Chronicling the joys and challenges of fostering and adopting.


Monday, October 9, 2017

"Mully" Review


The other night, Rach and I went on a date night for the first time in a couple of months to see, what else, a movie about adoption. The movie is called “Mully”, and as the name implies, it follows the story of a man named Charles Mully. Mully grew up in a small village in Kenya where his family abandoned him when he was a young boy. After leading a life of begging and stealing, he eventually walked three days from his village to Nairobi, where he was able to get a job, save some money, and start a family. He made a series of business decisions where he became a millionaire. One day, he had an interaction with some street kids that brought him back to the hopelessness of his childhood. It shook him to the core, and he came home to his family saying that God told him he needed to give up the business and care for the poor. He began bringing orphans home from off the street every day. They filled their home with hundreds of children, which created so much friction with his biological kids, that he actually sent his eight kids off to boarding school for a year. Eventually the house became so full, they had to move to a piece of land where they could build an entire compound.  Over the years, his children have started seeing eye-to-eye with his mission, and many of them help run the organization. Through the years involving a series of miracles, they have brought in, and cared for, over 12,000 children, all of which call him “Daddy Mully.” 

It’s stories like these that put us to shame. In America, it’s so easy to live our lives in comfort and to reject any discomfort as someone else’s calling. After every placement, Rach and I have said to each other that we’re done, that we’ve done enough and that we’re tired. Yet somehow, God manages to refocus us every time (to be clear we are still unsure of what our plans are going forward). I’m convinced, that as Americans, we must make the conscious decisions daily to intently put ourselves into brokenness. In the movie, they saw devastation constantly as they walked into the streets, but in many ways, here, we have a buffer between us and getting our hands dirty. If we want to help the poor, we give to charities that help the poor; if we want to feed the homeless, we give to food pantries that then feed the homeless, etc. We must get back to giving of ourselves… not just our resources. 

I understand that it really is not everyone’s calling to be foster parents, but that’s not the question. The question is, where can we apply ourselves consistently in which we give of our time, energy, and emotion? The news is full of stories on how our nation is utterly divided. How can you bring about unity, spread the Gospel, and tangibly meet the needs of those in your own community? Maybe you can volunteer at a crisis pregnancy center where you will be face-to-face with a single mother in your own area who is in desperate of a support system. Maybe you can help at that food pantry that you give to. Or maybe you can help with Habitat for Humanity, or Care Portal. Maybe you can even start having monthly block parties in your own neighborhood where you just create community right where you live (for more on ideas like this last one, read The Art of Neighboring by Pathak and Runyon, I highly recommend it). All of these things strengthen community on a level far beyond what we are used to, but they all require giving of ourselves. And that’s where we really need to start. No one can do it all, but we can all do something.


Monday, October 2, 2017

A Few Observations


A few weeks ago, M, our latest foster placement, went home. This is the first time we’ve had one go home, and it’s been frustrating. From our perspective, she is going home into an unsafe situation. What’s more, they removed her so suddenly, that they essentially re-traumatized her and her siblings by re-enacting their initial removal. We had 2 hours notice, and her siblings, who are in different homes, had even less. So they had no time to say goodbye to friends or teachers at school or in their neighbourhood. They didn’t have time to say goodbye to grandparents who have similarly become attached. They didn’t have time to process what was going on, and neither did our biological and adoptive kids. They were simply removed again, and this is injustice.
With that said, we have a few observations that I think are important:
1)    We can’t let our own potential heartbreak stop us from serving children: Many people have said that they couldn’t do what we do because they couldn’t handle getting attached to a child and then watching them leave. I totally understand this sentiment. We can’t really handle it either. However, that leaves the child to deal with the trauma on their own, and I don’t think leaving children to their own devices is a better option. These children are going to endure this trauma whether we decide to come alongside them or not. It is up to us to meet them in their suffering, and take some of that anguish upon ourselves so that they don’t have to carry such a load. If you feel you can’t handle it, imagine handling this as a 5-year-old. And if we don’t join in, these kids go to group homes due to home shortages where their trauma compiles.

2)    I’m so thankful we live in a country where it is so difficult for the state to deem you an unfit parent: Honestly, I continuously come back to this thought. How many times have you yelled a little too loud at your kids, or how many times could someone have at least perceived you as taking some punishment too far? Parents don’t have to be perfect (or measure up to your own subjective standard of parenting) to keep their kids or get them back, nor is being poor illegal. In reality, the bar is incredibly low to keep your kids, and this is a beautiful thing. While this doesn’t always work out in the child’s favour, more often than not, it does. I can’t tell you how many times we’ve watched our friends have cases where parents refuse to take part in a treatment plan for months or even years, and at the last minute, they do the bare minimum required, and they get their kids back. While this is frustrating on the surface, it would terrify me to think that the state could easily take my kids and give them to someone else.

3)    God is utterly sovereign: If there is one thing we’ve done that has brought this point home, it’s fostering. In foster care, you lose all control. We are only the foster parents. We’re expected to do what we’re told and when we’re told to do it. The therapist, the case worker, the lawyer, the judge, they all see themselves as professionals, and in many cases, they have no interest in hearing from the adults who are in the trenches dealing with the day-to-day activities with the child. Luckily, we have been able to look back on situations that, at the time, looked utterly hopeless, but have been redeemed in many ways. With that in mind, God has the bigger picture in view, and we are left to trust. And maybe, just maybe, later on we will get to look back on it with 20/20 vision. But for now, we can’t, and that’s okay. Our job now is to do what we can with the time we have to do it. M has left her mark on our family, and I am sure we have left ours on her in some fashion. Our time with her matters, and we can only pray, and pray hard, that things will turn out okay for her in the end.