Life from a Four Year Old's Perspective.

Our dear friends had their first baby and she is three weeks old today. My girlfriend is the first person my son knows personally who has been pregnant and these are some of his thoughts as my friend progressed in her pregnancy:

1. Early in the pregnancy when my friend was not showing and my son was trying to figure out how a baby could be in her tummy: "Your baby is mashed up in your tummy."


2. Farther along in her pregnancy to explain her expanding waistline: "You are eating too much."


3. After not seeing her for three weeks and she now being considerably bigger: "You have too many babies in your tummy."


4. Farther along in her pregnancy: "Your tummy looks like a garbage truck." Mommy's reaction--major embarrassment and wanting the earth to swallow her up. My pregnant friend's reaction--major laughter and repeatedly asking my son to repeat what he just said. Oh dear!


5. On our way to the hospital to see the baby after the baby was born: "Why does she need to go to see the doctor?" Mom: "So that the doctor can remove the baby from her mommy's tummy so that her mommy and daddy can hold her and love her and raiser her to be a big girl". Son: hysterical laughter for 15 minutes and saying I was kidding! I wish I knew the image he had or why he thought this was so hilarious!


6. After baby is born and he totally falls in love with her: "Marley's mom should not eat her baby and keep her in her tummy for a long time. That is not okay. We only eat food, not babies." He thought she ate the baby, hence the reason why her baby was in her tummy all this time! Okay mommy, how else would anything get into a tummy? :)

I am so thankful these are very good friends who know my son well and know he does not have a mean bone in his body! Of course it helps that he says these things with great concern, an endearing smile and when he is giving my friend a hug. Oh how a child's mind processes information and tries to figure out the whys of things!!!

He really loves their beautiful daughter and he keeps saying all the things she will be able to do when she is a little older. At one week old he was already trying to show her his train collection and is always thinking of toys they will be able to play with when she is older! My baby is not a baby anymore--he keeps reminding me that he is a big boy now and Marley is the baby.

Apologetics and Adoption!

It is interesting that since we started our adoption journey, we have been having chance meetings with adoptive parents and also reading adoption articles in some of the magazines we subscribe to. This weekend, my husband and I went to an apologetics (a conscious, articulated defense of the claims of the Christian Faith ) conference and the topic of adoption is not quite the topic you expect to be addressed at such a conference. However, one of the speakers (Voddie Baucham) is an adoptive parent who is passionate about families. In one of the sessions, he was discussing a biblical view on love as opposed to the greco-roman myth we have regarding love. I cannot do justice to what he said, so I will excerpt his summary:

Myth 1: Love is a Random Force: "We don't choose who we fall in love with."
Myth 2: Love is an Overwhelming Force: "Love, according to the Greco-Roman myth, is an overwhelming force against which we mere mortals cannot hope to prevail.'"
Myth 3: Love is an Uncontrollable Force: "Love sometimes goes away as quickly and mysteriously as it came."
Myth 4: Love is a Sensual Force: "Love is equated with sex."

According to Baucham, the result of our culture largely buying into these myths is that "this kind of love. . . doesn't translate into other relationships. If love is a random, uncontrollable, overwhelming, sensual force, how do I love my kids?" It also makes love very tenous. Baucham points out that with this kind of notion of love, "Can we blame children of divorce for wondering when Mom or Dad is going to stop loving them the same way that they stopped loving each other?"

In contrast to the Greco-Roman myth, Baucham defines Christian love as "an act of the will accompanied by emotion that leads to action on behalf of its object."

If Christians had a biblical view on love, then they would never ask if adoptive parents love their adopted children as much as they love their biological children!

I had never heard of him, but he is a man after my own heart. For a sample of this thoughts, you can visit his website at:
http://www.voddiebaucham.org/vbm/home.html

Friends and Coffee!

Today, I had a coffee date with a friend and she totally got the adoption thing! Most times when I share that we are planning on adopting, people are accepting, but I never get many questions! On the one hand, this is cool since everyone has taken the news in stride, but sometimes, I really want questions about our adoption journey. My friend specifically made the coffee date so that we could talk about the adoption, she asked lots of questions as well as specifically what she could do to help. Her enthusiasm was infectious! Thank you God for good friends and coffee!!!

Homestudy meeting number???

(yes, 6th attempt--1 visit interrupted by social worker, social worker missed 2, had 2 meetings with dh and 6th one by myself. If all goes as planned 2 more meetings to go--one with dh and final one with whole family).

Today I had my meeting with the social worker and it was primarily gathering biographic information—where I was born, where I went to school, where I have worked etc, as well as my parents’ relationship, their parenting style, my relationship with my siblings and my dreams for the future. It felt strange spending about 1 ½ hours talking about myself! The social worker did ask some questions where she seemed to have already formed her own opinion. The answer was no to all presumptions, but I guess it was at the end of the day, we were both tired and something must have been lost in translation! All in all, the meeting was good. My husband meets with the social worker on Thursday, so we are moving along with the homestudy slowly, but surely.

Birthright

Today we received a voicemail message from the lady we meet at the ‘Birthright’ booth during the People Fest. She left us the number to the adoption agency they work with. Okay, we had only been looking at foster/adopt and international adoption and now here is another option! Like we are not already confused enough!!! I know we cannot control the adoption process and really want to be receptive to the direction that God leads us. I don't want to go with the path of least resistance, but really want to follow God's leading. We need prayers for clarity!

