Here We Go Again...

   Our temporary placement that I mentioned in my last post was supposed to last for three days.  At first it seemed that the agencies involved wanted the existing foster home to reconsider, but when that wasn't possible, they frittered around long enough to make us wonder if they were trying to persuade us to take her permanently.  For a variety of reasons, that just wasn't possible.  They did finally find a more permanent solution but only after they were closing in on three weeks (instead of three days) and only after my wife made it very clear that our schedule made it impossible for us to keep her any longer.

   Then a little more than a week ago, we heard that another placement was possible and asked if we might be interested.  This time a school aged boy a bit younger than our kids.  We didn't get a lot of information at first because he was not a part of our agency but to one of the local county agencies.  As we learned more about his background we became more willing to consider it and so, starting with a one-day "trial", last week we began a new long-term placement.  Things are going reasonably well so far, but that is not to say that there has not been some friction.  Another person in the house changes many things and not all of us deal with change in the same way.  There are loner lines for the bathroom in the morning, our schedules are different, there is one more person for whom to organize care, doctor visits, prescriptions, etc.  I am certain that his stress is spiking as well as he moves to a new foster home and a new school and tries to learn new rules and adapt to new family customs and values.  All in all, none of this was unexpected but, at the same time, is a source of stress for many family members.  For this to happen in the middle of the Christmas season hasn't made things any easier.  I hope (and I believe) that things will settle down in a few weeks as we grow accustomed to one another and to our new routines.

First (Temporary) Placement

    It’s been too long (again) since I posted an update here.  For the last few weeks we have just been plain busy.  Patti has been preparing for, and then actually being a part of, a weekend of Kairos prison ministry at the Northeast Pre-Release Center, a women’s prison in Cleveland and, as always, there is a lot going on at church.  During this time, we also continued to work on our Aunt’s house and have moved some of her furniture to our house.  Moving furniture, particularly beds and dressers is the biggest part of what we had left on our “to do” list before we felt ready to accept a placement.

    

    A few weeks ago, we discovered that we were ready before we knew we were ready.  Knowing that we were very close, one of the folks from Guidestone called us and asked if we would consider taking in two boys from a neighboring county.  We agreed to talk about it, but at our next training meeting a few days later we discovered that as soon as we had said we were willing to talk, they had submitted our file to the county for consideration.  Nothing ever really came of it, but we realized that we were ready.  

    Then last week it happened.  A Guidestone foster parent had some trouble with a high school aged girl that had been living with her.  We knew them both and they knew us so, at least in the short term, Guidestone asked if she could come to our home for a few days of respite care while they searched for a new, more permanent, placement.  We said yes.  The girl was supposed to stay with us for just two or three days but we are already approaching a week.  Everything has gone fairly well so far.  The worst part for us has been that her schedule is dramatically different than ours of our children’s so it has been something of a challenge for one of us to be around when she is home.  Today she is meeting with her county social worker so things may change but we don’t yet know what will happen or when.

    I suppose this means we should also finish up that last bit of paperwork too…

Now it's Our Fault

Well, now the shoe is on the other foot.

    For months we were waiting for paperwork to wind its way through the halls of bureaucracy somewhere, but, as I noted a few weeks ago, we finally had the official piece of paper.  Now, we have had a couple email exchanges and a phone call with folks at our agency, Guidestone, who want us to meet and discuss what sorts of children we are able to parent, as in what sorts of disabilities we can cope with, and so on.  the problem at the moment is not the agency, or the county or the state.  It's us.  We knew that we were almost ready months ago but then we inherited a house full of furniture from our aunt and we've spent nearly every weekend there, cleaning and repairing things. 

    Part of our being "almost ready" has been that we had room for new kids but not necessarily beds.  Since each of our kids had their own room (this is the first house we've lived in where they could do that), our plan was to add one more bed to each room.  To do that we needed to buy a new mattress for our bunk beds but we needed one more bed as well.  Since we inherited our aunt's furniture we thought it would be a shame to sell off her nice beds and keep some of the cheap beds we bought when out kids were younger.  That meant cleaning at Aunt Gladys' house had to reach a point where we could get beds out of her house and moved to ours.  As of this week we're nearly there.  One bed was moved a couple weeks ago and a second one moved this past weekend.  Now we need a new mattress for the new bed and the bunk bed and we're almost there (our children have some major room cleaning to do, so we will have to find ways to, um, motivate them properly).  After that, the only thing left is for us to fill out one more form (the one where we sort out what we can cope with) and we're there.

