Dreamseekers and Company

There is a lot of anticipation around here as we approach bringing the littlest Davis home. For months, Brian and I have cordoned off a part of our brain that experienced pain and grief whenever we thought about our “newborn to us” son and the conditions he is living in, literally half a world away. And now the longing, the waiting, the work, the great expense, the longing is about to be fulfilled in the adoption and reunion of ourselves with our precious son. I leave tomorrow.

There are two things happening here, however. Well, at least two. One is the reunion of a family to a son. The other is the disruption of a child from his world… into a family of strangers. This is a child who knows his life’s routine, who has a set point of all things familiar… being taken without explanation (he does not understand Bulgarian, much less English more than a few words) to a foreign place with people he doesn’t know. From his perspective, he is being kidnapped.

Please pray for him. Pray for us. We have studied how to best relate with him during these first days and years to create an environment where Daniel can begin to experience feeling safe. But we know so little about him that we don’t really know what it’s going to be like. I barely know what he looks and sounds like. I have very little insight into his thoughts, hopes and fears. But this is the only way: pick him up unannounced from his orphanage on Wednesday morning, change him into clothes we’re bringing for him and leave immediately in a car for a 6+ hour drive back to the country’s capital. He’s rarely been in a car. I’m not sure how the fear will set in – will he try to play and distract himself? Will he withdraw and be a little mouse? Will he protest and cry? Certainly, after some hours he will want to go back to his room, back to his bed, be tired and hungry.

So I know this is a “downer” post in the midst of the celebration of adoption. It’s suffering in the middle of great joy. But that’s the way of adoption. Brokenness and healing. Grief and new life. The joy is no less!

At the same time, I see this journey as an image of other parts of my life. Where joy and suffering are together. Love. Passion. Ambition. Loss. Emptiness. Failure. One goes with the other. When my faith is weak and I consider if God is real… then I realize that if God is not, then at the end of this life, there is no reward, no hope, no champion, no reunion. That is death! God is real and He knows my name! And at the end of this temporal struggle between the forces of light and darkness, there is a great reunion of all. And He will call my name, because He knows and loves me. What joy and hope at the end of the battle!

THAT, is anticipation. Can’t wait!

Today, I have been listening to God tell me about hope. It’s an important promise for me as we are finishing our adoption journey… beginning our parenting journey… and leaving so many children behind. I need these messages of hope, of life.

The main story was this morning. Brian was working from home and we took a morning break to walk down the hill to bring the chickens a bag of food.

First promise of life… the rebirth of rain after a summer draught. The smell was fresh, the sun was cheerful, the air so deliciously clean. The birds chirping, the rough, scratchy grass softened. I had just scheduled Daniel’s first doctor appointment HERE in the States and I felt the life in me dancing.

While we were down in the coop, I decided to move our broody chicken (chicken that sits in her nest incubating eggs and who doesn’t leave the nest except for a bite of food or drink) out of her nest. She’s been sitting for well over the 3 weeks it takes to hatch eggs and I knew that the two eggs she was sitting on were most likely dead. I have a separate part of the coop with no nests that I was going to lock her in for a few days. It’s not my favorite thing to do. We’ve seen the eggs sitting cold (because she went back to the wrong nest on accident). One of the eggs had two long hairline cracks. They both had a slightly rotten smell. So we picked her up and turned to go.

A single fluffy yellow chick looked up at us with great surprise.
The other egg, still uncracked, peeped at us.

Life. Unexpected life. Life after adversity. Hope.

Hope for Daniel.

Then tonight after work but before dinner, we attacked the weeds in the garden. Our poor garden. We tended it some. We watered it some. And the weeds thrived and many of the cultivated plants died or sprawled on the ground for lack of necessary trellises. And the weeds. Oh, the weeds. We pulled and we pulled. With every giant weed we pulled from the rain-softened ground, we saw the soft, dark soil that we had prepared this spring. And I remembered that from our poor, overgrown, imperfect garden, that I’ve harvested tens of pounds of gorgeous, delicious tomatoes. And bags of carrots. And there are nearly a dozen small butternut squashes in there. And the blueberries… gallons of blueberries were picked this spring.

Hope. Promise. Life.

Finally, as I left the garden to feed my family, I saw a honeybee. It had been there an hour earlier. Sitting, moving slowly, lost little honeybee. It was a young one, not old and near death. But then, it was near death. I suppose it went too far from home without enough food. I mixed a teaspoonful of sugar water and offered it. She drank. Then she cleaned her antenna and wiped her face. I offered her the sugar again, but she flew away, in slowly widening circles, finding her way home.

Sometimes we need a helping hand.

Life.

Some days the death and suffering are all I can see. This world is so very broken. But other days the Lord whispers words of hope.

Daniel’s room is full of his sister’s clothes as I switch them out from summer to winter clothes. His bed is covered with travel miscellaneous. We have just one more week of homeschool to do and then I drop everything. At last. And I fly.

Here are a few photos from my cell phone:

And pictures from my camera!

We had a great August. And next week we start school! Also, September 4th is a huge day, because it’s the day that Daniel will become a Davis!

Without further ado – here is the energy that was August.

Okay, I have four kids. That’s more than average, but it’s not big in the part of town I live in. We’re about to add number five. That’s a bigger family and puts our family squarely in a different family style than a 1-3 kid family…. but again, it’s neither unusual nor exceptional. One of my kids has special needs. If I want to simplify what that means, it means I have a toddler who will stay a toddler for some time longer. Not at all strange to have a toddler in the house.

So when I simplify and downplay stuff… my life is totally normal and I begin to wonder… am I weak? Because I can’t do a lot of the things. You know, the play dates, the activities, the participating with other families things. All these awesome summer activities we’re doing, like going to the fair and going camping… they just barely happen.

And then I stop. I talk with Brian. And together, we acknowledge our hard work. I think this applies to all parenting, all work, all the good, hard stuff. But it applies to me too. This is hard work. Being Jordan’s parents is hard work.

Have you ever owned a puppy? You know that feeling of constant vigilance? The keeping them with you, chasing after them, finding them… constantly trying to protect your property from being chewed or peed on? The mopping of pee from a carpet… trying to get poop off of whatever it’s on… the deliberate calming of internal emotions so you don’t spank the puppy too hard when you discover something you value has been ruined by indiscriminate and destructive play? You know going places with a puppy… especially a full grown but young large-breed puppy. They jump on people, dump things of of picnic tables, pull on the leash, drag behind, and bark or whine endlessly so that you can’t participate in any of the picnic games. There is a reason that Jordan’s given icon is a paw print. He is so much like a big puppy!

We cannot leave this puppy unattended. We can’t leave him home when we go places. It’s not okay to leave him whining or barking. And he doesn’t speak English. And he does all those things. When we go to the fair, I see about 10% of what’s happening around me. I don’t remember taking many of the pictures. Because my attention is 90% on Jordan. Going to the fair is exhausting and stressful for him. Therefore it is for me.

Anyway, this isn’t really for anybody’s benefit from me. Sometimes I need to acknowledge my hard work. Sometimes I need to be proud of me. Sometimes I need to look into myself and see all this awesome strength. Sure, I am tired and I fail a lot of things. I get grouchy and I’m not the parent I want to be. BUT…. I am doing a lot right. Being tired does not mean weak. It means I have a big, important life where I’m pouring myself all the way out for my family. Somebody once spoke over me… they told me that I am a conduit of God’s love. They told me that when I believed myself a failure. But I’m not. God’s put me in a place with great responsibility for these children and I am honored and challenged and relying on God daily.