Swedish Celebrations!

While there are many Swedish families who are taking today and celebrating their midsummer festival, we had two families here who were celebrating adoption. They gave us a really beautiful book with hundreds of pictures of Sweden and then pointed out that today is a holiday there. A day to get together and celebrate the warm season (since they only really get 2 months of really warm weather). So while their fellow countrymen celebrate the warmth, they are spending a few weeks in the cold winter of Lesotho (which I am sure is not too cold compared to their homeland).

We had two boys adopted today and they both came to us as tiny babies. We have had the pleasure of watching them grow a little and hit a few milestones such as crawling, pulling themselves up, and walking. However, today we handed them over to their parents who will get to be there for them for every new milestone from now on. They will have parents to tuck them in, read them books, listen to their good and bad days, hug them, and love them forever. What a joyous day! Celebrating the warmth of becoming a family!

The beauty of adoption never gets old to me. It blows my mind that God knew before He knit those boys together that they were not going to be staying with their biological mom. For some reason, their mothers would not have the privilege of raising their own children. He had another plan that involved two other families who would come in and love the boys and raise them as their own. Wow, what an amazing plan. One which we can never fully understand because it is hard to imagine being the one who has to give up her son, but God’s plans are for our good. He knows what is best for everyone involved and I am thankful that He is in control. Here are a few pictures of these wonderful new families!

A Delightful Visit

Earlier this year, 4 of our Beautiful Gate children were moved to another care facility being run by the Beautiful Dream Society. I remember the day well as there were more tears cried that day here at Beautiful Gate than I had ever seen before. It was a day of laying down our dreams for these kids to be adopted by a family of their own. It was never that we had bad feelings about the other care center, it was only hard because of our own desires and dreams for these 4 children.


Tonight Terp (Christina Terpstra) and I had the privilege of going to their care center and having dinner with the 4 children and their 8 brothers and sisters in their care facility/ foster home. Each child greeted us warmly as we came into the house and told us their name and then we ate dinner with the kids. The kids sang us a few songs and even showed us a few dances and a little rap song. I asked Terp to sing "Trading My Sorrows" to the kids while I cut the dessert I made for the kids and house mothers. That song broke the ice for us and helped the kids who did not know us to feel like we were okay. It was especially fun to see the banter between one house mother and a few of the older kids. They have so much joy in their relationship. I asked if I could take a picture of the kids and so one of the older boys lined up all the kids by size and then I took a few pictures of them smiling, then with funny faces and then laughing with them all leaning on each other's backs.


I guess the best way to describe my time there was laughter. We all laughed and joked with each other and really, it felt like a family. Older siblings helping the younger ones, parents teasing their kids, laughter and chatter during a meal together, etc. I am so thankful that I got a glimpse into their lives at their new home because I see that the kids are thriving together. God has chosen them for this family and they fit in well. Once again it shows how much I do not understand God's plan. He has good plans for us and for our future. He has good plans for those 4 children and so I will trust His plan and His placement of these precious little ones.

Mercy's Pretend Play

When Faith was 6, I remember that she used to dress up in rags and pretend to be a poor girl who had no food. I actually remember writing a blog post about it, but when I looked back over my blog I could not find the specific blog post. I remember wondering how much she had changed from pretending to be a princess in America to a pauper in Lesotho.


Mercy is 6 and recently I have come to notice a theme in her pretend play just like I noticed in Faith's at her age. Mercy is always an orphan who has been abandoned or her parents have been killed. No matter if she is pretending to be a little girl or if she is pretending to be an animal, it is always an orphan. Today she asked me to help her write a story and here are a few parts of her story;

...I am a cheetah. My mother was hunting and my father was babysitting us. My father thought there were too many of us so he abandoned me. I was the weirdest. My ears were black...When it was winter, I was very cold and found a sock to crawl into. I knew is stinked, but at least I was warm...


The story continued on and although the cheetah was found and adopted, it was a bit of a sad story with only an okay ending, certainly not the happily ever after that my kids would have imagined had we stayed in our small town in Michigan and never seen Lesotho and real poverty and real problems. Although the psychologist in me thinks this is a healthy way to process all that she has seen and heard, the mother in me wants to protect her a little more. I do thank God that we are here though because Mercy has a beautiful compassionate heart that adores the little babies at Beautiful Gate and I admire her merciful heart for the orphan.

