Does God still Speak Today?

Almost four years ago, God spoke very plainly to me four times within a half hour through a Christian radio station. Now quit shaking your heads, you naysayers! Read on, and judge for yourselves.

We accepted an adoption referral for our little Colombian princess on a Friday night in November 2010. We assumed with Colombian courts closing from Dec. 15 – Jan. 15 we would be traveling to get our daughter in the new year. We discovered on Saturday that we could actually complete all the in-country paperwork IF we left for Cali, Colombia in FOUR days. That’s 96 hours, in case that seemed like plenty of time to you. We purchased our plane tickets on Sunday night for the following Wednesday, and then my Dad and I drove seven hours one-way to the Beverly Hills, California Colombian Consulate to obtain our visas.

Late Monday night as I was driving home to Arizona on Highway 10 with my Dad sleeping in the seat beside me, I tuned into a Christian radio station, attempting to get my racing mind off the 2,727 things I had to do in the following 36 hours. I had lots of questions for God. And I wanted answers. There were several loose ends that needed to be securely tied up before we took off on Wednesday morning. It was one of those moments when you are so completely at the end of your rope you plead, “O.K., God, time to show up. We have no other option than You working this out. Please, please, please answer a few questions for me….. NOW! I have been pretty patient for FOUR years… but right now, it’s game time.”

At that moment, feeling feeble and vulnerable before the God of the universe, I looked out the side windows and was surprised that I could see the cacti and sage brush on the sides of the highway in the middle of the night. Craning my neck to find the moon, it was indeed one of the brightest nights I had ever witnessed in my life. Then I recognized the lyrics to the song that was playing by The Afters.

Light light light up the sky
You light up the sky to show me You are with me
I I I can’t deny
No I can’t deny that You are right here with me
You’ve opened my eyes
So I can see You all around me

O.K., Good! was my first thought! I’ve got God’s attention for a nanosecond, I better not waste this opportunity!

Our funding for the adoption was only 2/3 accounted for……TWO days before departure. I sort of lamented to the Lord reminding Him that I had done ALL I knew to do for fundraising. I reminded Him (because He might have forgotten) that He funds what He favors. I had given it my ALL for four years and I had nothing left to give. (Like He didn’t know that either.) I also reminded Him that He promised to complete what He started. Then the song No Matter What by Kerrie Roberts started seeping through the speakers.

I’m running back to Your promises, one more time
Lord that’s all I can hold on to
I’ve got to say this has taken me by surprise
But nothing surprises You

Once again, O.K., Good! I was reassured that God was not surprised by this whirlwind trip to South America. So I brought up our main dilemma …. if we don’t have enough funds for our whole family to stay in Colombia for a month, should we leave the boys behind? Our boys were 12 and 14 at the time. They could have stayed with their Grandparents, but I really felt that this was a family bonding time for all of us. We had until midnight Monday to cancel the boys’ plane tickets. So I asked, “God, do we take the boys or not?” It was Tobymac’s turn to bring God’s answer to me in his song City on Our Knees.

Tonight couldn’t last forever
We are one choice from together
As family
We’re family
…
Tonight’s the night
For the sinners and the saints
Two worlds collide
In a glorious display
Cuz its all love tonight
When we step across the line
We can sail across the sea

At that point, the tears streamed down my face. Our choice was clearly to stay together as a family. So incredibly awesome! So God was going to show up BIG TIME …. tomorrow, because that was the last day. The 11th hour. It was time. I couldn’t wait to see how this played out!

Right after Tobymac helped us decide to take our boys to Colombia, Matthew West sang to my soul, just for some more reassurance about the whole adoption gig. Here is part of his song My Own Little World.

