If Teacups Could Talk

Before dogs and children, these teacups and this book were my favorite decorations to display.

My grandparents bought me this beautiful tea set in Romania back when I was a teenager. After spending a semester in Argentina and falling in love with the whole "mate" (/mah/-/tay/) tradition (sitting with friends and drinking a tea-like drink together every time you got together), I wanted to bring a similar tradition into my home. Tea time. A cherished, intentional time to share with friends.

Then came David, later two indoor dogs, then Juan, then life. Those beautiful tea cups and the book displayed with them, If Teacups Could Talk, got pushed back into a corner and now have a layer of dust on top of them. I haven't gotten them out in years.

Now, I meet up with friends at local coffee shops to share that cherished, intentional time. I hate crowds, I hate noise, and I hate gathering with large groups. But I absolutely love just sitting over a cup of coffee or tea with a friend, or my son, or my husband, or my mom. For the person who won't pick up a phone for the life of her, I can sit and talk for hours over a single cup of coffee at a coffee shop. It really is one of the best ways to get to know me when I have nothing else in front of me or occupying me. No dogs to let out. No animals to pet. No kids to get after. No house to pick up. No dishes to wash. I can make eye contact with whoever I'm with, observe their facial expressions and body language, and enjoy everything about a conversation that I can't do over a phone.

We haven't done much this summer as far as activities or travels. David and Mike have been working,  David and Juan served at camp, David has been fully involved in tons of church activities, and Juan and I have been taking advantage of free movies and other inexpensive outtings while we're off for the summer. But I have been able to get together with friends and family quite often for coffee or tea, and I'm so thankful for that time. It truly is one of my favorite things to do.

David and I have our favorite local coffee shop downtown where we'll sit and play Skipbo or Phase 10 while sipping our drinks. My mom and I like to frequent a specific Starbucks that has a large outdoor seating area where we can just sit with a cup of chai and talk in a way we probably wouldn't if we were at either one of our houses. Mike and I will grab a cup of coffee at a Starbucks right around the corner from where we attend ReEngage and then take it to the church to sit in the lobby together before going in. When we need some family time, we'll all four go to the coffee shop downtown and play games. Sure, a single drink can get expensive, but we can each get one expensive drink and enjoy each other's company for several hours and still come out cheaper than going to a movie as a family. My two sweet Bible study friends will meet me on a moment's notice and spend hours just catching up with each other. And my sweet teammate and I realized we both had a connection to a little tea room in Rockwall that my Colombian friends own, so we've been meeting there every week, getting to know each other in a way that we never have the time to do during the school year.

In fact, as I looked around that little tea room the other week and saw some of the books displayed on the shelves beside some tea cups, that old book on my shelf came to mind. As soon as I got home, I pulled it down, cleaned it up, and knew I found a new home for it--right in that little tea room. Oh, if teacups could talk--they'd have so many stories of relationships that grew over them.

My dream of decorating in teacups and displaying my tea set proudly will have to wait until another season of my life, perhaps when the dogs and kids are all grown and gone. For now, I'll enjoy and frequent my favorite local coffee shops and that cute little tea room (which now also sells coffee and makes a good Colombian breakfast plate!).

Defeated to Victorious--Part 2

I'm not a talker. I keep to myself most of the time, especially if I'm struggling with something. The last thing I want to do is talk to someone before I've even had a chance to process things on my own first. I have so many thoughts running around in my mind at all times, but if I try to talk it out, the words just don't come out nearly as sophisticated as I intend them to. In fact, they get all jumbled together and come out sounding like a mess. I get lost midsentence between one thought and the next, I lose my train of thought, and I just shut down and shut everyone out. I process my thoughts and emotions best by writing them down--thus why writing a book through my grief after a failed adoption was truly the best therapy in the world for me.

So, I did what all introverts do. I pushed it all deep down inside and just kept moving, trying to survive the last few weeks of the school year. Until I could find the time and energy to shut the world out long enough to journal my heart out, I focused on survival. I knew summer would be here soon enough. In the meantime, I had two close friends checking up on me, texting me often with encouragement and Scripture, and praying me through. One close to my age that I count on for wise, Biblical advice and encouragement, the other much more seasoned than I who I know I can always count on to pray for me even when I don't have the words to explain my need. We are always there for one another, and I'm so thankful for the role God has had them play out in my life over the last ten years or so.

