Summer 2012: How Do We Obey?

Another Chapter in the Link journey.  Summer 2012 How do we obey? 

Well, now it is time to share what happened after the monumental Mother’s Day.  After feeling the Holy Spirit work in both of our lives simultaneously we were confident that we should proceed with the adoption process.  I also must add that we were finally united and confident about our decision to homeschool Laura as well.  You see, before feeling called to become a foster parent I felt totally overwhelmed by figuring out how to teach kindergarten.  Seems silly, now but that is the truth. 

When we bought our home in Coppell we were heavily influenced by the great reviews the school system had received and hoped to enroll Laura in the dual immersion Spanish English kindergarten class.  The sign up deadline was in February 2012 and as 2011 came to an end I continued to ask questions and feel stressed and concerned.  On Christmas Day we were celebrating Jesus by going to church with Na and Pop in Connecticut.  Laura came to the big service with us and I was praying and trying to give God control over our plans for the upcoming year.  I remember asking Him to help me figure out which activities we should cut out so that we could still have time as a family but also wanting to give her the opportunity to participate in different things.  The Holy Spirit clearly showed me that we would have time for all His plans by just keeping her home.  This was BIG news to me and I gently shared the idea with Keith and his parents that afternoon.  

Keith wasn’t really on board and to be honest I really didn’t want to do it so I was fine with accepting his role as head of household and signing her up for public school.  You see, my selfish inside voice kept reminding me that I had been home with kiddos for over five years and it was almost time to take them to school and have some kid free “me” time.  I say I was fine, but I didn’t feel peace.  I wrestled with the decision and finally decided to go to the North Irving Christian Homeschool Association (NICHE) meeting in late January.  After all, they were meeting at our church and I wasn’t committing to anything.  I was just observing and I didn’t really think I would fit in.  Maybe that would satisfy my uneasiness and then I could sign Laura up.  

This is one of those times that God revealed to me that He uses His people to answer prayers.  I felt uncomfortable until three women went out of their way to shower me with support.  Caroline Livingston, Kate Forsythe, and Karla Ebensberger gently encouraged me to keep an open mind and persuaded me to attend the MomHeart conference led by Sally Clarkson in February.  It wasn’t a homeschool conference but led me to accept God’s plan for us to homeschool Laura.  Lo and behold, Keith came around and even agreed to take a few hours off work to hear Sally’s husband Clay Clarkson speak during the Home School Book Fair in May.  Yes, God really did have to do all that work to make sure we were just where we needed to be so he could reveal His plans about the next steps for adding to our family.  As an added bonus, being overwhelmed by adoption thoughts took over all my stressing resources and I was able to create and begin to execute a plan for homeschooling Laura with total peace.  

But what to do about adoption?  Sandy Lowry sent us an email about two precious children that were looking for a forever home.  Jonah was four and Meagan was almost two and they had been removed from their biological home due to severe neglect.  Within a couple of days we went from beginning to think about adoption to being willing to adopt these kiddos.  You see we used to talk about names for additional children Megan has always been Keith’s favorite girl name.  In fact if Jeffery had been a girl we would have named him Megan Allison.  My Dad used to joke about “when is little Megan coming?”.  It looked like little Meagan might very well be coming and that she had a brother named Jonah.  However, the agency in Tyler did not respond to any of our emails and after leaving messages we finally found out they were going to another family.  We felt strangely disappointed and unsure of our next steps. 

 Well fortunately God made things really obvious by organizing a Tapestry meeting at our church with childcare titled “Thinking about adoption?  Myths and Realities”.  We went to the meeting and were led to attend the official Foster Care Orientation meeting and Foster Support group led by Ira and Valerie Kirkley.  The support we received at that meeting gave us the confidence to select Covenant Kids as our foster agency.  God really needed us to be at that agency because he had plans for us to answer some prayer requests for another family, but more on that later.  

In June we officially signed up with Covenant Kids and began to complete the extensive training program.  We were blessed to receive practical Christian guidance on how to help children from hard places heal.  We learned about how becoming a foster parent is making your home a place of ministry and how we can share God’s unconditional love with children from hard places and their biological families.  We learned that the families of these hurting children usually came from hard places themselves and that they truly could not break the cycle of neglect and abuse on their own.  We learned that dealing with Child Protection Services (CPS) involves a mountain of paperwork and that we were going to have to complete a huge checklist of items before we could invite a child into our home.  We felt called to complete this process and were obeying, but we had to work around all the existing summer plans and our own agendas.  