Father, break my heart for what breaks Yours
Give me open hands and open doors
Put Your light in my eyes and let me see
That my own little world is not about me

What if there’s a bigger picture?
What if I’m missing out?
What if there’s a greater purpose?
That I could be living right now

I don’t wanna miss what matters
I wanna be reaching out
Show me the greater purpose
So I can start living right now

The remainder of the drive home was filled with thankfulness, a grateful heart, humility that we are called to care for one of God’s chosen children, and supreme faith in the God of Abraham, Isaac and Nora. I was riding higher than a kite on a faith walk that shielded my heart from doubt. I knew God was going to show up tomorrow. I didn’t know how, or through whom, but I KNEW He would.

And He did.

Mother Guilt

If you’re a mother, you get this.  It’s very real.  So real it’s tangible.  Guilt that only mothers can have, get or put on themselves.

Three years ago, I dutifully accompanied the Colombian princess to her first American dental appointment.  After the x-rays and examination, the dentist handed me a sizeable Mother Guilt trophy explaining that her Colombian fillings were of poor quality and ALL needed to be replaced.  She had multiple cavities that would need to be filled immediately and there was so much work necessary that we would have to take her to a pediatric specialist to put her under for the procedures.  He had the nerve to ask if she brushed her teeth.  He meant AT ALL!  If nothing else, my little girl is diligent with personal care tasks.  She is the most regular flosser in our house, I’ll have you know, Mr. 24-year-old not-shaving-yet white coat!!

After listening to his entire money-hungry spiel, I inquired the location of the cavities.  As I suspected, they were all on baby teeth AND they were all minor.  With the referral slip in hand, I slipped out of the office and took the princess home to her father.  Being fully versed in dental procedures and examinations, together her father and I ascertained that the Colombian fillings were just fine and we wiggled all the baby teeth with cavities.  We noticed they all got more wiggly as we took turns wiggling them. Nope, not fixing them.

This is a translation for those who aren’t mothers.

What dentists say: “Your child has cavities.”  What a mother hears: “You are not taking care of your child.”

What dentists say: “There are two types of fillings.” What a mother hears: “There are $250 fillings that good mothers choose, and $75 fillings that bad mothers choose.”

What Dentists say: “Is your child flossing?” What a mother hears: “Are you concerned at all about the health of your child?”

What Dentists say: “Is your child brushing after each meal?” What a mother hears: “If you haven’t taught her to BRUSH HER TEETH, what the heck are you doing all day long?”

What Dentists say: “She hasn’t been in for a long time.” What a mother hears: “Why are you a mother at all?”

This entire dental event had me swear off my motherly duties of dental visits.  Period.  I somehow forgot the six month check ups… for two years.  It’s easy to block episodes that cause Mother Guilt.  Finally, after almost all of her baby teeth had fallen out, I made an appointment for her with her FATHER to go back to that horrible place.

Her appointment was this morning at 8:00.  By 9:40 I had not heard from them and was envisioning my little Colombiana strapped in the reclined chair, wearing a bloodied paper bib with tears running down her little cheeks into her ears.  Just then my husband called and relayed that they were at Denny’s having breakfast.  He casually mentioned that she had NO CAVITIES! WHAT?  And I wasn’t there to receive my Mother of the Year trophy!!!  When they got home, she reported that they put fluoride on her teeth and told her not to eat anything for 30 minutes, but that Daddy took her to Denny’s anyway.  Nice!  Father guilt doesn’t even exist!  If her fluoride wore off with a Jr. Grand Slam, it is SOOO not this mama’s fault!

My Little Girl

For Nora’s third Gotcha Day (celebrating the day we adopted her) we asked a friend to take a photo shoot of our sweet little girl.  We met in a gated community just before sundown and Nora could not figure out why we wanted her to sit in the weeds!  Hahahaha!  On a blustery Wednesday a week later we met in Target parking lot to exchange the goods.  When the CD went into the home computer and we admired each scene… each smile… each dimple… I realized my little girl isn’t going to be little for much longer.  Seriously, it was the first time I thought those thoughts.  Her face is thinning out.  Her big teeth have almost all shown up for the party.  And she does her own hair now.  Our time with our kids is so short!  And when they arrive at your heart’s door at seven years old, it is entirely too swift of a time until they leave home!

