture, all of it. He has worked so very hard. I asked him very, very directly about his feelings about it. He agrees that it is hard, or as he puts it very clearly - it WAS hard. I had to fight back tears to ask him very directly if it was worth it. I had to be willing to face his answer whatever it might be. He was very surprised and went on to be very clear that it was very worth it, the best thing ever. I had to ask if he had to do it over if he would - answer was "absolutely". Knowing how hard it was, would he choose it again - yes. Would it be a good thing for another child - knowing all he knows, is it simply too hard? Too much, etc? A very sure response - it is very worth it, to have a family, to belong, to be loved. And that is what it is about.

Yes, they have "lost" some things. But they have gained a great deal.

What I grieve for for my children is that they ever were in the situation where adoption ever needed to be an option. I grieve that they went through what they went through. I grieve for all their hurts, all their past that was painful. I grieve that they ever needed to be placed for adoption. I grieve for that. That is the grief that I have for my children. Not for them coming here, not for them entering my family, not for them leaving their country.

I know that God has a plan for my children. I know that He orchestrated all things so they came to my family, to my home, at this time. I don't know why. I don't know what His plan is. That would be arrogant to even consider. But I do know that HE brought them here, that HE has a plan and a purpose. I know that HE loves them more than I ever could. I know that HE walks this road with them, with us, with the people left behind. If I get hung up in all the grief and obsession, then I am not living what God has asked me to live today. And today, I am the mom to five amazing children. I live in a house that is active, loud, loving and growing. I am so blessed to have my sons, to be stretched beyond what I ever could have imagined. God has changed us all in so many ways, we are simply nearly unrecognizable from who we once were. And I thank God for that every single day.

I don't feel that my children are to be pitied or our family to be viewed as having done something extraordinary. Our children are our children, who God made them to be, where God placed them. We didn't save our children. We didn't rescue them. Yes, their life outlooks are very different from what they might have been. Yes, I am so happy to know that my children are not going to go hungry, that they have love every day, that a mom and dad look after them, that they are healthy and strong. Children who are orphans need help - God has called us to the widow, the orphan and the fatherless, the least of these. But, my children are no longer orphans. God has lovingly placed them in families. God has provided for them.

So, I don't grieve for what they have "lost". I rejoice in who they are, in all that God has done in their lives, in all that He will do in their lives.

We serve an amazing God, one who knows the entire story, who sees it all. Someday I hope to be so honored to see how all of this has been woven into God's tapestry. It is my prayer to be a part of God's amazing work, in our own small way. I will raise my children for the Lord, in the Lord, and in love. In love and security, in faith and family, so they can go forth and carry that on in their lives. I have no idea how many lives they will all touch, how they will move the world, but I have no doubt that they will! And I am so grateful to have been a part of it.

And NO, I don't pity my children! I rejoice for them and with them.

Now for the tears - happy tears!

What a night. It has been a long week as a dear friend traveled to bring home her sons from Ethiopia. The boys are friends of my adopted sons (they all lived together for four years prior to our adoption). It has been a long haul, but they arrived home with their family tonight!

I spent all night with dry eyes, unlike in Ethiopia where I cried all the time. Smiles, laughter, hugs ruled the night. The joy in my sons' faces, in their friends' faces, was just indescribable. And now I feel the tears starting. Even driving to our friends' home, I just couldn't make myself believe that it was really happening, that we would really see this happen. Even touching them, talking with them, I didn't cry (OK, maybe once, but I hid it fairly well - we all seemed to have this same issue). But now, well, now the tears are ready to come.

You know those times when you know that God is at work, but you just cannot see it or understand it? Yep, this journey has been one of those times, especially the last year and a half for our friends. Much heartache and sadness. And I am so proud of my friends for persevering when it would have been easier to give up. They are my heroes.

God has brought about amazing things. I know that this is now dredging up all that I tried to deal with after my trip to Ethiopia, as well as our impending adoption. There is so much to process. I don't think I will ever be done processing it. But now, now I can let it all down, cry for a while, grateful for what has finally transpired!

On another happy note, we got our appointment for fingerprinting for Immigration today! The way it works - you apply for the petition to adopt an orphan, and once your paperwork has all been processed, you are issued an appointment - and you show up at your time. There really isn't rescheduling or anything. We have to have that all cleared (fingerprinting done and approval from USCIS - Immigration) before we can go to court to adopt our children. Our appointment is in a week and a half!!!!! Usually you have to wait much longer!!!! Whoo-hoo!!!!!!!!

Our other two papers are off to be authenticated by the state of WI, once they are back we have the entire dossier done and will send it by courier to the embassies in Washington DC (the US Embassy and the Ethiopian Embassy). From there it will go directly to our adoption agency and off to Ethiopia. This is all moving very rapidly! Unfortunately the only fly in the ointment is that this also means our deadline for paying fees is coming rapidly too! Good that we can do go to court sooner and get the kids to medical care sooner, but bad in that we had budgeted to have several more months to get all the fees paid! Oops! This is really moving rapidly - note to self - when you ask God to speed things along, look out! So, we are doing a fundraiser this weekend and next weekend (part of the proceeds go to Show Hope - an adoption grant organization), putting in all the hours our employers will pay us for, and whatever we can think of. Praying for God's provision, that He would keep up with the rapid timetable He seems to have us on! LOL!

I know that I just cannot get myself too excited yet, as we could get hung up at any point in the process, but it could be soon! You know how it is when your child is ill, and you just go in to check on them, to reassure yourself that they are OK? Yeah, well, they are still on the other side of the world. Ugh. I just want to know that they got the right medicine, that their conditions are being well managed, that they are well fed and healthy.

Seeing these two boys come home today has really brought home again the reality. Someday soon, that will be us, arriving home with the children. I cannot imagine yet. I know that someday soon I will, but I cannot quite see it yet.

Well, I have to put the last of the items for the fundraiser tomorrow in my bag and then finally get to bed. We have to be up very early tomorrow to get going and get things ready, so our usual time of leaving for church has been moved even earlier!
Love to you all, and what a wonderful, God blessed day this has been!