...and it's gone.

     Tuesday marked the end of an era.  Tuesday was the last day that I had just a "Mommy Day," as Zeke called our time together.  Tuesday was my Bigs' last day of school.  I get them all four all summer long and then, come August, Zeke will head to kindergarten.  I didn't shed any tears, but I did make sure we did all our favorite things together: cooking, a hike and a picnic at the zoo.  I was very aware all day long, as he held my hand and talked and talked and talked, that this time has been so sacred. I am blessed with a husband that knew it best for our kids to have me until they went to school.  I am blessed by an employer that allowed me a flexible schedule.  I am blessed that we managed to navigate our schedules so that none of our kiddos ever went to a daycare.  They all got "Mommy Days."  Sigh.
   

PS  My dear, beloved home school friends have long been telling me that I need to keep Etienne home.  I have swallowed my pride and grasped the courage to write about this.  Next post.

Strength.

"I have never said 'Do not pee in the trash cans,' so I can't get mad that someone peed in all the trash cans."

     Those words actually came out of my mouth.  After the lengthy clean up that followed the lying, the manipulation and the tears, I wound up with my 69 lb six year old in my arms, rocking.  In my heart of hearts, I know that he can't cognitively understand empathy or consequences to his actions.  I equate it to an 18 month old that thinks it is funny when they hit you in the face.  You don't punish the infant or toddler because you know that they don't understand that they just hurt you; that their little brain can't comprehend their action yet.  So you patiently correct them and move along.  I feel bold sharing this because I know that many, many people would find this idea insane.  But until you live with a child that has been deeply wounded, you probably can't get it.  And that's okay.  I was there and I still find myself wanting to lash out when I am peeling up wet trash....it's hard.
     So that is where we are at.  We are trying to condition our brains to give up (for now, and don't judge) consequences, lectures or really much reaction for things like urinating in the trash can.  This means that my boy is doing everything with me or I am doing it for him.  And guess what? He isn't fighting it.
     As we were attempting to rock, this is what I said:

"No matter what you do in this life, I am strong enough to handle it.  There isn't anything you can do that I am not strong enough for.  I can do this because God chose me for you and because my strength is really His strength.  I will freak out.  I will cry.  But I will still be here with you. "

    And then I stumbled and fumbled my way to cradle him in my arms all the way to bed.  That's how we're rolling (for now).

Dwell on This

The past three days have been rough.  Really rough.  My spirit is depleted and I'm physically drained.  I have been dwelling on God's character because that is all that I know that is unchanging.  We had been talking about  this with our Rwanda team and yesterday my brother encouraged me to pray on this.

• God is unchanging (Hebrews 13:8)
• God's way is perfect (Psalm 18:30)
• God is always good. Always. Psalm 100:5)
• God will redeem (Isaiah 47:4)

  Last night I felt like redemption was very far away.  Then Zeke asked me to read out of his bible.  He picked the parable in Luke that Jesus tells of a lost sheep.  The little cartoon was of Jesus embracing one sheep out of a flock of 100, grinning a goofy grin, with all the other shepherds throwing a party.  That goofy image is imprinted with me now.
 
PS To all the other parents that meet my son.  Please show us grace.  If my child has hurt yours, it is because his heart is hurting.  He doesn't know how to feel safe.  He doesn't get empathy and his little mind can't control his impulses.  It's not an excuse.  It's just the reality.  We are trying.  Know that we have read every book, sought wise counsel, attempted each parenting theory.  Know that we have shed tears for your kiddo.  Ultimately, we rest in the God's character that He will indeed fix this too (Acts 13:38).