We originally thought that we'd get this all done in time for the new school year to start, but obviously,  we were a little overly optimistic.

The other weird part is that we still haven't managed to tell our parents about all this.  We might just end up breaking it to them when we introduce our new (foster) children to them. 

That could be interesting.

Still waiting, but...

    Well, there isn't much to report except that a few weeks back we finally got a piece of paper that said we had finally received our license as a therapeutic foster home. Beyond that, nothing has happened.  On the other hand, we told the folks at Guidestone that we would not be able to accept a placement during the summer while our family was traveling for vacation, church camps, and other activities.  As of now, with the start of marching band season and cross country season, we are still running but are now staying pretty close to home.  I let our liaison at Guidestone know that we were home, but maybe it just hasn't sunk in yet.  In any case, we're still waiting.

There's a finish line around here somewhere... I think.

    Well, last week we finally heard that our license had finally transferred from Belmont County to out new agency, Guidestone.  We still don't really know for sure if our license 'upgrade' from 'foster home' to 'therapeutic foster home' has been accomplished or not.  I really need to ask our contact at the agency again when we see her.

   You would think that we would be more insistent that this get squared away but right now our summer schedule is booked solid.  We've thought about getting a new dog and have put that off until fall (at least) and there is really no way that we could squeeze in plans for an extra family member at this point.  Our hope now is to get all the paperwork completed, T's crossed and I's dotted, over the summer so that we will be ready to accept a placement in late summer or fall.

    Meanwhile, I've begun to occasionally look at the children (and their biographies) on AdoptUSKids.org again.  It breaks my heart to see all these kids without parents.  Sometimes you just want to take them all but there are just so many...

    One more thing, two weeks ago we attended some additional foster parent training that was put on by the Cuyahoga County department of Children's Services.  While there we attended a session that was taught by Detective Bobby Grizzard.  It was excellent and frightening at the same time.  I am hoping to have Detective Grizzard do similar presentation at our church, both for the community and for our youth.  You can find my thoughts on his presentation here: Sexual Predators: the Hunters and the Hunted.

Everything is Done... Except the Waiting.

   We got word on Wednesday of last week that our agency had finally made contact with the last of our references and all the paperwork was then forwarded upstream.  What that means for us I'm not exactly sure.  Does that mean that our file has not yet been sent to, and reviewed by, the folks in Columbus who will, ultimately, have to issue our new foster home license?  Is Columbus already done and now we are only waiting on our agency to dot the "i"'s and cross the "t"'s?  Does that mean we will have our license this month or a month from now?  Honestly, I am utterly clueless.  All I know is that we will continue waiting.

   When we finally decided that the time was right to begin the process of another adoption from foster care, we knew that it would require classes and training, a new homestudy and all that goes with it.  We've been down that road before and much of it is familiar territory.  The weird part of this was, and is, how messed up the whole thing became when we found out we were moving.  Don't get me wrong, this had been a great move for us.  We love where we are, the church where I serve, the school that our kids attend, and the people that we live and work with.  We just never expected that transferring our homestudy to a new house (which is what we thought was going to happen) would take as long as it has.  Here we are, eight months later, and we still don't even have our license, let alone a placement.  Heck, without the license, we can't even be too serious about looking through the listings on AdoptUSkids.org. 

    I'm not blaming anyone.  It wasn't any one person's (or agency's) fault.  I know that the delays are an accumulation of choices that we made, as well as the choices of our new county and our new agency.  Moving delayed things.  Deciding we didn't like the county agency in out new residence delayed things.  Moving to a new agency and upgrading our license delayed things.  And on top of that, we lived through the loss of our Aunt Gladys who, generously, left us an inheritance.  Her gift to us is a fabulous blessing (of that I have no doubt) but the time we have needed, and will need for the next several months, to handle her estate, home and belongings, makes it somewhere between difficult and impossible to accept a placement right now, even if one were available.

We're hoping that life will calm down toward the end of summer and we will be ready for a placement.  Will one be available?  Will our agency need us to do respite care for someone amidst the chaos that is our summer?  Will a placement be available when we're finally ready?  To these questions, and others, my only answer is, "Who knows?"  In truth, we will do as we have always done.  We will continue to lean on, and trust, the wisdom and love that God has for us.  It's our lives, but it's his plan.

