And it continues.

  I’ve been a little quiet since the hearing last week and all that has happened since then.  Thank you to all who e-mailed, texted, called, and prayed.  I think I just needed a little time to frame my mind around all of it and be sure that I was at least within throwing distance of the right attitude before I talked about it much.

 

  I feel like we all (everyone on the case plan team) went into the hearing rather confident of what would happen.  The caseworker had already changed the case plan goal to adoption at the previous case plan meeting, an adoption worker was assigned, etc. 

  At this point, seven years into my experience in child welfare, I am convinced that if there is something that the court can do to throw you for a loop and/or neglect very important issues brought up in court reports, they will.

 

  Basically what happened was this:

The county attorney still had not filed the motion for severance.  This is why court was postponed for four weeks at the previous hearing.  All so that this attorney could file one piece of paperwork.

  Because the motion had not been filed, they could not legally set a hearing for termination of parental rights.  So this time, I guess to make sure they gave Mr. county attorney plenty of time to file his paperwork, they set the hearing out until January 13th. 

  In the meantime, the court ordered that the girls continue to have weekly visits with Mom and that her ‘progress’ be tracked.  This makes so much sense, since just in the last four weeks that she’s been in the picture, after being MIA for over 6 months, she has missed a visit, failed to be at Bella’s hospital appointment, and did not bring dinner for the girls at the visit that she did show up to.

 

  I wish that Bella and Tootaw would be able to go home.  I prayed for it incessantly for the first 12 months of the case.  We did everything we could to support mom and dad toward reunification.  I will forever mourn the hurt that the girls will experience for the rest of their lives due to not being able to be with their birth parents.

  But it is clearly not going to happen.  So at this point we are only picking scabs on two little girls’ devastated hearts.

 

 

Since resuming visits, Bella has started throwing up again and we are seeing the first traces of the same food issues that we had previously.  Tootaw completely regresses in potty training after every visit, and by the time we make any progress it is time for another visit.  They are so confused.

 

 

With that said, I am at a place where I am at peace with where God has us.  This is not His first intention for the girls.  This is a result of brokenness and sin and hurt.  But He will not leave them here alone.  He will use all of this – His scope reaches infinitely farther than mine.

And I know He will heal them in time.  I see it in Bella’s giggle, in how she is choosing to call us Mommy and Daddy now, in her gorgeous hair (which is now down past her shoulders!).  I see it in Tootaw’s attachment to Brian’s daddy love, in her smile and innocence, and in the easy way she has become a part of our family.  He will heal them.  He is healing them.  And no postponed court hearing is going to get in the way of that.

The Inbetween.

I’m pretty sure I’ve linked this blog before.  And if I haven’t, it is sorely overdue.  It’s full of honest reflections of a family that up and moved to Haiti to serve Jesus. 

Anyway, she recently posted this quote, which spoke to me exactly where we are.  It also has such application to the journey of foster parenting, for my foster parent blog friends.  Always Inbetween.

There's a place between here and there.  A piece of ground in the middle of take-off and landing.  A section of the unknown within beginning and ending.  You probably find yourself there from time to time.  It's the land known as Inbetween.


Inbetween is one of the most rugged places in life.  You aren't fully here, and you aren't fully there.  Your emotions and hopes are strewn across an endless list of possibilities.  Door knobs of wood, brass, and silver line the path, but which will open?  In the land of Inbetween, the paths are lined with sealed envelopes and foggy dreams.  Excitement runs forward and fears hold back.  And if you stay long enough, you feel the tremors of  your soul.


The land of Inbetween is downright scary.  It's a place of blind trust.  It's where the pedals of faith meet the narrow road of fortitude and where movement is demanded though there's no place to go.  The worst part of this land isn't the uncertainty or frustration that accompany it - it's that God likes it when you're there.


While He's no sadist, God loves the land of Inbetween.  He loves what it does to us.  He loves the humility and dependence it creates in our hearts, so He creates innumerable forks in life's road that swerve us into the land of Inbetween.  The unknowns of job, marriage, children, and home are the signs of this uncertain land.  At times, people are thrust into Inbetween by mishaps, accidents, sudden deaths, and even unexpected fortune.  Some people visit so many times they begin to wonder if it's life.  And they aren't far off.


So what will hold you steady when you walk through the terrain of Inbetween?  A recognition that Inbetween is God's design.  In one miraculous moment, the Creator of the universe placed you in the greatest Inbetween of all time - the place between the earthly creation and eternity.  Life's smaller lunges forward and backward are merely postcard reminders that there's something greater than this place we're visiting.