Hope

I haven't been writing as much lately.
I struggle with my voice.  And that doesn't happen often.  I feel like I can't do justice trying to express this fine-feathered, often over and misused thing called hope.  I think of Kylie and JaninaF, my little trolls that has somehow found a space in my heart (I still really wanna buy them a coffee). Thoughts of them make me stop typing.  It isn't because I want their approval or I need to have "the last word."  It's because I feel so much sympathy for them that they are missing out.
Missing out on how much richer and fuller and more meaningful everything in life is when you have hope in something bigger than you.  When you find that hope that is unchanging, everlasting and unconditional.
I'm gonna continue to be honest here.  We've had to put on our boxing gloves for Etienne more than we'd like.  Old ugly stuff creeping back in.  I physically feel ill when he slips into the protective mode.  You know the one: the lying, manipulating, hurtful stuff that he does to to protect himself.  I can't stand that sometimes he still has a primal need to resist love.  Ugh.
But here's where hope comes in bigger and better.
There's been lots of lies this week.  Ones that hurt siblings and mama.  At bedtime, we were reading a story about when Moses had warned Pharaoh to free the  Israelites.  The gist of the devotion was that Pharaoh's pride had consequences and the little kiddo summary was "God, others, me."  Good stuff.  Etienne on his on accord said "So when you are lying you are just thinking about yourself and what you want, right?"  Bingo.
Sigh.  This is my son that routinely misses the entire plot of a movie, that until last week didn't realize Eve was a woman; that still loses a lot in translation.  But not this.  He got this.
That, dear trolls, is what hope looks like.

“Hope” is the thing with feathers -That perches in the soul -And sings the tune without the words -And never stops - at all - Emily Dickinson

Why We Go.

     A year or so ago, a former classmate had a conversation with me regarding mission work in Rwanda.  He said something along the lines of "unless you are living there, aren't you really doing more harm than good?"  I have been haunted by this thought since.

     He isn't alone.  This is a common sentiment in my generation.  We want to empower people to help themselves.  We don't want to sweep in to "help," then leave again to return to our cozy lives stateside.  It's true too.  What good, really, is it for a well meaning group to just show up for a little window of time, build a house, paint a church, play with some kids, then leave again?

     I get it.  When people travel to developing countries do to projects, to give hand outs and "tour" the lives of the impoverished, it does hurt.  It's counterproductive to create a culture of reliance on handouts.  No one benefits long term in Africa, Central America or in the streets of America with this kind of service.  Of course we want to train people to care for themselves.  But what does not showing up at all really look like?

     Let me tell you the flip side of this thought for those that doubt.  I live with the results of not showing up, not caring and not investing in the lives of those children.

• The flip side, when he is tired, he can't stand the feeling of his jeans on his tummy unless they are squeezing so tight that they cause skin breakdown.  The feeling of the threads of his socks leaves him on the floor in tears.
• The flip side, he can't sleep all night without old memories creating havoc.  Without having a physiological response to fear when the lights are out and he is all alone.  That's what it looks like when we don't show up.
• It looks like this child climbing on your husband's new coworker, inappropriately touching and cuddling with a stranger.  Any attention is attention, right?
• Not showing up at all, it looks like that little brown eyed boy eating more food in than the rest of his family easily at every meal.  His little brain still, still, has doubts that there will be more food when he needs it.  That's what it looks like.
• It looks like my sweet son closing his hand in the van door again and waiting calmly for me to open it to get his hand out. Without tears. 

     Doing nothing means that are thousands millions of children that don't get touched.  That don't have anyone look them in their eyes, count their toes, tell them they matter.  Those that argue for nature over nurture, I would venture to say are naive to what the lack of touch looks like in the rooms of an orphanage.  Did you know that those rooms are quiet?  The babies, they learn quickly that crying only uses energy.
     There isn't a numerical value for the time spent listening to a child, playing with them or just being present. If my son had been routinely rocked, snuggled and told that he was loved, I know without a doubt that the last three years of my live would have been very different.  

     And this is why we go.  Ryan and I know in our hearts and believe for our family that every moment matters.  

Memories.

Hitting the desert yesterday to avoid the April snow.

     Yesterday we had another one of those conversations.  The kind where my heart ends up in my throat, I panic a little (Do I know what to say?!? Why is this happening without Ryan?!), I fumble with my words and then I jump in.
     The entourage and myself were hangin' in the desert at the zoo.  We were literally the only people in the place and spent a lot of time watching the hummingbirds.  Nothing out the ordinary.  Then Etienne said "Mom, I can remember riding on my mom's back before you got me.  She had black hair and everyone around me had brown skin too."
     Pause. What?
     I took a moment to respond.  I asked him how he felt to remember that.

