Are We Prepared for the Ministry?

I was planning on posting about how our first week of school went, but I had a rotten yesterday and I am going to spill all my troubled thoughts out on this blog instead. I don’t always do that and, in fact, in the Policies tab of this blog I have written, “While I try to be honest with my readers, this blog will not be used to outline every stressor in my life.” So, I will not go into long boring details about what went on to start this line of thought other than to ask for your continued prayers for Marissa.

The sane part of me wrote the church today to let the Youth Leader know that Marissa will not be attending Youth Group. An incident that occurred there proved that there is inadequate supervision and it is not a safe place for Marissa. Now, the insane part of me is going to speak my mind. I have written before about how many churches and para-church organizations are presenting adoption as a ministry that Christians should embrace. Well, it is of my opinion that most churches are in no way prepared to accept the children they are asking their parishioners to bring into their home.

Recently Antiracist Parent posted the question, “Dear ARP: Are my church’s actions influenced by racial prejudice?” in which a person related the following story:

My husband and I are Christian and attended a church for a long time. Our family had been very active in this church. We recently brought home a little boy with some special needs from Haiti. It had been hard for me to attend church with the little boy because he likes to be noisy and the church asks that people who have noisy children in the service stand out of the service in order to not disturb everyone. So after weeks of doing this because I wanted to be sure that the little boys special needs were ok enough to put him in the nursery….we sent our beloved baby boy into the nursery. I was able to enjoy church and our little boy had a great time playing with the other babies and being well taken care of. Nothing out of the ordinary right?

The fact that the child was from Haiti gave the story meaning. The writer goes on to relate how one of the pastors at the church later called the parent having “noticed” the child in the nursery and after beating around the bush for awhile got to the main point of the call. The pastor wanted to know the child’s HIV status. Are our churches ready to accept these children and love them with open arms? I suspect the answer in many cases is no. I suspect there are some people who would openly love on these children, but I have met few Father Damiens who said, “I am gently going to my grave. It is the will of God, and I thank Him very much for letting me die of the same disease and in the same way as my lepers. I am very satisfied and very happy.” And, while many of us are willing to put our own health at risk, we are less willing to expose our children to communicable diseases. I wonder how many people in my own church would embrace Beverly if I shared that she carries the Hepatitis-B virus? How many of those in the homeschooling community?

Marissa was adopted from the foster care system. I have heard people in the FASD community who estimate that about 70% of the children in foster care have been prenatally exposed to alcohol. The sane me knows that it is unreasonable to ask a Youth Ministry to provide 1:1 supervision Marissa needs so that she can participate. The part of me that likes to think outside the box and knows that Christians are being encouraged to adopt these kids wonders, “Is this really the very best the body of Christ can do?” Particularly given that many Christian groups eschew psychiatry believing that it undermines religion. Having your mom breathe down your neck when you are interacting with your peer group obviously is not a solution for a teenager with FASD. My showing up to Youth Group would not be a viable solution. What about a college student who worked on the Youth Staff whose sole purpose is to mentor and oversee a child with FASD and act as his or her external brain?

Jeff McNair who blogs at Disabled Christianity has a website, Disability Ministry, where he has invited people to send in information about nationwide programs serving persons with disabilities. The only programs listed are programs administered by Trinity Evangelical Free Church in Redland, California. Neither of these programs would necessarily be appropriate for a person with fetal alcohol spectrum disorder and a normal IQ, but the fact that the church invests in this ministry screams of their commitment to provide service to their members with special needs. It is sad that this kind of service is so rare.

Related posts: The Baby Thief, Adoption Evangelism

Settling In

I have been unusually busy. Not only have I added a toddler and a preschooler to the family, but it is graduation time in Minnesota, which means a lot of open houses for the honored graduates. My nephew graduated and his open house was last Saturday. Since my nephew was graduating, my mom came to visit. She was here for a week and the kids loved Grandma. Now, I have to race Beverly to the phone whenever it rings. She is always sure that my mom will be on the phone. Since she doesn’t speak English, it is kind of tough for anyone to understand her, but she doesn’t seem to mind. She just chats away to the caller until I come to relieve her of the phone.

Then on Wednesday, both David and Beverly had an appointment at the University of Minnesota’s International Adoption Clinic. I am afraid the findings were not too good. Beverly is very ill. She has acute Hepatitis B. Her liver function tests are all out of whack. Luckily, she is feeling good. Sadly, almost half of kids younger than 5 who are infected with Hepatitis B will develop a chronic infection. This puts them at risk for cirrhosis and liver cancer later in life. We have another appointment on June 20th to meet with a pediatric liver specialist. She needs to have an ultrasound of the liver done prior to the appointment. I am hoping to schedule it the same day and save myself another 2 1/2 drive to the cities. Oh, the first 2-hours are fine; it is the last 30 minutes when I am driving downtown that is a little nerve wracking. I don’t think there is anything I like less than driving in rush-hour traffic. I guess I have lived in a small city a bit too long. I think rush hour is having to wait for 5 cars before being able to execute my turn.