I started my summer at the local Christian bookstore, gathering books to occupy my mind and help me sort through all the mixed emotions I was dealing with. I read a book by Natalie Grant about learning how to find your voice, another book about learning how to shine, and then another one about learning how to be resilient, no matter what your circumstances are. The last book, Becoming Resilient, was written by Donna Gibbs, a professional counselor who wrote the book in a way that mimicks a counseling process, as long as you are willing to talk or journal your way through it and answer the questions at the end of each chapter. I filled up quite a bit of my journal over those first few weeks of summer. At first, I felt like all I did was vent and stir up more anger and emotion than I anticipated-and probably slipped and said things aloud that were meant only for my journal. But I am amazed at the journey that book took me on in my journaling process, leading me to a very real victory over my emotions and my circumstances in a way I only could have hoped.

I finished up a Love God Greatly Bible study on Choosing to be Brave and started a new one online called Walking in Victory. I was determined to bravely walk out of this season of defeat in victory.

Everyone is suffering through something. Things are always going to happen that knock us to the ground and leave us questioning how it happened and why. The key is learning how to suffer well and come back stronger rather than remain stuck and paralyzed.

God allows suffering for a purpose. He may allow us to suffer in order to show us a different facet of His character. He may want to use our experience to later comfort and guide someone else. He may put us in a difficult situation specifically to guide us somewhere we never would have gone otherwise. He may use our suffering as our platform, a way to give us credibility that will draw others closer to us and to Him. But it always has a purpose, and it can almost always be used positively in someone else's life if we let it.

In fact, as I began looking for ways I could thank God in the midst of my trouble, He pointed out to me how He'd already paired me with at least one other person for every single trial I faced. Every. Single. One. Even the most surprising challenges that had hit us out of nowhere, and God gave me someone going through the same thing.

Here are a few excerpts from Becoming Resilient that challenged me.

The last semester has been hard. Really hard. But looking back, things birthed and grew that never could have without the hard.

I had to surrender, to throw my hands up in the air, to give up my desires and accept that God had something greater. 

My son's constant need for guidance and nurture at his age can be a bit overwhelming, frustrating, and draining, but how can I deny that he tells me he loves me so much more now than he ever did. I'm thankful that it's me he's hanging out with rather than some random girl on the street. I'm thankful for the way he opens up about his feelings about friendships and relationships, showing me what's really on his heart. I'm thankful he's plopped on my couch rather than running around with people we don't know and avoiding home altogether. I'm thankful for his honesty and for the reminders that he's looking for unconditional love from me, despite his physical appearance or unmet expectations. Older adopted kids come testing those boundaries, and I guess he's still testing them now, making sure we'll still love him no matter what. 

We may not have the money we had coming in earlier in the year, but we haven't been in need for a single thing, we're still out of debt other than our house, and we can still enjoy an occasional coffee or ice cream date together or as a family. My husband now works a mile down the road, works hours that are much more convenient for our family, and we see each other so much more throughout the week than we have for the last few years. He has time to work in the garage on trucks with our youngest son, who is soaking up every bit that he can learn from his dad about mechanics. We have time to go for walks in the evenings and can attend an amazing marriage program at our church called ReEngage on a weekly basis. What marriage can't benefit by focusing one night a week in a program to learn how God intended marriage to work? Because of our struggles, there's a definite humility in our relationship that didn't exist before, and I'm thankful we've decided that we're on the same team and are willing to work together to fix what's broken. An added benefit is meeting other couples and watching their marriages transform right before our eyes. It's truly an inspiring ministry that should exist in every single church. How can I not be thankful for those two hours we now spend together each week?

The thought of teaching kindergarten made me want to throw up, literally, because I really thought I'd moved on from early childhood and put it behind me. Some people are great with little ones, but they truly burned me out and left me feeling both bored (with the content I had to teach) and empty (they sucked all my energy and didn't give me a moment to regroup all day long). But I had to realize that my principal meant nothing against me. In fact, he meant the whole move as a compliment to me, knowing that my experience teaching four-year-olds prepared me well for the  task of teaching kindergarten, and he also complimented my easy-going personality to be a good fit with the exisiting team. True, he didn't hear my voice about where I thrive as a teacher, nor did he take notice of my quiet strengths on my team, but this was about his school, not just about me. 