If you're in your own land of Inbetween, remember that God was the original designer of this journey.  You can get mad, scream, and even pout if you want. But it doesn't change the fact that you're merely passing through.  Everything else is Inbetween.  (from Deeper Walk, a Relevant Devotional Series)

 

  This is such a good reminder that this longing that I feel in my soul while we are preparing, waiting, planning, mapping, trusting, is only a picture of my soul’s real longing.  A longing to get where we’re really headed.  A longing to be home and done and settled.  A longing to know that where I am is where I will be.

  A picture comes to mind of Fred Flinstone.  (Of course, the me version of Fred is well, uh, less Fred-ish.  And less covered in animal skins.)  My feet are moving.  Very quickly.  The dust is gathering behind me.  Eventually my feet will hit the ground, and we’ll be moving.  I guess this revving up of sorts is just as important as the moment our feet hit the ground.  (Although, I don’t envision myself yelling Yabadabadoo.) 

  (Come to think of it, lets forget about the Fred Flinstone thing.  It’s the baby brain I tell you.)

 

  Anyway.  This was refreshing for my soul.  We are inbetween, but we won’t be forever.  And God is using this time just as much as he will use our time in our perceived destination.  And it’s only when we get to our real destination that we will truly be out of The Inbetween.

How we got here.

Errrrr, how did we get here?
Well, let's see, I guess we should go back to somewhere around one year ago right now.

Coincidence 1:
Brian was joining me in my hometown via train.  When he got in, his ride was running a little bit late, as was the ride of the woman waiting next to him.  In completely typical Brian fashion, he easily struck up a conversation, and after some small talk, come to find out, Mrs. M (I don't have permission to share her name on the blog.) is the president of the board of directors for a small not for profit.  As you could guess, the not for profit was named Samaritan Village, responsible for an orphanage in Tanzania, Africa. 
Before leaving the station, Brian asked what needs Samaritan Village had, to see if there was any way he could help.  At the time they needed help developing a website (which Brian thoroughly enjoys doing), and so he got her contact information just in case he was able to help.  After we discussed it, we decided that we didn't really have the resources to help in that way at the time.  So, we never called Mrs. M, and never really thought about Samaritan Village again.

Fast forward to just a couple of months ago.

Coincidence 2:
  It was becoming clear to Brian and I that God was getting us ready for a transition.  Brian's job is going to be coming to a natural end point sometime early to mid 2011.  We also had not received any calls for foster placements that we could take in 3 months+.  (For the other foster parents that read, you know how crazy that is.  A house licensed for four kids, sitting open for months at a time?  Doesn't happen.)  We had been planning, since moving here, to eventually move back toward my hometown.  
  So, we took advantage of the upcoming transition opportunity, and started planning for moving to my hometown.  (Started getting the house ready to sell, looking at houses there, planning for birth of baby #2 both here and there, etc.)

Coincidence 3:
  Simultaneously, God was planting a burden in my heart that I could not shake.  Through many, many avenues including, but not limited to:
-This blog - a family that up and moved to Haiti, blogging their experience.  It is incredible.  Seriously.  Read  it.
-This blog - a girl not much older than myself who moved to Africa at age 19, and has 13 children that she takes care of while also running an incredible ministry.  Incredible.  Incredible.
-More recently this sermon series has been wrecking us.  I seriously recommend listening.  But you've been warned.  I mean it is wrecking us.
-This post

...I think you get the idea.  Everywhere I looked I was bombarded.  And it hasn't stopped.  It got to the point that I was praying, 'God, I get it, I get this burden you're giving me.  But what do I do with it??  If there is nothing I can do, please take it away.'  But he didn't.
This was about the time of this post and this one.

Because of all this burden, about three weeks before we found out about the overseas opportunity, I actually asked Brian over lunch one day, "Bri, have you ever thought about if God asked us to move overseas?"  To which he promptly replied, "No."  To be honest, I was relieved, there was my answer - U.S.A. home sweet home!
But then he kept bringing it up.

Coincidence 4:
  While we were preparing to move to my hometown, we had several conversations that were all pretty similar.  We wanted to make sure that we were not so focused on moving where we wanted to move, that if God had something different for us, we ignored it.
  But, every convo ended the same way.  If God has something else for us, he'll show us, the end.

Coincidence 5:  (When we realized they weren't coincidences at all.)
  Do you remember Mrs. M?  Well several weeks ago, Brian could not get her off his heart.  He couldn't even remember her name, but God had placed her on his heart, and she was there to stay.  After a couple of days Brian looked at me and said, "Maggie, I have to call her.  We really need to call her."  He describes it as - as sure as he was that the sun would be up tomorrow, he was sure he needed to call her.  We got home, and he got out his journal and looked up her contact info, and I was all, "Oh, you mean you're going to call her right now?"
So he called her.
The conversation was exactly what you would expect.  'We just wanted to call to see how things are going with Samaritan Village and what the organization is doing.'  Mrs. M filled Brian in on how they are fundraising to drill a well so that they can really begin work on the second orphanage and how they are adding on to the first orphanage to make room for more babies.  All the while, running through my mind is 'phew.  This doesn't sound so much like something God is calling us to - this must not be what he's been preparing me for.'  Toward the end of the conversation Brian asked what service opportunities there are and how we might help Samaritan Village.