Hope of a Happy Life

Have you ever been thankful for someone's death? It sounds completely heartless and unchristian to think that way, right?!
I only ask that because of a little girl whom I love. She came here awhile ago. I remember her first day here and how sad she looked. Honestly, that is the way I remember her first months, pure sadness. She did not smile or respond to the people around her. She was content to just sit and stare. I worried about her. So young and yet so unconnected. What happened? Rather than read her file and find out, I just decided to try to make a connection.
It did not come easily. I had to work for it. Visiting her at playgroup a lot and just holding her in my arms so she would know she was safe and loved. Then one day it happened. I was walking toward the playgroup and she came running. Running to me!!!! And she actually smiled when I picked her up and swung her around. Wow, what an amazing smile. From that day on, it was our ritual that she would run to me and smile when I picked her up. I loved that connection.
She has recently left Beautiful Gate to be reunited with her family because her mother passed away. I wondered why that should make a difference and then Terp shared with me what she had learned from the girl's file. Her mother did not care for her and whenever she was moved to a different family member's house, her mother would beat them up and take her back. She was never safe until she came to Beautiful Gate. No wonder she never smiled when she came here. I cannot imagine the abuse she witnessed and may have even experienced herself. But now, she is free to be with her family again and they want her. She is loved and safe again.
That got me to thinking, am I happy that her mother is dead? I do not really know how I feel, but I am thankful that God has made a way for her to have hope and a future because the person who was standing in her way, is no longer there. I hope her mother found a relationship with Jesus before she died and I am thankful for the time I could enjoy with her while she was here waiting for a time where she could safely return home. Maybe I am not happy her mother died, I am just happy for the daughter to have the hope of a happy life.

Faithfulness

After several months of feeling like I was suppose to go and not being able to due to lack of transport or a team or volunteers, I have had my date with God :) I watched a video by Francis Chan where he suggested taking a vacation with God and I was really inspired by that idea. I do not have the time to take a vacation with God, but I have been wanting to go to a mountain and pray for several months and last Saturday I went. For those of you who read my last blog post, you probably could see that I needed to get away for a day!
The biggest thing I was reminded about is that God is faithful. After reading and praying for a bit, I read through my journals that I have written in sporadically for the past 15 years. After seeing how God answered my prayers, both in good ways and in ways I never expected, I was amazed. I am no longer surprised in any way that we live here in Lesotho after I read some of my prayers for my family back in 2009. I begged God to help me never forget what I saw on my mission trip, to break my heart for the things that break His, and to teach my kids what really matters in life. I went so far as to ask Him to burn the images in my mind for the rest of my life. God is faithful and He knew the only way for this to happen was for me to live here and to raise my kids here.
So while I may doubt my abilities at times, God trusts me. He had it planned out for me and He will guide me each step of my journey. I am thankful that I can spend quiet time with Him each day, but there was something extra special about setting the day apart for Him.

Down Days

The last couple of days have been downer kind of days. I am not even sure I could put my finger on the exact cause, but I feel drained and worn out. There have been issues coming up on all sides with staff, volunteers, staff family members, government issues and BG kids. Sometimes I feel like we are drowning in issues, but we have to keep our heads above water so we can still run the day to day operations of Beautiful Gate, not to mention the responsibilities of raising and teaching our kids. It can be overwhelming at times and I am just in one of those phases right now.
There is one situation that I keep coming back to and I am desperate for God to move in this area, but the door has been slammed shut. It involves the health of one of our BG kids (who is not matched right now) and I ask you to pray with me that God will open the door or show us an even better option very soon. I hate the despair that I feel because I do have faith that God can do all things, He just seems to be saying no right now and I need to accept His timing. This is stretching me.
It is days like these where I wonder why God did not pick someone stronger, smarter or more experienced to help run Beautiful Gate. Today, I feel weak and unprepared for the calling. I just ask that in this moment of weakness that you pray for us, our family, our staff and their families and our kids here at Beautiful Gate. Thank you

FREEDOOOOOOM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Today Terp and I went on a little adventure to celebrate her college graduation and my half birthday since she will not be here to celebrate with me in November. We can justify a lot of things in order to have a day away :) We went shopping, had lunch, visited the Cheetah Experience (where I have yet to actually experience touching a cheetah, bummer), and visited a beautiful garden center. We were able to do all those things today because my friends, Benno and Wendy, have allowed me to babysit their car while they are in Canada and it is so great to have a little freedom.
I have tried to drive a manual but I am not very good at it because remembering to stay on the left and worrying about taxis pulling out at any moment are enough for me, shifting and big hills where I might roll back seem to be too much for my brain. I know it is a bad excuse, but I do not like it at all and prefer an automatic. So now I have a few months of freedom were I can drive a little (don't worry Faths' I do not have a lot of road trips planned). Just getting out of Lesotho once in awhile is a nice way to relax and clear my brain of my never ending to do list here at Beautiful Gate and also give me a chance to take my kids on a few field trips, yeah! :) I know that this is temporary and I am looking forward to having our friends back here at BG again.