I went for a walk one morning and just cried out to God, surrending it all to Him again, asking him to change ME and show me the good that could/would/already had begun to come through this difficult semester. I asked God to speak to me in a very tender way. I prayed for my son, for my husband, for my marriage, for my family, for my principal, for my previous teammates and my future teammates, and even for the teacher taking my place in my beloved second grade spot. I accepted that God had a purpose for me in kindergarten, either to place me with a certain teammate or a certain student that needed something only I could offer them. And I met with my previous teammate every week for tea, allowing myself to grow closer to someone that I normally would have distanced myself from due to the fact that we'd no longer be teammates (that's the introvert in me).

God did indeed meet me in a very tender way through the victory I experienced as I journaled through that book over a course of a few weeks, freeing me from so much negativity and hurt, helping me to change my perspective and find compassion for those who hurt me. He met me tenderly by giving me a new treasured friend as we met for tea each week. He strengthened my marriage and continues to soften my heart, and he gave me a renewed compassion for my oldest son, reminding me that He specifically chose me to be his mom precisely during this "prepare to launch" phase of his life. There's something that my husband and I can give him that obviously no one else could or He would have chosen someone else for the task.

He also met me very tenderly when I got the phonecall from my principal saying there had been some changes and he was moving me back to my second grade team! I had to ask my son the next day if that phone call really took place the day before to make sure I hadn't just dreamed it! Words can't even describe how thankful I was to get that phonecall. I'm so glad I kept meeting my previous teammate for tea each week because now she's my teammate again, and our close friendship can only make our team even stronger. :) God knew and had a plan all along. 

I'm especially thankful for summer, for the time it allows me to decompress, reflect, spend time alone, read for hours on end, and take time to write so I can process my thoughts and feelings. For my friends and family who get so frustrated with me for not talking when I'm struggling, I'm sorry. That's just not how God wired me. In time I'll open up, when I'm ready and I've had a chance to hash things out with God and my journal first. Until then, please be patient with me. Pray for me and encourage me. A simple text of encouragement speaks volumes to me, especially when I can read it over and over again as needed. 

Yet between the broken cracks

A tiny light flickered.

Guiding me in the darkness,

Shedding light on each step,

Iluminating purpose in the pain.

Growth beneath the ashes.

Unexpected changes.

Surprising companions.

Pure, heartfelt gratitude.

Hidden joy.

What once broke me, defeated me,

Gave me the opportunity to shine. 

Light only shines when there's a darkness to overcome.

The dark could not defeat the light within me. 

From Defeated to Victorious--Part 1

Where do I even start to fill in the gaps from my last post until now?

I should have known when God gave me the word SHINE for this year that a period of darkness had to be on the way. I mean, everyone knows that things don't shine in the light--they shine in the dark.

This last semester held harder and deeper challenges than I ever expected that left me quite fragile and broken. Defeated. I kept putting one foot in front of the other in order to just survive what seemed to be a series of heavy heartaches and keep myself moving forward. But Satan was after me full force and attacked me from many angles.

As a mom. As a wife. As a sister. As a daughter. As a teacher. No matter what I did, I always felt like it wasn't enough. I wasn't enough. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't stop the heartache from hitting or keep it away.

We started out the 2018-19 school year so hopeful, happy, and thankful. God miraculously opened the door for Juan to try a third semester at DBU, provided funding for him in abundance, our financial status was better than it's ever been, and Mike and I were both very happy and confident in our careers. Our 20th anniversary was coming, and we found ourselves in the perfect financial position that actually let us dream of and pursue a grand celebration. This was going to be our year.

But right before Christmas, the first of many surprising challenges started to hit us. First, we had to move Juan back home from DBU. Not only did we have to deal with a very angry, depressed boy who knew he'd let everyone down, including himself, but he also sat for almost three months without a job. Thankfully, God opened the door for him to start working as an aide in a special needs classroom at David's high school. At least he has something that makes him feel professional for the time being, but he's still pretty lost as to what to do with himself in order to start pursuing a career for the future. And conversations with him make it pretty obvious that he's not going anywhere fast.

My children seemed to have traded ages. My seventeen-year-old acts like he is going on twenty-one, and my twenty-one-year-old acts like he's going on seventeen. My seventeen-year-old's broadened world experiences gave him wisdom beyond his peers that really makes him stand out, even as quiet as he is in a crowd. I gave him wings, and now he's learning to fly. My young mini-me is always telling me to leave him alone because he's got this. My baby boy has grown up and is turning into a fine young man, one who needs a bit more space from Mom. I supppose that was the goal, right?