"I don't know.  Maybe happy a little."  He skipped ahead of me with his siblings.  

     We go along thinking we are in the midst of an ordinary Monday, and then BOOM! some memory from the back of this kid's brain creeps up.  At first I thought that maybe he was mixing memories of photographs with memories from before he came home.  However, he hasn't wanted or seen photos in at least 3 years (his choice).  I guess I may think that he has memories from one of the older kids, the "nanny," carrying him.  Ultimately, I don't know and I don't think it matters that much since he says he felt okay with it.  
     It's probably nothing that E didn't sleep well last night; that he began his day at 4:50 AM.  I will ride this one out and see where we end up.  Someone asked me how I felt about this memory.  As long as he isn't hurting more from it, I will embrace it.  There are so many holes and speculations and unknowns in my boys' histories that if a flash of a black hair and brown skin brings Etienne comfort, I will take it.

 

I Can't Leave This Out.

     The genocide of Rwanda started 19 years yesterday.  My heart has been heavy all week, reflecting on a country and a people that I so dearly love.  That I consider part of my own family tree.  I haven't ever written about those 91 days; partly because my words could never capture the horror, the suffering or the still painful wounds that Rwandans feel today.  If you aren't familiar with the genocide, please read a bit here.
     In 1994, I vaguely remember some short news clips regarding Tutsis and Hutus and machete warfare.  In the summer after it was over.  I was busy being a camp counselor and my biggest worry was my weekend plans.  I had no idea that this genocide would someday intertwined with my future.
     You see, no matter which way we spin it, there isn't any denying the impact of this piece of history in my sons lives.  Most likely, their birth parents were orphaned by the genocide.  There are is very real chance that their own birth families were killing each other during those horrifying few months.
      Can you imagine how we will tell their story?  How will we explain that it is was only pure evil that led to the massacre of 20% of the population?  As they get older, I think a lot about this.  Ryan and I try to absorb anything Rwandan-movies, books, presentations, groups; because we love Rwandans but also because we want to know as much as we can about our family history.  When God chose Rwanda for us, we knew our family would forever become Rwandan-American.  And so we crave anything we can get our hands on, whether painful or joyous.
     Joyous.  I absolutely use joyous when I describe Rwanda's history.  Let me explain.
     As we traveled the streets of Rwanda in 2009, we noticed the men in baby pink jumpsuits, filling pot holes, tending to gardens or loaded together in the backs of trucks.  We knew that these men had been convicted of war crimes.  The man driving us around, he was a survivor.  A survivor with machete scars on his face that made it impossible to ignore what had happened to him.  Yet one afternoon, as we waited outside a passport office, I watched as that kind man, that man that snuggled my skinny blond son and greeted my Molly with a kiss on the head each morning, shake hands with a man in a pink jumpsuit.  He shook his hand and exchanged pleasantries.  I don't speak Rwandan and it doesn't matter what they said.  It was this act that is burned into my memory forever.  This act of forgiveness.
     I am sure that our driver wasn't confronting his perpetrator when he shook that man's hand.  Yet he was, wasn't he?  Showing kindness to a group of people that he killed his parents.  Who does that?
     Rwandans do that.  Everywhere.  Those men in pink, they are on the streets intentionally.  They are there so that reconciliation can and does and will continue to happen.  And that leads to healing and recovery and growth.  And that is one reason that I am in love with the land of a thousand hills.
     And that is the part of the story that I will so proudly tell Etienne and Ezekiel.  That their family is part of a story of forgiveness so remarkable that the rest of the world has paused to soak it in.  That their birth country is a place of a thousand hills, with a history of heartache but with even more with hope.

“What I learned in Rwanda was that God is not absent when great evil is unleashed. Whether that evil is man-made or helped along by darker forces, God is right there, saving those who respond to His urgings and trying to heal the rest.” 

― James Riordan

“In all my travels, I've never seen a country's population more determined to forgive, and to build and succeed than in Rwanda.” 

― Rick Warren, The Bishop of Rwanda: Finding Forgiveness Amidst a Pile of Bones

“Wherever God spends the day, He comes home to sleep in Rwanda.” 

― Naomi Benaron, Running the Rift