PEOPLE F.E.S.T

People F.E.S.T. was good. We went both days. My husband volunteered at the Good News Jail ministry booth on Sunday afternoon, while my son and I enjoyed sampling all the goodies—kettle corn, corn dogs and multiple flavors of shaved ice! There was a nice kid zone and my son enjoyed playing in all the inflatable astro jumps. My sister and her kids joined us on Sunday afternoon and I think the kids enjoyed the Christian bands.

The gentleman from Uganda who spearheaded the festival shared with my husband and I that a pastor had advised him not to use the name of Jesus Christ, nor give an altar call as this would put people off! Now, this was billed as an ashamedly Christian evangelistic event—from their posters, to their website, to their press releases, to the radio commercials. And a pastor would discourage the mention of the name of Christ???? And America is sending out missionaries to other countries??? Thankfully, the main organizer and the bands did not heed this advice—they relied on God’s Word. The main organizer clearly proclaimed the gospel of Jesus Christ on Saturday and Sunday and relied on the Holy Spirit to prepare the hearts of the hearers. Joseph Rojas, front man and songwriter for Seventh Day Slumber also gave a moving testimony of his transformation from a former criminal and drug addict to a redeemed husband and father. Praise God for the people who came forward to make a public confession in a public park during the altar call—and in California, no less!

On the adoption front, during the festival, we meet a couple who adopted 2 boys. I love hearing how God directs people to their children. The couple had started the adoption process through the foster system and had also informed friends and family of their adoption plans. They ended up doing private adoptions for both boys as people led them to two mothers who were making adoption plans for their unborn children. They also have an infant bio son and all three boys are gorgeous. We also got to speak to two wonderful ladies at a “Birthright” booth, which is a Pregnancy Ministry that seeks to counsel women to choose life for their unborn babies when faced with an unplanned pregnancy as well as offering counseling to women going through psychological trauma of abortion. One of the volunteers at the booth said one of the main reasons people choose abortion is because they cannot bear the thought of giving up their baby for adoption. So it is easier to allow your unborn baby to be cut up into pieces during an abortion or have a doctor partially deliver the baby, crack open the skull and suck out the brain before delivering the fully formed baby. If the baby survives the abortion, the baby is left in a sink to die. This is the better choice? Anyhoo, the lady advised she would keep us in mind if she met someone who was making a choice for life for their unborn baby and wanted to make an adoption plan.

Our local Child Welfare Agency also had a booth at the festival. I never saw a solitary soul go to their booth and the two social workers manning the booth were not making any effort to talk to anyone. I almost went to volunteer there!!! Come on people!!! Children in my County and State are in crises, they need good foster and adoptive parents and the outreach social workers are not making any effort? I think the social workers are so apathetic and they all seem so jaded. I have yet to meet a social worker who works with the Child Welfare Agency who seems to have any passion for the children they are charged with protecting. I think the two social workers only wanted to put in their overtime and then go back to the office and complain that people are not willing to step up to the plate to foster or adopt children from the foster care system. Boy, am I starting to sound like an activist!!! I am convinced that the system is not doing enough to ensure that the hurting children who have had to be removed from abusive or neglected homes go into loving homes. Instead, they are herded into group homes where nobody cares. It does not help that just this week in my county, a 15 year old girl died from abuse and tortue at the hands of her foster parent--her paternal aunt. The autopsy revealed that she had been burned with hot irons and whipped with belts and electrical cords over a long period of time. Her twin brother also suffered from long-term abuse and he is in protective custody. The children had not attended school since September 2007 and after the fact, people now report seeing black eyes and signs of physical abuse, but no-one did anything! The Child Welfare Agency was supposed to be making regular visits to the home, but the last visit made was in September 2007! If only they would have done their jobs, maybe this child would be alive today and her brother would not have to deal with lifelong issues from the torture he has had to endure and losing his sister in such a horrendous way.

I have planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the increase. So then neither is he that planteth any thing, neither he that watereth; but God that giveth the increase (1st Corinthians 3: 6-7, KJV).

Taps

Today is the first day of the festival and it started on a very somber note—a police officer was gunned down trying to protect the lives of six people trapped in a house with a gunman who was intent on killing. The officer had responded to a domestic violence call at a place of business. The gunman had gone looking for his wife and when he did not find her (she had hidden in a bathroom), he followed her cousin (who also worked at the same place) to her friend’s house. Inside the house were six people including three very frightened children. The gunman then shot and killed his wife’s cousin before killing the police officer. It was a very sad day and it was made more mournful by a Messianic Jew playing taps on his Shofar (ram’s horn blown during Yom Kippur-Day of Atonement and Rosh Hashanah-Jewish New Year). The last officer killed in the line of duty in my town was in 1973. The police unit in my town is very close knit and the neighboring cities were very helpful in covering their shifts as they mourn the loss of a colleague. The crazy thing is that all this was happening less than a quarter mile from church where we were having a meeting and totally oblivious to the tragedy unfolding. It was not until we were at the People Festival that the Vice-Mayor informed us what had transpired that morning. Please pray for the police officer’s family—he lives behind a wife and three young children. Please also pray for his other victim’s family—she leaves behind two children.

Thanks Doc--it worked!

This morning, my son specifically requested to have veggies for breakfast so that his “bump” from last Friday’s mishap could go away! He ate up all his veggies—now I need ideas on how to make the bump go away! How cool it would be if our prospective child was around so that my son could encourage him to eat his veggies too!