Meanwhile... we wait.

One Year and Counting

    Looking back at this blog I realized that we started our pre-service classes in February or March of 2012, which means that we've been chasing this rabbit for over a year now.  I guess technically, we were done at the end of last June but then everything got interrupted when we moved from Belmont County to Stark County.  At the moment, as far as i know, everything is done except that our agency, Guidestone, has been unable to contact one of our references.  I don't suppose it's the fault of anyone in particular, but just a sort of perfect storm.  First, someone waited to call our references after all of our additional required training was completed (because we are upgrading our license to a therapeutic foster home) and in doing so, managed to try to call one of them while they were out of state for a wedding and then away on vacation, then, when they returned and called back, no one answered and they left a message.  And then no one returned the message, until they were out of town again... I think.  Anyway, everyone is at home again so I hope they can quit playing phone tag and "Git 'er Done."

    In the meantime, our lives have taken a few turns as well.  Obviously, we moved and changed churches/employers last July and so unpacking and readjusting to new schools and a new community has been required, but there have been more adjustments as well.  In December, our Aunt Gladys passed away after a long battle with cancer and named Patti (my wife) as the executrix of her estate.  The legal hassles and the hours of work that this has drawn Patti into have been considerable and daunting.  We thank God regularly for good financial advice, a good attorney, and an employer that gives me a lot of flexibility.

    Since Lina will be 18 this fall, and therefore 17 years since we brought her home, we thought it was time for her to get a chance to see her homeland.  Therefore, on top of everything else, Patti and Lina are planning a heritage tour to China with Holt International, the folks who pioneered international adoption and who helped us bring Lina home to our family all those years ago.  As before, we are finding that the Holt folks are thorough, professional and just plain great.

    On top of all that, we are planning for my ordination as an Elder in the United Methodist Church in June, a family vacation in July, and my attendance at the National Association of Rocketry Annual Meet (NARAM) in Aurora, Ohio this summer, as well as various trips to summer camp, band camp, regular summer training runs for our student athletes and cross country camp.

    In essence, what I'm saying is that while Guidestone would like for us to just give them another reference so that can stop playing phone tag, our lives are currently spinning so fast, that we (at least me) don't really mind if this slows us down just a little bit.  While we would like to be "done" and have our license in-hand, I don't expect that we'd be totally available for a placement right now.  Could we squeeze in plans for one more child?  Probably, but as fast as we're spinning at the moment, they would have to run pretty hard to get on this crazy ride with us.

A Dream So Big - a story of missionary adoption and much, much more...

I try not to do it, but I an cross-posting this from another Blog that I write.  Today my friend Steve Peifer's book will hit the shelves.  Although Steve and his wife Nancy are missionaries with a heart for God, they are also the parents of two biological children and two more that were adopted from Kenya.  Steve and Nancy's adventure, and this book, would not have happened without one of the greatest tragedies that can befall any parent, the loss of a child.  If you are the parent of an adopted child, or any child, you will want to read this book.

My wife, Patti, and another member of our church first met Steve Peifer during a trip to visit Keith and Jamie Weaver, missionaries sent by our church to the people of Kenya.  There, Patti met Steve and worked with this beautiful wife Nancy in the library at Rift Valley Academy.  I first met Steve at my home church when we invited him to come and tell us about his efforts to feed hungry school children that he describes in A Dream So Big.  Since then Patti and I have answered a call to pastoral ministry and have not only followed Steve’s adventures through his regular emails, but have, on several occasions, invited him to speak in the churches where we were serving.  I don’t think that his story has ever failed to astound his listeners. 

     

    Steve is an average, middle class guy whose life was turned upside down and who, through no particular plan of his own, ended up in Kenya, Africa seeing things that most of us cannot imagine, and doing things that we would be afraid to do.  Throughout this story, Steve insists that he is not an amazing man, just a man through whom, God is doing amazing things. 

 

    In A Dream So Big, we meet Steve, Nancy, and their family before the adventure began, at home, in Texas.  We walk with them through one of the most difficult times that a parent can imagine, the loss of their child, Steven, and then follow them as they head to Africa.  At first, their African adventure is intended to be just a year away to sort things out and to process the pain and the trauma of losing a child, a time for their family to be together and to heal.  But, as Steve often points out, Africa changes a person.  After a year in Kenya, the Peifers feel called, if not compelled, to return on a more permanent basis, and it is then that the real adventure begins.  

