The Girls' Dean

Being a dean of girls is a challenge. Not sure I was made for this stuff. Whew! Today has been a day full of emotions. I've dealt with Sad, Glad and Mad and everything in between.... There are hurting kids everywhere. Here is no exception.

I don't pray enough.

A Tribute to My Mother's Work in Africa

A touching post and song was written about my mom and all her work and efforts to making the AIDS orphans' life easier and productive these last 12 years. READ it here:

http://kibidulapilot.blogspot.com/2014/07/janet.html


I am thankful people have stepped forward to take on the burden. So is my dad. He'll be glad to have her home for good. Praying that she finds her new niche.

RAD

I sleep on an air mattress on the floor in a room with twelve girls in bunks. Brianna and Christina are in the other room of 11 girls.  My nephew is in the room with about 26 guys.

My biggest challenge is getting the girls to settle at night. . . .  Sometimes I’m dog-tired because our schedule is unbelievably busy. But these are great kids.  I am enjoying getting to know each one. We’ve been going at the program hard for a week and half. Today was declared a fun day and most everyone are involved in a huge water fight at the moment.

Brianna is publishing the “Daily” which is a photo journal of Youth for Jesus. The link can be found here:

Brianna and Christina are speakers for the meetings. They are both excellent speakers. My dad was here to start off the program and he took a lot of time to coach them.

The twins have officially gotten over their “honeymoon” with Auntie Julie being in charge of them while I’m away. They were doing well enough I thought maybe it would last long enough for me to get back home. Not so. This morning I woke up to a text that James had smashed the kitchen window in a fit of rage over a popsicle. It was a rather traumatic event for my young nephew to observe… even for Missy.  It’s her turn to rage today and that is likely fallout from the stress of yesterday.

In the crisis, when Vanessa could not get ahold of her dad she called a friend. This friend is a big guy that has stepped in before. Steve arrived before the friend, though, and took James up the mountain hiking. He didn’t say anything…. Just hiked. The friend met them at the back of the road and he did the talking with James. Sometimes it makes all the differences in the world to have a third party step in. We’ve said everything we know to say, as we have done everything we know to do to help this kid. The stores in our bank gets dry and it is helpful when people care enough to try and make a difference.

I called to talk to the twins yesterday. It was a very RAD conversation. James was not interested in talking to me -like not at all. He was flat and unresponsive and he quickly handed the phone to Missy. Missy on the other hand chatted intensely for a full 15 minutes and hardly gave me a chance to put a word in edgewise. Her deal was to let me know that I had done her a great wrong by not saying goodbye at 5 AM before leaving for the airport. I had hugged her and told her goodbye the night before and had told her I would not be seeing her in the morning. She got totally stuck on that. Steve says that they have been pretty much ignoring him and Auntie has been the one they go to for everything even though he is right there a lot of the time. We may think they are attaching to us and then something like this comes up and we see quite clearly that their attachment is far from normal.

We surely don’t know how this story is going to unfold. Some days are scary.

BUT I’m enjoying the break. Not one person has tried to manipulate anything here. Its absence is very noticeable when you live with people who manipulate from dawn till dusk.

Still There IS Hope

Bit by bit she’s dying.  You can see it in her face, and her eyes…. She’s but a mere skeleton. Her mind is losing its ability to reason. Her own lies have clouded her reality to the point she can hardly tell truth from fiction and not a single believable word escapes her lips.  Her beauty is gone. So is her husband: even her children. Her vehicle is destroyed; her house stands empty… no power, no water, no garbage service, and her rent has been unpaid for months…  If she goes near her mother’s house, someone will call the cops. Most of her pals are used up and burned out. The ones still hanging around are as miserably messed up as she is. She is afraid to be alone at night. She finds herself preparing meals for the kids that aren’t there in her sleep; sometimes hallucinating and always afraid of drug dealers showing up to demand payment.

Yesterday her friend died of a heroine overdose. Someone, who, like her, had recently been celebrating her recovery from a drug addiction; someone way too young to die. Is she next?