This picture is my favorite of all of them because she is laughing, truly laughing and it shows in her eyes.  It’s so sweet.  Then I took a long swallow and realized that she looks at her Daddy with these loving eyes and that cheery smile, but only for a little while longer.  My stomach did a flip flop and sank as I realized this smile and adoring look will be aimed at her next Knight in Shining Armor in as little as TEN YEARS!  WHAT!  Stop the bus!

Well, she did tell us that she’s not getting married until she’s 35, so we have a few more years than most.  :o)

Hug and kiss your kids!  And make them sit in the weeds!

Three Years Ago Tonight…

We were a family of six, yet the sixth little wonder was 12 hours away from being in our arms!  We landed late at night to the cool, dark skies of Cali, Colombia and met our “already” friend and our translator.  What a blessed relief her welcome hug was to me that night when we got off our third airplane and stepped onto our daughter’s homeland soil.

We broke a few rules with our adoption.  I presume the three year statute of limitations is up and I can freely discuss a few happenstances from our adoption journey that have remained semi-covert until now.

We weren’t supposed to have any contact with our interpreter until we got “in country”, but we needed questions answered ASAP.  It was a Friday night when we accepted the referral and we were to fly out the following Wednesday, so the flights needed to be booked pronto.  I also had 27 million questions.  No one at the agency was available to answer our “last weekend” questions, so I called a gal across the country who had returned from Cali with her little angel a few months earlier.  She put me in contact via facebook with the lady who would be our interpreter.  She was a godsend, for sure!  She helped us with flights. She booked our hotel/apartment for our first few days.  She gave us a list of what to take/what not to take.  And then her smiling face met us at the airport near midnight.

We weren’t supposed to go visit the village where Nora was born.  We were told that this could cause bad memories or frighten the child.  As far as we could tell from the gargantuan paperwork pile, Nora had not lived in that village since she was a baby.  We had the name of the hospital and thanks to adoption blogs, I learned that we could take our final adoption papers to the hospital and ask for records.  So we did.  LaCumbre was an hour away up in the misty Andes Mountains.  The hospital was clean and shiny and had an open air courtyard in the center of the building.  Hanging plants and freshly painted blue trim did my heart good.  We requested a copy of the record from the day Nora was born and were blessed beyond measure to get information about her birth mama (health history, height, weight, medical history, etc.) AND we discovered that Nora’s birth weight was incorrect on our paperwork!  We also found out what time Nora was born and how long she was.  I couldn’t be more grateful for those little tidbits of information that are worth their weight in GOLD to an adopted child.

We were supposed to stay in one of the adoption hotels recommended by the agency.  We contacted three of them and the going rate for a family of six was $330 per night… and we were staying for three weeks. ($6930!) Now we are thrift-loving souls and frankly didn’t have that much to spend on accommodations/food.  The night before we left, my husband found a vacation villa a few miles out of town in the country in a gated community with a pool and a line of shops to meet all of our needs…. for $1,000 for the three weeks!  Thank you, God!  There were four bedrooms, two full baths, air-conditioning, a washing machine and beautiful surroundings.  We hired a wonderful woman to cook and clean for us every other day…. she also went shopping with me and picked lice out of our hair.  She was a saint!

We weren’t supposed to have any contact with the foster family who took care of Nora. We were told they might try to take advantage of us and our situation in the USA.  Unbeknownst to us, Nora came bearing a little heart-shaped notebook minus all the pages that used to be inside. I thought it a bit strange until she pulled out the back lining and revealed all the contact info for the foster family.  We had Nora call them and say one last goodbye the night before we left for Bogota.  We have since been in contact and they sent pictures of their home, Nora’s bed, the family, her friends, the school, the church and the neighborhood where she lived.  Another blessing to an adopted child!  We send them current pictures of Nora and have chatted with them online a few times.  They are very thankful for this contact as she is the only child they have fostered who they have heard from.

