Maybe They’re Starting to Get It

The other day, my husband told me that his mother said to him, “I think we’re okay with you adopting because even if you had biological children, Grace would want to adopt anyway.” I think she’s finally getting it!

How Do They Learn In Schools?

I just heard recently that our school district now mandates that teachers teach 3 hours of language arts, from the approved language arts curriculum. Three hours! Of course teachers do language arts all day, through social studies, science, and writing, and all sorts of other learning opportunities throughout the day. But this is different. This is a mandated three hours. Nothing but the approved curriculum counts as “language arts”. More and more, we are compartmentalizing academic knowledge and separating the disciplines. More and more, we are teaching in the way that best prepares children for tests, not life. More and more, I understand why I do not teach in public school anymore! I don’t think I can go back…

Attachment, Alandale, and a Weekend at VBS

This post has been brewing for so long that if I let it sit any longer, it’ll be impossible to write! 

Now how do I start? Let’s begin with camp. This past summer, I had the amazing privilege of spending two weeks with foster kids at a Christian camp. What God does there at camp is just incredible. Children who came off the bus refusing to smile, refusing to interact, too “cool” for any activities, leave camp lingering at the bus door, hugging every person in sight, laughing at the silliest things. What happens at camp? They feel the love of God! But how is it that they were able to feel his love more there even though God loves them at all places? As I reflected, I realized that what makes camp unique is relationships. The entire week is structured so that the counselor would build relationships with his two campers. One-on-one times, cooperative games, sharing meals as a “family”, team tents– in fact, we harder ever saw kids alone, without a counselor with them. And the adults were not just with them, supervising. No, it wasn’t about keeping the kids out of trouble so that they could participate in the fun programs we prepared for them. We were thinking in terms of what we or they need to do. Camp was about “with” and “together” — come swim with me; let wash dishes together; I’ll make pancakes with you; you can make it, I’ll do it with you.

I don’t think I recognized the uniqueness of interacting with kids this way until I helped teach at my church’s VBS a week later. The VBS was a highly engaging program, with elaborate decorations, costumes, live music, bumper cars, water games, and all sorts of fun, attention-getting activities. However, VBS was an industrial-age endeavor. Everything was prepared so that more kids could have more fun so that they could learn more and like church more. It was for the kids, but not with.

Let me use mealtimes so that you can see the two pictures. At camp, picture a group of eight people around a table. Three are standing around the grill, engaged in cooking. Another two are passing out napkins, forks, and plates, while the other three sit and talk and comment on how wonderful the food is smelling. If I asked you to guess which three are the counselors, you may guess they are the ones cooking when in fact, there could have been any combination counselors and campers involved in any of those activities at any time. (Actually, once the kids got into cooking and serving, counselors were very likely the ones sitting around commenting on the food!) At VBS, picture a large fellowship hall filled with children and adults. The children sit around tables according to their grade levels. The adults sit on the other side of the room. Adults walk back and forth between the kitchen and the kids, serving food and drinks, making sure kids have napkins and utensils. Prayer is done by asking all the kids to be quiet, and one adults pray into the microphone. When the kids finish eating, adults clean the table. Mealtimes, one of the moments of the day that is most conducive to relationship-building, becomes another example of separation between ages. 

As we’ve become more educated on adoption issues, attachment has been a recurring topic in our household. What has really gotten me thinking about his topic, though, is a book that is not adoption-specific. It’s a book by Gordon Neufeld and Gabor Mate called Hold On to Your Kids. It’s been another one of those books that say exactly what I would’ve said if I had the words to say it. It warns parents and teachers about the current trend toward peer orientation and encourages us to collect our kids and attach them to us! What worked at camp was the creation of attachment between caring Christian adults and kids who need adults. Behavior could’ve been a major issue but wasn’t precisely because attachment was there. I saw a lot more behavior issues at VBS (with church kids!) because the children were oriented towards peers. There imitated peers, they felt that VBS was about them, and did not have the opportunity to attach to mature Christian role models even though there were plenty of adults around! No wonder our church struggles with age-stage transitions; we are such an age-segregated church.

Churches, I encourage you to collect your kids. Look them in the eye, talk to them, listen, and be deliberate about attachment. Your kids need to be attached to adults. Don’t hide your children in the children’s building, in a back nursery somewhere, in corner preschool room. Don’t even hide them in worship halls brightly painted with butterflies and rainbows or in lavishly equipped, beautifully decorated classrooms. Adults, you teach them to worship, you teach them to walk with Jesus, you teach them the hard road of discipleship. Hold on to your kids!

Blogging Hiatus

Now that I’ve started doing some of the things that I’ve been writing about, it’s harder to find time to keep up with this blog. I will try to continue posting though, simply because there really is a lot going on! Just an update:

• May – Started training as a CASA volunteer. It was a full five days, packed with more information than I ever thought I’d know about the dependency court system and foster child advocacy! I was assigned a case in July and will be starting to work on it this week. Began teaching preschool Sunday School for the first time! 
• June — Applied to be a counselor at Camp Alandale. July — Went to Camp Alandale for two weeks, with one week home in between. I was disappointed not to do the 4th-6th grade camp, but realized how fun and silly junior high kids could be, and that high schoolers were not as scary as I thought. 
• August — Find out more about my CASA case.

