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.

Fire Inspection and... More Waiting

    Well, as of yesterday the fire inspection is finally completed.  Mike (I didn't catch his last name) came from the Perry Fire Department and we had a very pleasant, low-stress visit.  We toured the house, checked all the smoke detectors and Carbon Monoxide detectors, had a look at the furnace, water heater and electrical panel/breaker box filled out the paperwork and that was that.

    In the end, Mike had a few suggestions on where to hang our fire extinguishers and that we ought to move a few boxes (our house is still full of boxes from our move five months ago) away from a potential hazard.  Our paperwork is now (as far as I know) completed so we just need to mail some things into Guidestone (our agency) and then wait for our license to be updated.  How long that will take is anyone's guess but we were told at one point it might be up to four weeks.  How long we will wait for a placement after that is entirely in God's hands.

Now we wait...

                        ....again.

Classes finished... again

    For two evenings this week my wife and I attended classes to retrain on the American Heart Association method of CPR and First Aid.  It was not difficult nor was it unpleasant though, as it often has been in the past, it was a little slow.  I found the Heart Association class to be a fairly low stress affair after my experiences taking the Red Cross classes (CPR for the Professional Rescuer) when I was certified as a Life Guard.  Red Cross classes involved far more hands on application and more rigorous testing (including a fairly difficult written knowledge test that the Heart Association does not have at all).

    Clearly the Heart Association and the Red Cross (at least as I remember it) have vastly differing approaches to learning this.  On the other hand, the Red Cross class I took was for people who were expected to react instantly and to get it right the first time (lifeguards, firefighters, etc.) while the Heart Association class was really for foster parents and day care providers for whom, while the knowledge is important, what is needed first and foremost is enough knowledge to give them confidence so that they can provide care and call for professional care. After teaching for the Red Cross for more than two decades, my wife was unimpressed but I suppose both approaches are valid and have their place.

    In any case, our task for now is to turn in proof that we took the classes and then wait for our fire inspection in two weeks.  After that we're done and we wait some more for our new therapeutic foster home license to be approved.