Usually I stick to rules like a fly to flypaper, but sometimes there are very good reasons to break a few rules.

The Coming Conundrum

This photo showed up today on facebook… and I shared it on my wall, like 29,368 other people did. Being an adoptive mama, I have mixed feelings about this on several levels.

For this beautiful 22-year-old woman I pray that she gets a glimpse of her birth-parents for no other reason than looking in the face of someone she is related to by blood.  That connection cannot be replaced, other than by having her own children. It would also be a treasure for her to learn of family history, possible siblings and birth grandparents, aunts and uncles.  In a peaches-and-cream-everything-always-turns-up-roses life this could be the start of a beautiful family expanding experience.  But I don’t know one single family where life has turned up roses and there aren’t real life sad situations to deal with.

However, there are the birthparents and their current lives to consider.  What if they never told ANYONE about the daughter they had when they were in the middle of high school?  What if the birth-father doesn’t even know!? There are many reasons for choosing an adoptive plan for a child and many more reasons for requesting it be a closed adoption.  I understand closure is desired by some who are adopted, but through this possible re-connecting are two separate lives who have moved on from the 22-year-old monumental decision they made to give life, love her to pieces, and make a better plan for her life than they could provide.  If found, they have the choice to embrace their long-lost daughter, or protect those around them and hurt their “secret” daughter again.

Because of our Colombian princess’s situation in her homeland, we do have quite a bit of information about her birth-parents.  Most likely, we could find them with a bit of sleuthing, thanks to the healthcare system in Colombia.  However, Colombian law holds all adoption records as confidential for 30 years.  THIRTY YEARS!  Good grief!  So it is unlikely that our girl will have anyone looking for her. It will be up to us.  Colombian law states that “every adopted person has the right to know about his/her origin and the character of its family links.  The parents (of an adopted minor) will decide on the moment and conditions in which it will not cause the minor harm to know such information.”  THAT is the conundrum.  No matter the circumstances of an adoption plan being made, there is the possibility of a real sense of abandonment for the child, and when has abandonment ever not caused harm?

I still believe in, support and love adoption with my whole being.  Yet someday we will face the heartfelt question, “Can we try to find my birth-parents?”  One day at a time.  One day at a time.

I am Strong and Healthy (repeat)

I am strong and healthy.  I am strong and healthy.  This is what I quote to myself out loud when the first signs of sickness raise their feeble heads in my body.  Be gone plugged sinuses.  Get thee behind me, nasal drip.  My offspring stand clear when they hear their mother muttering, “I’m strong and healthy!”

The S&H phrase has been my mantra all day.  Many a cure have been applied, sniffed, soaked up and swallowed to no avail. So as the red numbers read 12:34 a.m…. the green tea in the kitchen cupboard called to me.  You know I’m not healthy when I drink tea.  Tea reminds me of wet cardboard.  Hot wet cardboard. Yes, I have tried chai and it simply tastes like sweet hot wet cardboard.  But I digress.

So I have been reading adoption blogs while waiting for my cardboard-flavored tea to get down to “children’s temperature”, as a kind Starbucks employee once described MY temperature of choice. Whatev!  Lately I have been messed up by a book called 7.  Yes, it’s a single digit number title.  Kind of like 1984, but with only one digit. At a later date when I am truly strong and healthy, I will expound on this tome and impress you with my knowledge of things I have only read about.

Anyway, the author, Jen Hatmaker, adopted two older kids.  I can relate.  She had three bio kids at home… a girl and two man-children.  Same same.  And aside from her story and her tales of woe leading up to the referrals, etc., I have been experiencing AMG… adoptive mama guilt.  Tonight I came to the trusty home computer (in the family room for ALL eyes to see what anyone may be viewing online….. side note: once I sat on the couch that is 10 feet behind the screen… and behind the viewer’s back, I used binoculars to READ THEIR MAIL!  Yes I did.) and after reading a few adoption blogs I realized I NEED to confess and repent of some AMG.

