Itsara

Disclaimer: In today’s post, I talk some more about our vision – what we think our future might look like (or at least what we are excited about with regards to our future). Please know, as we have learned, that any and all of this could change. It most likely will. A year ago we were going to be house parents at Im Jai. Two years ago Cindy was going to run our orphanage while I pastored a church or something. Five years ago I was itching to quit my software engineering job and make computer games again. You just never know.

Those of you following along at home know that we intend to have a children’s home. More than that, we intend to have a family of unwanted children that we will raise to know Jesus’ love and give it in return. That started, in a way, when we got Sandra back in March of this year. Sandra had her own set of emotional and interpersonal issues, akin to those we had seen in some of the kids at Im Jai House – really common issues to have for a kid who has not received the love they need. Loving and raising her has not been easy, and it made us wonder how we ever thought we would be able to handle this sort of parenting with a child who didn’t speak English.

Fast-forward to last Saturday morning. We found out that some friends of ours were asked to take in one of the girls from Im Jai House (for what reasons, we don’t know). When I heard about it, a part of me wanted to take her into our house. It surprised me, because for the last 9 months I haven’t been thinking about taking in a Thai-speaking (and Thai-raised) child. I know that’s what we came here for, but every time I thought about it I would get scared. I was able to calm myself by remembering (or being told) that God knows what he’s doing, and he wouldn’t ever give us a burden that we were unable to carry, but I always knew that it wasn’t time yet.

So when I found myself wanting this girl in my house, and thinking about how it would work out, I discovered that I wasn’t scared anymore. I think we could handle one, or maybe even two, Thai-speaking children in our house now. It wouldn’t be easy, but with all that we’ve learned from Sandra and Matthew, and with the gift God’s given us of a bilingual household, I think it could actually work. Read on to catch the full vision.

The first problem (9 months ago) was that of communication. We’re decent at Thai, but, as we realized with Sandra in March, we didn’t have quite enough to express ourselves as parents. It’s a little different now, though. With Sandra and Matthew living here, we have established a sort of pattern as parents. We know what’s expected of the kids and what’s expected of us. As I said, it would be hard, but I think we could probably handle it now – where as before I knew we couldn’t. And if we had serious communication problems, we have Sandra and Matthew who can help us with translation, if need be.

A side blessing is that it would improve our Thai tremendously. We learned a lot very quickly while we were at Im Jai House everyday, and both Cindy and I kinda miss that.

Of course to live here the child would have to learn English, and we would teach them on a fairly hardcore basis. But just as it would help to be forced to speak Thai, any child would learn English much faster when immersed in a household that primarily communicates in it.

The second problem is education. We want to adopt the children that God gives us (when possible), and we want to homeschool our children. But for a child that has grown up in the Thai school system to be dropped suddenly into an American homeschooling environment would be jarring, to say the least. For older children (maybe late elementary school and on), we would most likely leave the child in the Thai system, at least for a while. Later on, when their English is strong enough to communicate normally and when they have adapted to our house (and we have adapted to them), we may give them the choice. They will have seen their brothers and sisters being homeschooled, and as they learned more English they would be better able to understand what they are learning, so they may have become intrigued. Or they may just stay where they are comfortable, but it would probably be up to them.

But that’s not the full extent of the vision (or my excitement). A while ago, Sean told me an idea he had: one lot, two houses. That is, we buy one plot of land and a house each for the Abbotts and the Heines. This would enable both Sean and I to rule independently over our own households (it’s difficult to share authority, especially where kids are involved), while still allowing us to remain in close community. Cindy added to this idea later. What if she and I homeschooled both families’ kids? What if Prang homeschooled the Thai speaking ones, or taught Thai to the English-speakers? What if Sean taught them trade skills?

That was the vision that really excited me. Two families, independent yet working together in community, sharing the tasks of education in two languages. I was excited about it – enough to write about it. Will this actually happen? I don’t know. Only God knows what will happen next, but everyday I get more excited about saying “yes” to him.