David’s thyroid stimulating hormone is elevated. The most likely cause of this is an iodine deficiency. So, David has to increase the amount of salt in his diet. I haven’t had any trouble feeding David, so I think that I can manage this.

Both children have parasites, two each. They have Giardia intestinalis and Blastocystis hominis. They also both are infected with Helicobacter pylori, a bacteria which is a common cause ulceration of the stomach and duodenum. So, we will be starting medication to kill them. The specialist at the U of M wants to treat the children prophylactically for an ulcer rather than scoping them to get a definitive diagnosis. My insurance company thinks not. Of course, this all came to a head Friday afternoon. I would be upset about it except now I have the weekend to pray, think about and weigh the pros and cons of each treatment option. After we get rid of the parasites, I need to start both children on iron as they are both a little anemic.

Since we are working our way to normal, I drafted a schedule that gives me one-on-one time with each child. Marissa is the hardest to work in because she is now away from the house for 20 hours a week. I miss her, but she is so excited to be working. When she opened her first paycheck, she was thrilled. She opened it slowly and exclaimed, “I feel like Charlie opening the candy bar to look for a golden ticket!” Marissa also finally, finally, finished the didactic part of her Driver’s Education. I requested a certificate from the state verifying completion of the course so that she could register with a certified instructor. I didn’t think I was emotionally ready for my child to be driving, but now that she works until 10 or 11 at night, I am beyond thrilled that I soon will not have to drag myself out of bed to go pick her up. I will probably still drag myself out of bed to make sure she is home, but that isn’t the same thing.

Prayers for the Children

From Bryn’s blog:

The protests reached Bolosse and there was a riot on Monday night outside our gates. Everyone is fine, but some of the kids are shaken. ~ April 9, 2009

The orphanage where David and Beverly are living is located on the Fort Mercredi hilltop in the Bolosse section of Port-au-Prince. Bryn is an intern at the orphanage. She left Haiti this morning for a planned 3-week vacation. My children went to bed last night listening to angry mobs. Pray for the continued safety of the children and staff at Newlife Link and Hope for the Children of Haiti. Pray for a miracle that will allow families in Haiti to feed their children.

So, after reading this article, I just don’t feel that the average American is “getting” the feeling of desperation and hunger that many are experiencing here.  ~ Protests Over Food Prices Paralyze Haitian Capital (I encourage you to click into Lucy’s blog and put a face, well two faces actually, to the problem of hunger in Haiti.)

 

Praying for Haiti

There is a link to a news video in the above photo. I do not have a crystal ball to understand how to fix Haiti. I read once that 45% of Haiti’s National Budget goes toward paying off Haiti’s huge foreign debt, a debt incurred while Haiti was under the dictatorship of Francois and Jean-Claude Duvalier. What is left to help the people? The world is spinning into economic instability. Oil prices are high, so the cost of producing food is high. In Haiti unemployment is high and wages are low. Many Haitians live on only a couple of dollars a day, Haiti’s minimum wage.

Food prices rising across the world:

“Currently if you’re in Haiti, unless the government is subsidizing consumers, consumers have no choice but to cut consumption. It’s a very brutal scenario, but that’s what it is.”

No one knows that better than Eugene Thermilon, 30, a Haitian day laborer who can no longer afford pasta to feed his wife and four children since the price nearly doubled to $0.57 a bag. Their only meal on a recent day was two cans of corn grits.

“Their stomachs were not even full,” Thermilon said, walking toward his pink concrete house on the precipice of a garbage-filled ravine. By noon the next day, he still had nothing to feed them for dinner.

Five people have been killed in the unrest.

My Mountain

Edited to add: On January 29, this report appeared on news.com.au, Haiti’s poorest reduced to eating dirt

I cannot tell you how many people upon learning that both Beverly and David’s first mothers are alive ask, “They didn’t want their kids?” It is a question that I have come to expect and loathe at the same time. We live in Disneyland in America with little idea about what life is like outside our own comfortable existence.

Yes, Beverly and David’s mothers both love their child. They made a decision to place their child for adoption because poverty and corruption in Haiti have created an environment in which they felt compelled to choose adoption. They want their children to go to bed every night without experiencing hunger. They want their children to grow into adulthood. They want their children to be educated. These simple goals seem unreachable for many in Haiti. I want to reiterate that adoption is not an appropriate long term solution for poverty. In adoption everyone loses except for the adoptive parents; they get a wonderful gift. But, the human cost is tremendous. Moms who will miss their children for a life time; children who may have questions that can never be satisfactorily answered. Birth families, including grandparents, aunts, uncles, brothers and sisters, who my children will never know.

Lori and haitinurse4life posted this video about rural Haiti. While it focuses on the mountains of Haiti and rural life, there are some scenes from the city too. Listen to the people of Haiti as they struggle to hold on to hope in the midst of extreme poverty. I could not embed this video using VodPod; instead, I have included a link to this 22-minute video in the screen shot below.