On the other hand, my twenty-one-year-old's gaps in normal child development put him at a disadvantage when looking at life side by side with his peers. I see the effects of childhood trauma so much more now than I did before, and it significantly impacts his ability to move forward into adulthood. Even he will readily admit that the thought of embracing adulthood fills him with great fear and anxiety. He definitely can't say he's got this, and when he thinks he does, he asks for help shortly after. When you're dealing with a blend of immaturity mixed with Colombian/Latin culture that puts a high priority on taking time to rest and knowing that there's always tomorrow to start something new, that just compounds the problem. He's got big dreams but very little self-motivation to start working toward them. A "learned helplessness" that is sadly very common in kids like him.

It's definitely an awkward thing trying to parent these boys who need very different types of parenting. I'm thankful for online groups filled with other adoptive/foster parents dealing with the same thing. The younger biological one ready to fly away and the older one digging his feet in the ground, stuck. Parenting kids from trauma (even trauma in the womb) doesn't look anything like parenting a biological child, especially at the age that they're supposed to be ready to launch from the nest.

Mike and I knew that our marriage really needed something big after all we've dealt with adoption-related over the last ten years, so we booked our very first cruise together. We'd wanted to go on a cruise for our tenth anniversary, but the adoption expenses held us back. So we finally booked it. now ten years later. just a few weeks before our 20th anniversary during spring break and literally counted down the days.  Little did we know how fiercely Satan planned to attack our marriage just a few days before we were set to leave. An attack so fierce that it left me battling demons from the past that tempted me to throw in the towel completely, despite all that we've overcome in the last 20 years. The morning before the cruise, I didn't even want to go.

We did leave together the next morning to "celebrate" the last 20 years, but those demons packed themselves in our bags and followed us on our ocean tour of Cozumel, Belize, and Roatan. We made some good memories, ate a lot of food, won a snorkeling excursion, took great sunrise/sunset pictures, and experienced new things, and I'm grateful, but I still struggle to look back and know it wasn't the celebration we intended it to be. Our financial stability had crashed overnight, so we didn't even get to take advantage of the opportunity to see and experience all that each port had to offer. Nothing turned out the way I'd envisioned it as a dark cloud hung over our heads and hearts.

School was my safe place. Just like any other time I've gone through hard things, my classroom is my safe haven where I can leave everything else at the door and focus all my energy on my kids. Mike and I worked on rebuilding the broken parts of our marriage and family at home, but I spoke nothing of it to anyone at school except briefly to two teammates. Besides that, no one had a clue that I was struggling through so much at home.

I'd started the year on cloud nine, so incredibly thankful to be teaching second graders again rather than four-year-olds. I made it clear to the whole school how happy I was about the change. I had a challenging year with a few more special needs in my classroom than I bargained for and much less support than I needed, but I kept pushing forward, tucking away ideas to make next year better and more efficient. I jumped in to lead my team, though I felt pretty lost myself, trying to understand all that changed in the five years I'd been out of second grade, but we all made it to the end as a strong team. We envisioned a promising year ahead for the 2019-20 school year. So you can imagine my shock and disappointment when my principal made some last minute changes and asked me to move to kindergarten temporarily to be able to move some other teachers around. I was heartbroken, to say the least. So much for my safe place--or for all the ideas I'd tucked away for next year.

I knew God had my back, and I tried to focus on anything positive I could think of regarding the change, but I just couldn't understand why God was pulling out the rug from beneath me. He knew how much I loved teaching second grade and how thankful I was to NOT be teaching little ones anymore. I'd worked so hard all year to step up and lead my team, and I felt like no one even noticed the extra time and energy I'd put into doing so. There was nothing I could have done to avoid this last minute change, I guess. By the time I processed all that happened and spoke up for myself, it was too late. So I spent the last three weeks of school tearfully packing everything up rather than organizing and getting ready for a strong year ahead.

Other challenges surfaced, as well, over the last semester, challenges that knocked us face to the ground and felt like someone smashed our faces deep into the sand below us. I ended the school year on a very low note and really didn't have much enthusiasm for the summer ahead or to return next school year. One challenge would have been enough, but these just seemed to come out of nowhere from every possible angle. They had to be a strategic attack of the enemy.