But as I leaned forward to see the keyboard in the dark of the night, my nose dripped in my green already-gross-tasting tea…. and I decided to lament the whole scene and blog about AMG tomorrow…. when the sun is shining and I am strong and healthy.

Goodnight.

GOTCHA Day!

November 25th was Nora’s Gotcha Day.  We have had our little Colombian princess for one year now!  Hard to believe!  We celebrated in style…. purple style…. and ate Domino’s pizza… because that is where we ate in Cali the night we received Nora. 

We spent time going through her Colombian box that contains all the items and clothing she brought with her from her homeland.  We gave her a beautiful handmade dress from Cali, as well as a few American gifts… that were purple!

For two years I have been working on my third book…. Nora’s Story… her lifebook.  I was impatiently waiting for all the info during the first year… and then trying to find time to put it in the book this last year.  It tells the story of her life from the day she was born.  I’m once again so thankful that we took a day to go up to LaCumbre, the sleepy little town where she was born.  We were able to get a copy of the hospital report from that precious day… and it had priceless details on it that we would have never been able to give to her! Also included in her lifebook are copies of her birth certificates, her citizenship certificate and pictures of her foster family. 

After reading the lifebook, we watched the videos that were taken in Colombia.  It made us miss our sweet friends that we met in Colombia.  We all cried again as we watched ourselves crying tears of joy when we got her.  Awesomeness, for sure!  It was interesting for her to watch, because she only spoke Spanish then.  She was quite shocked at her behavior, which is a good sign!!!  She said, “I wasn’t a very good example then!” and “I talked a LOT!” and “I wasn’t very nice, was I?”  What do you say to that?!?  No, Honey, you weren’t, but we loved you anyway! 

We ended the evening by lighting sparklers and running around the backyard screaming like little girls.  Great fun!  Nora made us a darling card that said, “Thank you for adopting me!” and lots of other terms of endearment.  She is such a thoughtful little girl!  I told my husband later that night that I didn’t expect to hear her say thank you for adopting her until she was 35.  :o)  It’s been a year of blessing!  Thank God for our little girl!

The Birthday Girl

It was another round of firsts for our little Colombian princess… first birthday party… first birthday cake… first birthday gifts… first birthday decorations… ALL for her!  It was surprising to me that her birth was not celebrated in the foster home because Colombians celebrate EVERYTHING!  She said they did sing Happy Birthday, but that was it… for everyone in the house.  Strange.

Nora has been counting down the days to her 8th birthday for over a month… without understanding the numbers above 14.. well, at least not in English.  She did have an idea of what to expect because we’ve celebrated six big events since she’s been home, but none of them were for kids.  I wonder if she thought we only had parties for ages 16 and up?? When I questioned her for birthday requests, her only one was, “Can I have a cake with my name on it?”  SURE YOU CAN!  We went right down to the local bakery and ordered a Tinkerbell cake with N O R A written across the top!  The last time any of my kids got a store-bought cake with their name on it was when they turned one and we got free first birthday cakes from Safeway! 

We had a family party on her actual birthday with cupcakes.  She was darling.  She smiled so big, I thought she might pop as we sang happy birthday!  Of course we make it really exciting by yelling WOOOO in between each line.  This coming Sunday is her party (with her cake that says NORA) for her friends… we’ve been waiting for some of them to get back from vacation.  I’ll post more pictures then.

We are so blessed to have Nora in our family!  So blessed to share God’s love with her!  So blessed to have her lighting up our home and lives!

We all need Girlfriends!