That's when God began to chuckle.

Mrs. M said, "You know, we've been praying that God would send us someone to go to Tanzania who has some administrative experience and who knows a little about the construction industry...."  She continued to describe the skills that they had been praying for, it was as if she were describing Brian himself.  (I'm in the background shaking my head thinking, "Oh no, God, oh no - I knew this was coming!")


 Moral of the story? (If anyone is even still reading at this point! Ha!)  There is no such thing as a coincidence.


So we've been praying about it, talking with people much smarter than ourselves, and trying to map out what this would mean for us.  And we haven't felt anything but confirmation that we should go (amid rampant bouts of fear and doubt). 
Not that we haven't talked to a few people who think we're totally insane - we have.  But God isn't backing off on this one, it seems - and we feel so blessed to be in this place, with this opportunity, with God giving such blatant purpose to our burden.

So...
  Brian is going to Arusha, Tanzania in December to check it all out. 
When he gets back, unless God points us in another direction, we will begin raising support and trying to make a plan out of all of this craziness!


God is good.  All the time.

Trust. More.

Brian and I have really been struggling as of late regarding placements.  Trying to determine what type (ages, behaviors, background info) of placement is a good fit right now.  Typically we’ve been open to almost any placement that they call us with.  But due to having Sylvia, our most recent experience, and some other factors playing into our lives right now we feel like it’s important for us to be very discerning at this time.

Lucky for us (since we haven’t come to any conclusions), we haven’t gotten any calls yet for children that would even be a possibility.  We’ve gotten lots of calls for kids with physical aggression, very large sibling groups, and older boys with no background info.  These, during this season of our lives, just aren’t possible.

 

Anyway.  We’ve been stressing about it.

How do you trust God while putting up stiff boundaries?  Is that really trusting at all?  But God also has given us brains to use, and the ability to determine lines between obedience and being foolish when he’s not asking us to be.

Back and forth.  Back and forth.

 

But I was thinking back to before Sylvia was born.  We had decided that we were not going to take any more placements until she arrived.  It was not out of lack of obedience or willingness – we just felt it was the best call to make, and we felt at peace with it.

Of course almost exactly one month before her grand entrance we got a phone call for a baby boy.  He was 15 months old, but was developmentally around 4 months, and he weighed a mere 12 pounds.  We knew it was crazy.  Most of the people we know thought it was crazy.  But it was undeniable that this frail little boy was exactly what God had for our family.  We prayed about it and knew that we needed to say yes.

And that was when we met our sweet X-man.

The first couple months after Sylvie was born were hard.  He was very high need, he was sick a lot, they were developmentally about 8 months apart.  And looking back, we would not trade one single moment of our time with our sweet boy.  (Okay, maybe that one moment when he crawled around the house with poop in the feet of his jammies.)  And what I wouldn’t do to get to give him another hug.  He is forever a part of my heart.

 

All that to say, that even when we had decided not to take placements for a while, God made it abundantly clear what he wanted of us.  I think Brian and I have been over analyzing it all.  We have been worried about trusting enough for the strength to take another placement – when what we really have been lacking is the trust that he will lead us in the next steps for our family.  And he will.

So we’ll keep taking phone calls, and we’ll keep praying, and I know that he will once again lead us to what he is asking of us – even if we aren’t clear on what that is.

 

This lesson God is teaching us reminds me of one of my favorite stories about Mother Teresa.  (I’ve quoted it here before, but who couldn’t use a little Mother Teresa in their day?)

 

A man felt the call of God on his life, he was sure that God had something huge planned for him. The only problem was that he wasn't sure what it was that he was supposed to do. So he figured he needed prayer. Upon meeting Mother Teresa, he asks her, "Mother Teresa, will you pray for me?" She says, "Sure, what would you like me to pray for you about?" He states, "Clarity. I want to know in no uncertain terms what God wants me to do with my life." She looks back at him and says, "No, I won't pray for you for that." Very confused and embarrassed, the man spurts out, "Well why not? I only want for my life what you have had so clearly in yours. You seem to always know exactly what God's calling you to do."
Mother Teresa looks back at him and said, "I sir, have never had clarity. What I have had is trust. So I'll pray that you learn to trust."