Defeated.

The rug beneath me gone.

All I'd worked for, planned for, dreamed of.

Hopes dashed.

Dreams crashed.

Only disappointments lingered.

Broken. 

I didn't ask for any of these disappointments, nor did I ever expect any of them. But I did have a choice as to how I responded to them. I could hold on to the anger, bitterness, hurt, and disappointment. Or I could ...

I'm so thankful things didn't end here.

Stay tuned for Part 2 ... 

Moving forward

We sadly have had to say goodbye to Dallas Baptist University for a while, which left me with many conflicting emotions that have taken me some time to process and sort through. Now that the second semester has officially started as of this last week, the reality that my son is no longer there really hit me.

College proved to be a struggle from the first week of his first semester, while at the same time, an experience like no other that he absolutely cherished. The English he needed to know and use in college definitely surpassed his ability quite often, but his lack of study skills and time-management skills (and his heightened social/emotional needs due to his background) really kicked his butt this last semester. The school worked with him, mentored him, provided all sorts of tutoring and writing help, but I never saw the drive he needed that could help him find success. Despite all the extra support, connection, prayer, and encouragement behind him, he just couldn't pull it off.  Truth is, he gave up trying, knowing yet not fully understanding the consequences behind that choice. The government will only extend so much grace in offering financial aid. Now he'll have to work even twice as hard to earn that aid back if he wants to continue his studies at DBU. The effects of background trauma are real, and unfortunately, sometimes just unavoidable. 

So, we were left with no choice but to bring him back home and give him time to reflect and regroup, to find himself...and mature a little bit more.

As soon as I finally finished getting his room turned back into a bedroom that reflected his color choice and personality (after finally clearing my classroom out), I began to use that room again as my prayer room. It's amazing what that little room does for my soul. Oh, the stories that it holds and the prayers that have been baked into those walls for him and two of his siblings. That room fills me with such a deep appreciation for my relationship with God and a joy for how I've seen Him work, bringing beauty out of anguish. My faith has been challenged and has grown by leaps and bounds within the four walls of that little room.

Every morning over the last month or two before he came home, I'd sit on the futon couch in there and pray so faithfully for my son, begging God to help him maintain the GPA he needed to keep his funding so that he could stay at DBU. God provided resources we never could have dreamed of that helped him get through those first three semesters, and we truly believed he had all the support he needed to make it. Yet as I prayed for God to keep him there, I also found myself praying that He'd give us wisdom to know how to handle things if he didn't. Wisdom to deal with having a 21 year old back at home after a year and a half of living away from us. Independent, hanging out with friends 24/7 with very little adult supervision or guidance. He just didn't have the maturity to balance that privilege with the responsibilities that came with it, and I feel God was preparing me to bring him back home for the nurturing and guidance he still lacked.

When that final week of finals came, we sadly learned that he'd already thrown in the towel and stopped trying. Rather than picking him up for a month of winter break, we had to empty his apartment of all of his things and move him back home into that little room. Even though he knew his own choices led him straight back home, he was so angry to be here. Meanwhile we also struggled with quite a bit of anger and disappointment. None of that made a good combination.

But then we offered grace. Mike followed a nudging from the Holy Spirit to take Juan out for lunch, to verbally extend him grace, lay down a few expectations for his new role in our home, and to just clear the slate and support him moving forward. Things really lightened up after that, and though we still see a little boy trapped in an adult body, we've seen him try a bit harder to assume some responsibilities and realize that we work together as a family around here.

We tried to just enjoy a small vacation as a family and create more memories over the Christmas holiday, and then he started applying for jobs. I figured a wide open schedule would help him land a job quickly, but no such luck. I kept praying for just the right job for him, one that will help him figure himself out and guide him toward making better future choices regarding how he manages his time. I also prayed that God would open up just the right job that will connect him with people that can help him mature as a young adult.

I took him to school with me to volunteer for two days in my classroom the first week he was home, and my kids absolutely adored him. He worked so well with one particular student with special needs, and I let him know that he definitely had a gift for working with that child. That got us thinking about the possibility of him working in a school as a classroom assistant. So, he applied for four totally different aide positions within the district at four different schools (two elementary schools and two high schools). We were all thrilled when he got the call offering him the job to work with special needs students at his own brother's high school, just straight up the road from our house.