    Not content to see children lying in the dirt at school because they are weak from hunger, Steve sets out to change the world, or at least his little corner of it.  Steve asks, and with the help of his friends and supporters in the United States, begins to provide lunches for two schools nearby.  Two schools become four, and then ten, and by the end of the book become a truly extraordinary number.  Providing food not only allows the children to be free from hunger, but gives them the strength to get an education and an incentive to stay in school.  Even with these successes, Steve is not content.  Building on the feeding program, Steve and his friends begin to build solar powered computer centers.

    Just because I said the word computer, do not be tempted to think that this is just another story about wealthy, white Americans swooping in to “rescue” Africa.  Those stories are old and they often are the picture of “Ugly Americans” with all the cultural insensitivity that you might expect.  That is not Steve’s story.  Steve builds a program in which the villages take ownership of their schools and their computer centers.  The parents know that when these children finish school and head into the city to find work, as most of them do, that they will find good paying, skilled jobs instead of living in the slums fighting with untold thousands of others for a handful of unskilled jobs.  The school children, their parents, and many others have seen Steve’s vision, and it is a vision that can break the back of poverty in Africa.  It is a vision that can change the world.

    I highly recommend A Dream So Big.  As you follow Steve, Nancy and their family on this amazing adventure, you will laugh out loud at the ridiculous situations in which Steve finds himself.  But you will also weep at the poverty and hopelessness that he sees all around him.  A Dream So Big invites you, not only to follow along, but to be a part of this incredible adventure.  I have no doubt that Steve Peifer is changing the world, one child at a time.  When you read this book, you will discover that you can too.

Steve's book, A Dream So Big was released today and can be found on Amazon here: A Dream So Big.

Legacy of an Adopted Child

A few days ago, my Mom sent me a newspaper clipping that was a reprint of a Dear Abby letter.  In it was a poem (author unknown) entitled, Legacy of An Adopted Child.  I read it and liked it.  Our children are at an age where they don't care much for poetry (and in truth I was never much one for poetry either, but it seems to grow on me as the years go by).  In any case, i thought I would share it here in the event that someone may find it who had never seen it before.  i will happily give credit where it is due if anyone ever discovers who the real author might be.

Legacy of an Adopted Child

Once there were two women

Who never knew each other.

One you do not remember,

The other you call mother.

Two different lives

Shaped to make yours one.

One became your guiding star.

The other became your sun.

The first gave you life

And the second taught you to live it.

The first gave you a need for love

And the second was there to give it.

One gave you a nationality,

The other gave you a name.

One gave you a seed of talent,

The other gave you an aim.

One gave you emotions,

The other calmed your fears.

One saw your first sweet smile,

The other dried your tears.

One gave you up--

It was all that she could do.

The other prayed for a child

And God led her straight to you.

And now you ask me

Through your tears,

The age-old question

Through the years;

Heredity or environment

Which are you the product of?

Neither, my darling -- neither,

Just two different kinds of love.

Frustration

I haven't written anything for a while because I fully expected that I would be writing about the approval of our new homestudy and foster care license.  Apparently, that was not to be.  Through much of our process we have been just a few weeks behind Julia, another foster parent with whom we took some of our last classes.  Julia received her approval in December and already has had a child placed in her home.

We're still waiting.

We're not sure, at this point, if the state is holding things up for some reason (or for no reason), or if someone has made an error at our agency.  Only last week we received and email from Guidestone asking for additional contact information for one of our references.  Apparently, they were still checking our references months after we expected that they had finished.  Does that mean that they haven't even submitted the paperwork to the state or is this something that they always expected to be doing in parallel to whatever is supposed to happen in Columbus?  Honestly, I'm not sure.  All I know is that this is all taking longer than it was supposed to take and, even longer than I, in my most pessimistic thoughts, had anticipated.

Color me frustrated.

Still Waiting

    I had hoped, by this time, to announce that we had received our updated foster care license, but that still hasn't happened.  Several weeks ago we sat with our friend Julia in a training session with our agency, Guidestone, and a roomful of other foster parents.  Julia has consistently been a few weeks ahead of us in "the process" and had, at that time, just received her state-approved license.  Since we submitted our homestudy and other documentation only a few weeks after Julia, we expected that we would hear about our approval by now.  Nope.

