Itsara

Every once in a while, Cindy and I talk about getting more kids. Unfortunately, in the last few months we haven’t felt like we can handle another kid, though we are constantly trying to hear what God has to say. I mean, if he says we can handle it then we will (that’s what we did last time, after all).

At the same time, the need is just so huge, and we see it so acutely with the kids we have now. Most of our kids are teenagers already, and we can see first-hand the results of abandonment in their lives. It sucks, and we are constantly faced with the fact that there may be nothing we can do to fix it anymore.

We want to take in older kids who were wronged to make things right. We want to take in older kids because frequently nobody else will. We don’t want older kids because, once they’ve been wronged, they are more difficult.

We want to take in younger kids who can still be healed. We want to take in babies so that they never have to be broken. We don’t want to take in more kids because we feel stretched to our limit more often than we’d like.

We want to take in as many as we can because there are so many kids who are broken or in danger of being broken! We don’t want to take too many because we want to be able to love and heal those that we have. We don’t want to take in any more because of the times we go crazy right now!

As you can see, we’re pretty conflicted about it. A long time ago, I told God I wanted to change the world, but there was just so much that needed fixing, and I felt that any effort on my part would be so small as to be insignificant. I wanted to change the world, but I didn’t know how or if I even could.

“But I’m already changing the world,” God said. “You wanna help?”

That’s why I’m here. I realized that I have absolutely no power or perspective to even begin to change the world, but God has both. If he tells me to do something, I can be sure that, even if I don’t see the point, it will be effective in some way.

There are millions of kids who are abused, abandoned, and unloved and who need parents that will love them the way God intended, but we can’t parent them all. Even the ones we do parent, we can’t be sure that anything we do is effective, but God asked us to do it. And that’s the only reason we are. That’s the only way to change the world.

Not much to report yet. We’re mostly preparing for June now. Here’s what the near future looks like:

1 week: We move.
2 weeks: Matt and Sandra go back to the US for a couple of months.
3 weeks: I start the process to extend my visa for another year.
4 weeks: The team from Coast arrives.

While I’m not really looking forward to the visa extension (it always takes so long, and I’m always worried they won’t let me do it this year for some reason), the others are all really exciting. Though honestly I’m not excited about moving either but having moved.

Sean and Prang, on the other hand, have just moved in. There’s still a thousand tiny things for them to finish at the new houses, and a bunch of stuff we all have to agree on before we make the final payment, but they have power and doors they can lock. Hopefully in a couple of weeks we can be settled and have a nice house warming party… or land warming… global warming?

Anyway, I’ll be glad to move if only because our internet has been down half the time since that tree fell down (you know how I am without internet). Right now I’m writing this in Notepad to be uploaded at the next opportunity. On the plus side, I get a lot more writing done without the internet. I should really consider turning it off more, but I know I’d just turn it on again when I wanted to be distracted. What I really need to learn is self-discipline.

Sunday morning, like many other days, I was getting kinda down. It happens when the kids complain a lot and I have little adult interaction to remind me that they don’t know what they’re talking about. They complain about being bored at home. They complain when we say we’re going somewhere. They complain about all the food that Cindy and I make. They complain that all our movies are boring (even though we have like 50, and they constantly ask to watch them). One of them likes complaining about how everything is better in Thailand than in the West, or how everything is better in the village than here in the city. One of them lost about half of their allowance for various infractions this week and complained that they didn’t even want allowance anymore.

Sigh.

It makes me not want to confront them about things. It makes me feel like nothing I do matters. It makes me feel like I have to defend the US, or God, or myself and my way of doing things. And the few times I do try to defend, I get sucked into an argument from which there is no escape. Logic doesn’t matter in these arguments, and I cannot win them no matter how much more I know.

God spoke to me out of Acts that morning. Here’s the passage I read; I underlined the parts that jumped out at me during this time.

Acts 20:19-20, 23-24

I served the Lord with great humility and with tears, although I was severely tested by the plots of the Jews. You know that I have not hesitated to preach anything that would be helpful to you but have taught you publicly and from house to house.

I only know that in every city the Holy Spirit warns me that prison and hardships are facing me. However, I consider my life worth nothing to me, if only I may finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me - the task of testifying to the gospel of God’s grace.

I do not do this job because the children appreciate it. They don’t, most of the time, and some of them may never appreciate it. I do this because it is what God called me to do, and I choose to serve him, whatever the cost. “You are my world,” we sang at church that morning. The children are not my world, but Jesus is. We sang, “Every tribe and tongue, every land will sing your praise.” Whether they accept God, or me, or my culture, it doesn’t matter. One day, all will see and praise Jesus’ name. I don’t need to convince them of the truth. I just need to teach it to them and live it in my own life. Nothing else matters.

I just sent some queries out yesterday, trying to get my novel representation, but mostly just seeing what happens. When you say, “I want to write a novel,” nobody tells you about all the other things you need to learn along the way that have nothing to do with writing. You have to write query letters and synopses, you have to do a heck of a lot of research on agents, editors, and publishers, and even then you don’t know anything until you actually do it.

To the title of this post, though. There’s a lot in my head on this subject that I want to write about, just to get it out there, but I don’t want to clutter up Itsara with a whole bunch of posts about writing and querying and getting rejected and… basically a bunch of stuff that has nothing to do with caring for orphans or living in Thailand or any of that.

So for those of you that do want to hear about my progress in getting published, my education in the publishing business, and the ups and downs of writing, click over to Author’s Echo, a blog where I will do exclusively that.

Can I handle two blogs? I don’t know. For right now, it’s just there for when I need it, but my commitment to this one stays as firm as ever. In any case, hop over there, bookmark it, and grab the RSS feed if you want to keep up with this particular aspect of my life.

Ten things that I constantly have to remind myself of:

1. Parenting is temporary.
2. Nobody learns something after being told once.
3. I wasn’t crazy about church at their age either.
4. My happiness is not based on theirs.
5. Expect complaining. It takes the edge off of it.
6. Spend time with adults once in a while.
7. A good hamburger can cover over a multitude of their sins.
8. I’m not doing this because they appreciate it.
9. Math is good: perseverance = character = hope.
10. Anger doesn’t help. Ever.

The houses are getting really close to done. We’ve only got one payment left to make. I don’t know about the Abbott’s house, but in our house what needs doing is the front doors, kitchen cabinets, a few floor tiles, the walkway around the outside… and I think that’s it. Maybe a few little things here and there. In any case, they ought to be done really soon, like in a month or so.

I took these pictures two weeks ago, so some things are done already that aren’t done in the pictures.

There’s still lots to do (and pay for) outside of the house. We need a front wall/fence, a front gate, a driveway, and eventually some grass. The driveway, in particular, we need before we can move in. Sean’s truck is four-wheel drive, but our truck will get stuck in the mud for sure if we try it. Not to mention we’ll have to mop everyday. Blech.

My brother got himself in the paper. San Diego Union Tribune: http://www.signonsandiego.com/entertainment/street/2008/05/street_people_from_guns_in_ira.html.