The waiting game has been painful--as he still sits waiting on a fingerprint appointment to be able to officially start, but I'm thankful we're waiting on final details for a job he's already been offered rather than to still be sitting waiting on yet another interview.

One thing God has taught me with this particular child (from the beginning of our first adoption process for him) is that I can't make plans for him. I can pray for him daily and then just trust God with him day by day, week by week. Every day I have to put him in God's hands and trust that I've done all I can do. God has great plans for him, and DBU is just not in that plan for this semester or possibly this whole next year. All I have to do is go in his room, remember all that God has done, and remind myself that God chose us to be his family.

He may be 21 years old, but he still desperately needs the love, nurture, and guidance that only a mom and dad can give him. As I've said before, four years at home with us were just not enough to fill in all the gaps. So we work hard to find that balance of treating him as the adult that he is (with many hard, natural consequences) while loving him, nurturing him, connecting with him, and guiding him at the emotional level we see him at each day.

DBU may still be in his future (he truly does want to go back), but we'll let God guide us from here to know when he's ready and mature enough to tackle another class or two. For now, I look forward to seeing how God uses this new job to continue to guide him. And I trust that those first three semesters at DBU fulfilled a very significant purpose in who he is meant to become.

So long, for now, DBU. Who knows? In just three short semesters, I may have another son heading your way--or perhaps two at the same time. 

 

A few coloring reflections

I love to color. When you mix the quiet, reflective, introverted nature in me with my need to feel creative, I could spend hours each day with a simple coloring book and a little peace and quiet. There's something so therapeutic about adding color to a blank page, taking a black and white surface and making it come alive with whatever colors you choose. It gives you a sense of control, while at the same time giving your mind time to just think and reflect. 

This particular page really got me thinking. 

The thought of the mission field fascinated me as a child and adolescent. I always craved simplicity, spent a lot of quiet time alone with the Lord, and longed to travel to other parts of the world to spread the gospel.

As a young teenager, I babysat two children born to a couple who had met in Ecuador. I wondered, "Maybe God will send me to Ecuador someday."

Around the same time, my brother brought two beautiful Dominican young women into my life, who became my spiritual sisters over time. They talked about their country all the time and taught me so much about the Spanish language. Perhaps God had a plan for me in the Dominican Republic?

My senior year in high school, after four years of Spanish classes, I finally stepped out of my own country for a week-long mission trip to a little town called Tasquillo, Hidalgo in Mexico. I remember standing alone on a balcony looking out into the mountain landscape and watching a funeral procession walk down the street, thinking to myself, "I'll be back."

I very naturally fell in love with the Spanish language and could hardly wait to see where God might take me as a vocational missionary after graduating college, though I felt pretty confident He'd lead me to either Central or South America.  

At first I thought  I'd teach in a missionary school, and then later I wondered about teaching English as a Second Language overseas. (Nursing also crossed my mind, but I hated science classes, so that didn't last long.) I majored in Christian Ministries with a cross-cultural focus, while taking a few extra classes in the education and psychology field. My junior year, I boarded a plane in Chicago with a new friend from Grace College, and we landed in Buenos Aires, Argentina to live as exchange students with two different Christian families. I'd be there for the following semester with the sole purpose of taking my Spanish to a near-fluent level. My friend had committed to stay for the entire year. While there, I met and grew close to many missionary families who helped lead the church we attended there. 

On one of my final weekends in Argentina, I traveled with several of the young people from the church to Cordoba, a much more rural town, to attend a Word of Life youth missions conference. Almost all of the speakers came from the United States, so I heard every message twice, first in English, then translated into Spanish. One speaker's words impacted me deeply, and I still remember them today, 21 years later. In fact, they are the only words I remember from the entire conference.

"We've got to be at the point where we stop saying, 'I'm dying to stay, but I'm willing to go!' Rather we need to be able to honestly say to God, 'I'm dying to go, but I'm willing to stay." The point was about surrendering our hearts to go, no matter what. I remember thinking, 'I'm ready, God! Send me!' But I feel God imprinted those words on my heart for another reason, though I wouldn't understand why for many more years.