On July 18th, I received a text from Karla telling me that she had a friend who needed a family to provide respite for her foster kids for a couple of weeks.  This is how we first learned about the North family and their need for a “maternity leave” respite.  What a blessing!  After meeting this sweet family and spending some time with Jashawn and Angel we had a new passion to complete all of our training, quickly!  We know God was calling us to be His hands and feet by being foster parents but when Kayla asked us to provide respite care we knew we needed to complete our respite certification by August 16th.  We rushed through the forms, rearranged our entire house, added bunk beds to the kid’s rooms, had the fire department and city of coppell complete our inspections, and twisted our schedule to ensure we could attend all of the required classes.  

However, Kayla didn’t have her baby early like she thought she would.  We learned first hand that life as a foster family is often characterized by unexpected changes in plans.  Keith unexpectedly lost his job at Poly-America on August 28th.  This came as quite a shock and we were immediately concerned about how we we would pay all of our bills.  We took our concerns to God in prayer and He showered us with peace.  God assured me that this was part of His plan and that He would bless Keith’s career in a way that would bring Him glory.  Keith immediately started networking and passing his updated resume to all of his contacts.  

The way God changed our circumstances revealed that His perspective is often difficult for us to understand.  You see, Keith had shared that he really wanted to get back into sales and that he felt his work environment was toxic.  However, his job at Poly provided a luxurious salary and required minimal overnight travel.  A job in sales would probably provide a salary plus commission variable compensation package and require a great deal of overnight travel.  It didn’t make sense to throw that type of variable in the mix when we were already feeling a little overwhelmed by the idea of expanding our family.  However, when Keith lost his job we were completely comfortable with those variables, in fact we prayed for them, our perspective had changed.  

God’s timing was absolutely divine.  Keith had a couple of weeks to focus all of his energy on finding a job and the kids and I had some time to figure out how to do homeschool with Daddy at home.  On September 4th, Keith and I started a forty day Daniel fast.  We were also both reading the whole Bible on our own and committing to pray for the nations along with Operation World.  Through reading the chronological Bible, quiet time, and international prayer God kept revealing to me that His perspective is not limited like human perspective.  This really helped me have the courage to continue walk in faith.  

In fact that sweet baby girl didn’t show up until September 9th and we were able to take Jashawn and Angel to the Great Wolf Lodge to help us celebrate Jeffery’s third birthday.  It truly was a blessing to have Keith home during those weeks and he was able to love on those precious kids and help meet all of their needs.  In fact, we even had our sweet guests around when we completed our official home study for our adoption agency.   We were very concerned that we would not be able to proceed with our certification because we did not have adequate income.  We wondered if we would have to wait an extended period of time or if providing a loving home for our respite children was all God wanted us to do.  The case worker conducting the home study reassured us that she didn’t think it would be a problem if we could prove we had adequate savings to meet our financial needs but wasn’t able to provide a concrete answer.  

As the reality of raising our biological children,  caring for two foster children, running a household, and homeschooling Laura for kindergarten set in I began to feel overcommitted.  I had planned to attend the Community Bible Study offered at a church in Lewisville on Wednesdays and was thankful they had a large and active homeschool community.  However, Wednesdays were also one of the two days Jeffery attended preschool at Spanish Schoolhouse.  I started to think that Laura and I should probably stay home on Wednesdays so we could focus on homeschool.  We attended the first day even though it was a little crazy because we had to drive Jashawn an hour to preschool in Trophy Club before we could go and had to coordinate physical and speech therapy appointments for Angel.  It felt a little overwhelming.  However, when I sat down and listened to the opening lesson I almost FELL OUT OF MY CHAIR.  The theme of the entire year was PERSPECTIVE, the very thing the Lord had been revealing to me.  The Bible verse was Psalm 86:11 “Teach me Your way, Lord that I may rely on your faithfulness; Give me an undivided heart that I may fear your name. “  Right away I knew that I needed to commit to learning more about God’s perspective by participating in the CBS study and was able to trust that He would equip us to get all the needed tasks completed.  This precious peace carried me through our time of respite and encouraged me daily!