In the beginning, I started this blog in an open forum.  I intended for it to be a journal of one family's journey through "the process."  I started anonymously in the event that people I knew might stumble upon it.  Later, through carelessness, I posted from my regular account instead of through my new "Anonymous Dad" account.  When I discovered my mistake I realized that since almost no one was really reading my postings the risk of discovery was low so I didn't bother deleting them and re-posting from the other account.  Still, even this far into the process, we haven't told our families that we are doing this.  At this point there really isn't a good reason other than we haven't thought of a way to do it and it hasn't ever felt like the "right" time.  At  the moment we are thinking that we will tell them when our license arrives.  If we don't we will run the very real risk of explaining it to them after a child has come to live with us.  I expect that would be rather awkward.

We are still looking at the bedrooms in our house and thinking about how we could arrange furniture and where we could put beds so that no one tries to hang from the ceiling fans but, for now we are...

...still waiting.

Why the Russian Adoption Ban is a Disaster in Slow Motion

    By now most of you have heard about the adoption ban put into law in Russia.  It all began with an attempt by our United States government to rein in human rights violations in Russia.  President Obama signed the Magnitsky Act, which provides sanctions against Russian citizens deemed by the US to have violated human rights.  Prior to this, the Russian government was concerned about the abuse some Russian children have received at the hands of their adoptive parents in the United States but had only recently, in November, 2012, signed a new treaty designed to provide greater access for Russian officials who desired to review the treatment of adopted children.  This new agreement was only in place for eight weeks before the adoption ban was signed by President Putin.

    The Russian government claims that the adoption ban was necessary because they were not getting access to the documents that the new treaty was supposed to give them and the American government claims that the whole thing is just retaliation for passing the Magnitsky Act.  Whichever is true, it is neither the American nor the Russian government that is the big loser.  The big losers remain the children who will remain in Russian orphanages instead of in loving homes.

    I know something about this.  Our family includes two children who were adopted from a Russian orphanage.  The trauma that they suffered in their first year of life has been a real education.  Before we witnessed it firsthand, I never would have believed that children could be so damaged in their first year of life.  We were always told that “Love heals all wounds,” and “Love conquers all,” and things like that.  We genuinely believed it when people told us that all we had to do was take them home and love them.  But sometimes love isn’t enough.  Thankfully, the problems that our children have, though not insignificant, are not nearly what other parents, whom we’ve met, live with every day.  Some of the neurological, emotional and psychological problems that grow out of living in an orphanage, even for a few months, are frightening. 

 

    While I could not ever condone abuse, I have seen enough to understand how parents of some of these children could reach a point where they simply don’t know what else to do.  Many parents do not abuse these damaged children but recognize that they cannot cope with the behaviors of their children and choose to dissolve or disrupt the adoption.  That means what it sounds like; they go in front of a judge and declare that they are no longer the parents.  This frees them, but makes the children orphans yet again and turns their care over to the state in which they live, or to yet another set of adoptive parent and cause still more emotional and psychological damage.

    Children from former Eastern bloc countries (primarily Russia and Ukraine) bear a higher risk for behavioral problems and eventual adoption disruption.  We don’t completely know why, but although similar problems are seen in children from other nations, these children see higher rates of disruption than any others.  I cannot quote any particular sources but I have heard estimates as high as 10-20 percent.  That means that even with the resources of wealthier American parents, even with parents who love them, even with access to modern medical and psychological care, between one in ten and one in five of these kids have real, serious problems.   Do the Russians have a right to be concerned about what is happening to their children?  Certainly.  But what happens if they don’t come here, don’t have parents, and don’t have access to care?  Russia does not have a history of adoption.  Adoption is not a part of their culture.  While adoption does happen, fewer Russian children are adopted by Russians than by Americans, and we are just one country among many who has, until now, been able to adopt from Russia.  Children who remain in Russian orphanages are likely to stay there until they “age out,” until they are old enough that the Russian government turns them loose on the streets with no support whatsoever.  The majority of children who age out of Russian orphanages will end up dead or in prison within two years.

    Yes, these children can be scarred and damaged by even a few months in an orphanage.  Yes, we should strive with all that is within us to do a better job than we are doing.  No.  No child should suffer abuse at the hands of their parents regardless of their behavior.  But the Russian government needs to look in the mirror as well.  Our system may not be perfect, but an adoption ban that prohibits these children from coming home to loving parents doesn’t fix the problem and in reality only makes it worse.

As usual, when grown-ups fight, the ones who lose... are the children.