I can’t really tell if she resents my urgings to get help. She seldom answers my calls, but she will respond to some of my text messages on occasion. Usually she tells me what she thinks I want to hear… that she’s going on a certain date to the local treatment center and that she’s just waiting for an open bed.  It’s always a week away  - never today.  She lives only for the present moment. She is in complete denial of the fact that she’s dying. Slowly, but surely she’s dying.  I can see it in her eyes.

I tell her I love her. I tell her that God loves her. I tell her that He sees her as she might be, not as she is. He’s just waiting to relieve her of her pain and suffering and He wants nothing more than to bring healing into her life. 

But no one can force her to make the choice that would change the direction in which her life is hurtling.  I feel helpless and incapable of doing anything to stay the tide… Everyone does. She is still alive, though and where there is life, there is HOPE. We are still praying; praying for a miracle and always looking for an opportunity to show her Christ's love. Sometimes that looks like tough love.

I'm sad. Please pray for her because there is still hope.

“The love that is inspired by our love for Jesus

will see in every soul, rich or poor,

a value that cannot be measured by human estimate.

 Let your life reveal a love

 that is higher

than you can possibly express in words”.

6T 279

Foster Care Heartbreak

I learned something new!! Learned that I could use my phone as a hotspot to provide my computer with internet access. Well, what do you know? All this time I thought I could not use my computer and I had everything I needed at my fingertips - an iPhone and an Macbook!

Vanessa has been picking up Buddy and Ducky and their siblings and taking them to Abundant Life's VBS program and church, hiking and swimming. I am thankful she has the heart to keep these kids connected to us while I am away. They are doing well and bonding to their father and paternal grandparents in a good way.  I am grateful.  Their mother promised me a week ago that she would be going to treatment today. I have no idea is she will actually do so. She blacked out and ran her car into a tree and totaled it in the middle of the night on the 4th of July. I can only be grateful the kids are not with her. I pray for her every day. I text her and try to stay connected to her and also try to encourage her that God loves her so much that He would be willing to help her if she would just ask him.

I heard through the grapevine that all is not well with Oscar and Pieter. I have heard they only stayed at their grandparents house for maybe a week or two. Then they were moved to a foster home. That foster mom was presented with an opportunity to foster a newborn that was likely to end in adoption and she chose the baby over the boys after having them two weeks. The social worker then tried to get the grandparents back involved and to take the boys and they would not. I have no idea what is going on or what the trouble is. I know these are difficult boys... but they are their flesh and blood... and so I have to believe there is something more to the story. And so, the boys have been moved to a new foster home. MAKES ME SICK. That poor baby. He simply cannot understand. His attachment struggles can only be that much worse. The behaviors must probably have skyrocketed.  It's a horrendous story that I wish could have fixed or else have had no part in.

***

Brianna preached her first sermon last evening and it went beautifully. Christina is next. They have been getting a lot of coaching from my dad. It's a good experience.  I'm jet lagged and feeling like I've been run over... BUT all the girls are great kids and I am enjoying getting to know all 24 of them.

iPhone Trip Pics!

Mount St Helens

Rafting our local river with cousins.

Saltwater State Park

Mount Rainier plus Mount Adams, Mount Hood And Mount St Helens in the background.

Over Canada

YFJ worship music

Peripatetic

I learned a new word. It means well- traveled. 

I spent nearly a week in Oregon without Internet at the Lightbearers Campmeeting. I could not blog if I wanted to, but the meetings were inspiring and we had a good time of fellowship. 

Sunday we drove towards Seattle and camped at Saltwater State Park. Early in the morning, my nephew Caleb and I boarded a plane for Michigan. My dad picked us up at the airport and here we are at Youth For Jesus. I am the girl's dean. I have no idea what I am doing. But I am learning. There's no internet. So I'm typing on my phone. You might follow  on Facebook or Instagram.... Angela.rootsreachingdeep

It's worship time. My dad has worship. The topic: Righteousness by faith - the same as the whole Campmeeting we just went to. I guess I need to understand well!