I came home from Argentina a few weeks later speaking so much more Spanish than before, realizing my whole world had just multiplied. During the following semester, I worked part-time in the evenings teaching English as a Second Language to students from all over the world. Six months later, my fiance and I boarded another plane in Chicago, this time dropping us off for two long months in Mexico, the same place where I'd stood on the balcony and thought to myself, "I'll be back."

We worked as summer intern missionaries, living alongside two missionary families, one American, one native of Mexico. Mike worked maintenance and building projects, while I taught English as a Second Language to local people in the community and led crafts for Bible School. The couple we lived with mentored us as a soon-to-be-married couple, ready to dive into the mission field. They taught us how to live a surrendered, simplistic life and showed us first hand how you can never outgive God. I was pretty sure we'd found our spot and once again assumed God would bring us back.

The following year I graduated, we got married, and we started our simple life together with the hopes of heading back to Mexico within five or so years after paying off school loans. 

That's also the semester that God opened up a job for me as an ESL teacher/para-professional in a school system that suddenly had a huge influx of Spanish-speaking students. 

I absolutely fell in love with my students. I'd always imagined myself teaching English to Spanish-speaking children, but my imagination had always taken me off to another country. I never thought about the fact that God would bring them to me, here in my own country. 

My husband and I switched to another church in the area where many Argentine families had congregated, including some of the missionaries I'd met in my church in Argentina, and even my Argentine pastor's son's family who lived right down the road from me.  They'd begun a new ministry to reach out to the Hispanic population in our community, and I even had the privilege of taking some of my students to church with me for the weekly AWANA program.

Every week as we walked out of our church doors, we read the sign above the door saying, "You are now entering the mission field."

Perhaps God had used all of my cross-cultural trainings and experiences, along with my degree and passion for ministry, solely to prepare me for the mission field that existed all around me. 

But God must have sat back and laughed at me, thinking, "Oh, dear child. I have so much more planned for your life. I'm just getting started. Hold on."

Hold on, I did. As I suddenly and unexpectedly watched all my plans turn to chaos, my marriage come to near ruin, our finances spin out of control, and my hopes for a life of ministry shatter.

I thought I'd done everything right, so how could God let such disaster come upon my home? 

My boss noticed the look of despair on my face and said, "Rachelle, I'm praying for your miracle." I held on tight to that encouragement.

Then out of the blue, when I thought things couldn't get any worse, God whisked us from Indiana to Texas for me to start a position teaching more bilingual children, but this time in both English and Spanish, and for a teaching salary rather than a paraprofessional one. And for the last 15 years, I've worked with children from the same families in the same school and have become a very solid part of their lives. Children from the U.S., from Mexico, from Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala, and even Colombia. I had one student with a parent from Argentina, and another student with parents from Tasquillo, Hidalgo in Mexico.  

Over the last 15 years, we've been part of a church that has given our family the opportunities to go on mission trips to tell about Jesus in Piedras Negras, Mexico, Michoacan, Mexico, San Jose, California, and in Guatemala. When we came back from each mission trip, the pictures that stood out to everyone were pictures of the kids we served, all with darker skin, dark hair, and dark brown eyes. Yet to me, those children didn't look any different than the students I got to love on and teach every single day during the year.

Our son David has had opportunities to participate on mission trips to serve a homeless population in Waco, Texas, to work with a new church in Colorado, to help new church plants in Los Angeles and Burbank, California, to lead 5-Day Clubs in Arlington, Texas, and to work out in the heat to help improve the living conditions of families living in the Rio Grande Valley here in Texas. As a family, we've met and served alongside missionaries in a Christian school in Bogota, Colombia, where we also visited an orphanage, supported an orphan as he became an adult, and adopted our son. 

I've led women's Bible studies in my church for the last ten years, ministering to the very heart of the home, making a difference in entire famlies by teaching women how to make prayer and the Word a priority in their lives. I've helped other women learn to pray for their husbands as I learned to pray for mine. I've written blogs and books about grief, loss, and God's redeeming power. I published my books with a ministry (ABH) that continues to reach hundreds of people in Africa because of their obedience to follow God to Tanzania and make an impact there. Though my books are not books they take to Africa with them, by being published under their name, I consider myself a partner in their ministry. 

And just a year and a half ago, I got to take a pair of my books to Spain, continuing to minister to others, one person at a time,  by sharing my own struggles and the faith I cling to through them.

