How did I get here? (Part 2)

Adoption was not on our radar when we said yes to hosting. 

I think it’s important to emphasize that the goal of hosting (at least as it is facilitated through our organization, New Horizons For Children) is NOT ultimately adoption.  The majority of the children that are hosted are not even cleared for adoption.  Only about 10% of hosted children are eventually adopted.

We didn’t know if these children were cleared to be adopted, and we decided before they came that we wouldn’t ask.  Six weeks seemed like enough of a challenge.  As a family we decided that after the hosting period was over, we would consider if God was leading us towards anything else.

Honestly, I expected my answer to be no.

I already know that I am capable of loving a child who is not biologically mine as my very own.  There is a young man we would have adopted in a heartbeat had it been possible, and he was as dear to me as the four I’d given birth to.  In that situation it was not meant to be, and he has since withdrawn emotionally from us.  I grieve that loss and there is not a day that passes I do not pray for him and wish for our relationship to be restored.  So yes, I know I could love an adopted child.  That was not the source of my hesitation.

Mostly, I was comfortable.  I’ve been having and raising children for a couple of decades now, and while I’m nowhere near an empty nest, the last year or so have afforded me some freedom that I haven’t had since about 1994.  Katie and Mackenzie are grown and mostly on their own. Elijah is a senior and is quite independent. Eleanor and Constance are still home but are old enough and capable enough to fend for themselves when necessary.  Even homeschooling doesn’t require my constant, undivided attention anymore.  Dan and I can have date nights.  I can go grocery shopping alone.  One afternoon each week, the kids leave home after lunch and I am in my house ALL BY MYSELF.  I’ve  daydreamed a bit about going back to work in a few years, maybe even getting my MSW.  I almost went into social work instead of law, and I think I would be great at it.  I’ve had a lot of fun imagining what my second act was going to look like, and I was going to be the star of the show. 

It's ironic to me that when I was smack dab in the middle of the motherhood mayhem, when I felt like I had no identity beyond diapering, homeschooling, cooking, cleaning and chauffeuring, when I had to retreat to the laundry room in the basement for alone time…that’s when my “yes” was immediate.  That’s when I would have added one or more without hesitation.  But now when I had more time and resources to give, I found myself a little reluctant to share.

Comfort can be as addictive as a powerful drug.  And once we are hooked on our own comfort, it becomes increasingly difficult to notice or care about the discomfort of those in the world around us.

I’m grateful that God didn’t let me go there.  Because while this journey is most certainly uncomfortable, it is also thrilling, joy filled, and rewarding.  Not only have we received the gift of having these three amazing kids in our lives, we have been introduced to other incredible, interesting, and generous people who probably would never have crossed our path.  We have experienced the blessing of complete strangers who have volunteered their time and given their money to help us with expenses.  Our family has been challenged and stretched, and our faith and relationships are stronger from it.  And Lord willing, Dan and I will have the opportunity to visit a part of the world that we almost certainly would never have chosen on our own.

Comfort is overrated.

How did I get here? (Part 1)

How did I get here?  I’ve been asking myself that question a lot recently…usually when I am shuffling stacks of papers and responding to an inbox full of emails about hosting, home studies and fundraising ideas. 

This time last year, I could not have imagined that we would be undertaking the adoption of three children from Eastern Europe.  We were in one of those sweet spots of life when the seas are fairly calm and the skies are mostly sunny.  I have lived long enough to know that those times are brief, so I was breathing deep and enjoying the peace.  I expected that change was on the horizon, but I could never have predicted that it would look like this.

In the spring of 2017, when our friends shared that they were planning to host a sibling group from Eastern Europe, I knew their hearts were in the right place, but I honestly had a lot of questions about the concept of “orphan hosting.”  Our family has done foster care, both long term and short term, so the idea of having kids from hard places in our home wasn’t an issue for me.  What concerned me was the impact that bringing orphans into American families for a summer and then sending them back would have on them.  I am by no means an expert on cross-cultural experiences, but through my daughters’ international mission work, I have learned that many things we do as Americans with the best of intentions can have negative and even tragic unintended consequences when we don’t understand the culture we are trying to help.  I worried that these children would be given false hope of finding a family and would return to their home country more broken and hurt than before.  So while adoption and orphan care were issues that I cared deeply about, orphan hosting was not something that I would have ever sought to be involved in. 

Perhaps one of these days I will learn that when I think I have things all figured out, God will lovingly, but not necessarily gently, put me in my place and remind me that I’m not in charge.

Fast forward to the spring of 2018, and our same friends are advocating to find a host family for this sibling group for the coming summer.  Dan and I have a lot of conversations that go like this:

Dan: Did you see where Glenna posted about those kids needing a host family for the summer?

Me:  I saw it, but didn’t really read it.

Dan:  I keep thinking about them.

Me: um…that’s nice.

This is very backwards from the norm in our marriage.  Usually I’m the one pleading with Dan that we are supposed to do something *unconventional* that God has laid on my heart and he is looking at me like I’m crazy.

Finally, after several weeks of this exchange, Dan persuaded me to visit the website of the hosting organization and all of the assumptions I had about orphan hosting were proved wrong. 

I was in trouble and I knew it.

The statistics for kids who age out of their orphanages in Ukr*ine are heartbreaking. Within two years of leaving the orphanage:

    Only 27% will find work

    15% will commit suicide

    40% will be homeless

    30% will become addicted to drugs

    60% of the girls will become prostitutes

    70% of the boys will turn to crime and eventually will be incarcerated

The last two statistics drop to 20% when a child has been hosted.

 The experience of living with a family and the bonds that form, even in a few weeks are enough to change lives.  Having people who love you, check in with you, and pray for you, even from an ocean away can give a child enough encouragement, confidence and hope to believe in and work for a good future for themselves. 

That alone was enough to move me from ”no” to “perhaps.”  But there was something else that had been quietly nagging at my mind and heart, and now it was wailing like a siren.

I remembered these children.

The two summers ago when they were in our area briefly, I had the occasion to meet them twice. The first time was at our friends’ home, when I took a bag of Constance’s clothes over for N.  Most of the clothes Glenna had ready for the kids were too big, and we had more than enough girls clothes to share.  The following day I saw them at the pool, which is odd because I NEVER take my kids to the pool.  That’s what older siblings are for. But there I was, sitting in the snack bar ignoring my book and watching these lovely children interact with each other.  Both of these encounters were fleeting, yet they affected me profoundly.  I was surprised by how often they would come to mind, and I am still able to recall many details about those moments.  I remembered their faces. I remembered N’s big grin and bright blue eyes and how she had her arms wrapped around Glenna the entire time I was standing in their driveway with the bag of clothes.  I remembered the older two boys, handsome but unsmiling. And I remembered the youngest boy, tiny and shy, with an impish little grin. 

When I was so skeptical about hosting, I felt sorry for these children, but I never imagined that there would be anything I could do for them beyond sharing my daughter’s clothes.  But now I was wondering if God really intended us to do more?  I started praying.  I reached out to the host families from the previous summer to learn as much as I could about their experiences with these kids.  I sent email after email to the very patient volunteer coordinator at New Horizons with questions about hosting.  My “perhaps” became a “yes” and we applied to host for the summer.  I was nervous and I knew it would be hard, but you can do anything for six weeks, right?