There are still many more things I’d like to do, but I’m going to have to be careful about trying to do everything. There are so many opportunities and needs if we’d only start looking around!

The Battle

I attended a Camp Alandale training for camp counselors today. Camp Alandale is a camp exclusively for abused and neglected children, mainly from the foster care system. The details were important, but what I appreciated most was the perspective–God cares especially for orphans and hurting kids. He listens to their prayers; fights on their behalf. He has gifted these children to bring glory to His Kingdom in ways no one else can, and Satan is doing everything he can to kill those gifts. Satan is the destroyer, seeking to devour. What joy to remember that our God triumphed with his love! He has purchased these children with the blood of the Lamb; those who belong to Him, no one can snatch out of His hand!

It’s also very refreshing to hear it all from a Christian perspective after my other readings on abused children. Either we Christians are much too optimistic and naive, or God’s healing power is as great as we claim it is!

By the way, Camp Alandale is still in need of counselors for the summer, so if you have a heart for abused children, think about applying!

A Boy in Need

An volunteer coordinator of a foster care agency called me today about mentoring. She wouldn’t place me with a boy, but she’s been looking to a mentor for this child for so long she thought I might be able to find others to help. As I listened to his description, I just wondered, what is it like to live in foster care all your life and now face emancipation–more of life without family? I just can’t imagine. He’s turning 18, and he’s been in foster care since birth. He’ll be living in an adult group home. All a mentor needs to do is to commit to this child for one year, meeting twice a month and making a phone call on the other weeks. Any men out there?? Even though I cannot do it, I feel responsible for him now…

Letting Go

One fear that my in-laws have about adoption is this: What if the child wants to find their birth parents when they grow up? I think the fear behind that fear is, because adopted children are not “yours”, they’ll leave you.
Perhaps too many parents assume that children belong to them, particularly biological children. Your children are supposed to be there for you in your old age. However, that is not the reality. They truth is, all children need to answer to another claim–they claim the Father in heaven has on their lives. He is their true Father, and parents need to abdicate their authority in deference to His. So many parents have such a hard time giving their children to missions, to martyrdom, to low-status positions, to persecution and suffering, because we think they belong to us. They don’t. Should we not celebrate when our children pursue hotly after their heavenly Father?

Mariner’s Adoption Workshop

I went to an adoption workshop hosted by Mariners Church in Irvine yesterday. I think what impressed me the most was that most of the presenters were DADS! It is so nice to see dads interacting with their children and talking about them–loving them and the whole idea of adoption.

Random fact: I was reading this in a book. Don’t know if it is still the case, but 30% of children in foster care have four of more siblings!

Fear

So I’ve been talking about children, helping children, my thoughts about children, orphan care… but now that we’re really considering adoption, I’m terrified! This bringing of a child into our lives–it feels a bit too close to home. I have to admit, I’m scared. I often find myself wondering, am I crazy to be doing this?

CMTA

Just wanted to reflect on this year’s CMTA convention a little bit. There seems to be a growing interest in intergenerational ministries now. Either that, or I just chose all the workshops related to my own interest in intergenerational ministries. There does seems to be a growing concern though, because speaker after speaker, even those not addressing the topic itself, mention the problem of the “silo” mentality or the fragmentation of the church along age-lines. I started the day with a workshop on partnering with parents in discipling children. The speaker used a wonderful object lesson — the children as plants and the church as the watering can. We attempt to encourage growth by increasing the water, but we neglect to plant them in the nurturing soil of the home! The second workshop, by Rosalyn Encarnacion, was a fascinating presentation of how intergenerational ministries could really look. Through a curriculum in which children learn about aging and how to minister to seniors, I think both generations are blessed! I hope I’ll have the opportunity to try it sometime. I wonder where the seniors are in our church?? I don’t know of any in our congregation. But I guess I did not know any of the children either, until I started teaching preschool. That is, again, an example of the fragmentation of our church–the invisibility of all groups other to ourselves. There was also a workshop on creating a sacred space for families: a prayer room for the children. Imagine how much more effective our church ministries would be if we recruit children to pray for the church! God loves to answer the prayers of children! Finally, what more appropriate way to end than with a session called “How to connect all the pieces of an intergenerational Church”. I was actually surprised to know that we are not the only church struggling with this. All types of churches–large and small, white, Asian, Hispanic–were represented in that room. There definitely needs to be more dialogue about this issue.
Aside from the workshops, I also had a good conversation with the children’s pastor of our parent church, about this very issue of integration. It was frustrating to her that the pastors of the church show no interest in participating in children’s activities. She could not even get the senior pastor to pray at a VBS. Children is your department, they tell her. You do your thing, we’ll do ours. It’s not our job to work with the kids! What a sad reflection on how little we value our children. We say we value them (they have their own program and own pastor, don’t they?), but we really expect nothing of them until they become “real people”–adults.