Looking back, I can see that the things God allowed to disravel in my life that made me think disqualified me for the ministry He'd called me to actually served to equip me for the ministries He had planned for me. He turned the very things that I wanted to erase from my timeline into my greatest assets to minister and connect with others. 

Just a few weeks ago, my friend from Buenos Aires, Argentina traveled to Cordoba and posted pictures of this year's current youth mission conference, and those words from the mission conference of 1997 came flooding back to me. "I'm dying to go, but I'm willing to stay." 

Less than a month before that conference in 1997, my son was born in Bogota, Colombia, though I woudn't meet him for another ten years and adopt him yet five years after that. 

If I had "forced my way" onto a foreign mission field as a vocational missionary, I would have missed him. And so much more. I'm so glad He called me to stay.

Now Tuesday morning I get to go back to my dark skinned, dark-eyed, Spanish-speaking children and breathe life into them. Every day with them is a blessing, even on the long, hard, frustrating days of dealing with the public educational system. I love what I do and the families I get to work with and be part of.

See where a day of coloring will take me? Like I said, it's so therapeutic at times. A wonderful, peaceful way to reflect on life. 

Blessed

My first New Year's greeting came in a text message from a 16 year old girl in Spain, about 7 hours before midnight in Texas.

My second one came in a voice text from a 25 year old young man in Argentina, about four hours before midnight in Texas.

My third greeting came in person from my husband and  21 year old Colombian son (brother of the first two), while we ate our 12 grapes to make 12 wishes for the coming year, we held money in our hands at the stroke of midnight, we ran around the house with a suitcase in hand, we wrote our regrets from 2018 and burned them in the fire, and we ate homemade arepas and drank Colombiana drinks to add the rich Colombian flavor and tradition to our home.

My fourth greeting came in a text message from David, just before he came home from a party with his core group of church friends.

More greetings came and went, but those first four just reminded me of how blessed I am to have these four precious "children/young adults" in my life. Somtimes I still just stand in awe.

Word for #2019

A list of resolutions never seem to stick in my brain long enough to stay committed to them, so I stopped making that list several years ago. Even before the "Word for the Year" movement started, I began choosing a single word to guide my year. It's amazing to look back and see how that one word truly did define and guide that entire year.

In 2013, while still in the middle of Juan's second adoption process, I focused on the word TRUST. I don't think there's any need to further explain that one. Enough said.

In 2014, I felt God push me to get out and LIVE more. With the adoption process behind us and a new son at home, I embraced the chance to finally live again without all the turmoil that the adoption process brought us, twice.

In 2015, I felt compelled to GIVE more. Not just money, but my time and energy. I'd seen God bless us so abundantly that I wanted to give back, or pay it forward.

In 2016, I wanted to embrace JOY. Little did I know I'd only get a  taste of the incredible joy coming the following year.

In 2017, I needed renewed FOCUS. I felt completely wiped out (probably from too much JOY searching!). I'd taken on more than I could handle, my commitments were scattered, I tried to please too many people, and I needed to rein myself in. I backed up, pulled away from a ton of commitments, and made room for God to give me one of the greatest gifts ever. He put Laura back in my life, fulfilling one of the deepest longings of my heart.

In 2018, my heart was filled to the brim, so I chose to CHERISH all the blessings God gave me. I wrote less and experienced more, cherishing so many precious memories and just holding them close to my heart.

So now that 2019 has arrived, I had several words floating around in my mind. LOVE, SAVOR, RADIATE, FRAGRANCE and DELIGHT all caught my attention, but none of them seemed to capture my current state of mind or need. I opened my current Bible study materials for the day and asked God to point out just the right word for this year.

The last year brought about a ton of change, and the current year brings even more. Change brings a need for added flexibility and patience, neither of which come easily. I'm pretty stuck to my routines, and I'm very self-protective of my need for periods of silence and solitude. God also gave me a classroom full of students with a variety of special needs, moreso than in the past, along with a few children hurting very deeply from signficant loss. Sometimes I find myself completely inadequate to reach them them all or to connect with each one in the way that they need. You can be sure I spend time every morning asking God for wisdom, guidance, and strength.

My hope is that I will rely so much on Jesus through this current season that others will see Him SHINE through me. As Kelly Mintor stated in her study, All Things New, "It's through our weakness that the power of Christ shines most brightly."

Here's a song that kind-of sums it up:
https://youtu.be/MVU3wX7Sbog