We have almost been home with Nora for five month now.  Time has FLOWN by!  Most of that time she has spent playing with us or her cousin, Luke, who lives across the street.  She has gone once to another friend’s house for the day.  But today she had girlfriends over to play for the first time.  Two sisters, one is 1.5 years older than Nora and one is 1.5 years younger.  When we picked them up, they were all timid and shy with one another as they were almost strangers.  They have met on two or three occasions, but never played together… hard!  As soon as we arrived home, they all went out to the trampoline and the laughter and squealing began.  It continued for hours.  Sweet music to my ears!

I packed snacks and juice in Nora’s little picnic basket and they had tea on the little yellow picnic table in the backyard as the wind blew their hair all wild.  And they talked non-stop.  Like girlfriends do.  At one point, the dog was bugging them, so Nora came and put her in the house.  She poked her head inside the back door, and upon seeing me looking at her, Nora said excitedly, “This is SO fun!”   “I know!” I responded, because I DO know!  Why didn’t I get her with girlfriends sooner????

(Disclaimer: Nora dressed herself:)

Half way through the play time, I packed the three little girls into the back seat of the van so I could pick up Larisa from work. (Yes, she works now… but that’s another blog.) On the drive home, Larisa and I just sat and smiled as we listened to Nora tell the entire story of the day she got a family.  It was so sweet.  She didn’t miss a thing!  “Mommy way crying.  Daddy was crying.  Larisa was really hard crying.  Keeve was crying.  They crying because they so happy.  Austin no did crying. And I run to Mommy and kiss her and give her stuffs I make. She hug me. Daddy hug me.  I was so happy, but I did no crying.”  Melts my heart!  It’s the first time I heard her tell the story!  She was so proud!

Again I say, we ALL need girlfriends!  They simply bring out the best in us!

I Officially have FOUR Kids!

Today was the final Sentencia in the courts for us to sign on the dotted line and make Nora ours officially.  It’s not all as fancy as that sounds…. the court that you sign in is a room full of desks…. looks like a crowded newspaper office without cubical walls.  Rick actually went without me to sign.  I’m not feeling that great and our guide didn’t think it was a good idea to take the kids downtown at this busy time of the year.  I was good with that.  I stayed home and have been taking any and all cold medications we brought with us! 

When Rick got home he handed me a stack of official papers in Spanish and I read through them the best I could in my Spanglish.  It made me cry all over again.  Why any child would have to go through this is so SAD!  I keep looking at our new daughter… she’s so stinkin’ cute!  And talented… and I’m not just saying it because I’m the momma!  Even her toes are darling.  And she has dimples and wavy hair… not that any of these things matter to me… but they are the icing on the cake.  Every child deserves a home with love and acceptance and I’m so glad she’s in ours!

I had the typical new-mommy fear: What if I don’t think she’s cute?  Rick reassured me that Colombian girls are all cute!  He also reminded me that I didn’t think one of my bio kids was cute either….. but that child has grown on me and now I do!  (No names mentioned!  Ever!)

Nora is spunky… today was the first morning that she woke up before me… at 6:30!  She came jumping in on our bed and kissed me and said her only line in English, “Good morning, Mama!”  She wakes up happy.  She goes to bed without too much of a hassle!  But even if she didn’t, we would still love her to pieces.  In our adoption training, we heard worse case scenarios that had us holding our breath waiting for weeping and gnashing of teeth.  Our transition has been so much better than we could have hoped for.  I do realize this is the honeymoon phase and her true colors will shine at home in a month or so, but I expected so much more trauma!  I’m thankful!

Last night I used google translate to ask Nora a bunch of questions.  I told her that we have been waiting four years for her!  And that we prayed for her that whole time.  I asked her if she prayed to.  She answered in Spanish, “Yes, to Jesus for a family!”  I told her Jesus answered her prayers and ours!  It will be so interesting to get more of her story from her own lips once we are on the same language page. 

I realize her entire life has been changed forever… but so has mine.  I’m a mother of four.  Two girls.  Two boys.  And I get to do ponytails again… and ruffle sockies.  Being a mom is the BEST!