The More You Know...

I am sitting at the computer in our breakfast room at 11 o'clock on the morning, in near silence.  Homeschooling five children makes this almost an impossibility.  I tore a hamstring the night before last getting ready to test for my blue belt in Taekwondo.  (Yes, this is a 38 year old wife and mother of 5 writing.  I am, with the rest of my family, pursuing a martial art for the first time at  my age).  I've been slightly incapacitated ever since so Tom took Liza and one of our twins with him to work today.  My load is notably lighter.

I am extremely grateful to have these few hours.  Yes, it's true.  I adore my children, and I adore Liza, but I needed a break.  We are together 24/7 because she is not yet comfortable enough to make friends or venture out.  She says she needs "six months, yes I think so, six months" to learn English better first :)  Now that we have been home for 5 weeks and 2 days, I want to write about what it's like to adopt a teenager once you get them home.  Every story is unique and every child is different, but age does play a role in what you can expect in adoption.  I can't attest to any other age, any other family or child, or to anything other than our story.  I am no expert.  I am an eyewitness to but one account.

It happens to be my favorite account.

Liza helped me paint these lyrics from Matt Redman's song at Clay Fusion

First, I want to say that I believe it is NEVER too late to find a family.  Some may not find family until they get married and create a family.  To some people that family is made up of a group of friends with similar backgrounds who choose to be responsible for each other.  But there are cases in which I believe it would be too late for some troubled children to be living full time with a family who has other children; or impressionable, younger children. That was not the case for us with Liza, but it was the case for Liza's older sister.  She had experienced too much to be able to live in a household with our nine year old son.  If that sounds heartless, I apologize.  It is as hard to say as it was to realize the truth of it as we looked at that beautiful seventeen year old girl.  She needs a family with no other children or a halfway house with strict rules and no innocents nearby.

 Liza has experienced a lot, too.  We were too late to preserve all the innocence childhood should offer... maybe only by a year or two...but too late nonetheless.  Sixteen years is a long time.  And without parents, sixteen years is not nearly long enough. There are things she eludes to but won't elaborate on.  She refers to "bad things...really bad things" and "sins" that keep her from asking God for anything, though she says she talks to him a lot.  She recently bought a journal in which she and I can write her story together.  My job being to translate it into English.  She hasn't gotten far.  She has to be alone to write, sometimes for an hour or more and comes back with very little.  She said when she is ready to tell me the "bad things", she will, but that I shouldn't ask her.  So I don't.

There are so many things a family teaches, that one who has grown up in a family might take for granted.  Most of them may never be spoken but are taught through experience.

Like trust.

Dependence. 

Sacrifice.

Joy.

Togetherness.

Then there are the basics that we are told from birth, like: put the cap on the toothpaste, you can't have dessert 'til you eat your peas, wear a jacket when it's 25* outside...  Add to that the fact that there are things in American life that aren't apart of life in other cultures.  For instance, we live in our cars.  We go a lot of places.  Liza has a very difficult time running errands and going to and fro in town because she is always carsick.  Can you imagine only leaving the premises once a month or a couple times a year at most?

How have we spent our first month?  Teaching... and learning.  We've been asked a lot how "everything" is "going".  Some days it's Sunday drive, other days are a bumpy ride.   I admit to falling asleep at the wheel more than once, to having road rage, to cranking the music and dancing with our arms out the windows and to high speed chases.

I must have begun ten thousand sentences with these words, "in a family..."  In a family, when something is bothering us, we talk to each other about it.  In a family, we apologize when we've wronged someone.  In a family, we don't say "no" to our parents.  In a family, we don't lie to each other.  In a family, we share the workload.  In a family, there is trust.  In a family, you can feel safe.  In a family, we sometimes fight, but we always forgive...

One of our biggest lessons for her so far is that everything you do, affects the people around you.  We don't necessarily think about it, but we make little adjustments in our choices and behavior every day to accommodate our family members.  It might be not using all the hot water in a reeeally long shower when others are waiting in line; not glaring at the poor soul who has to wake you in the morning because you stayed up too late; or refusing food someone spent hours making with a wrinkled nose a disgusted sound effects...and then grabbing a bag of marshmallows.  :)  Our facilitator said to us once, "Orphans are self centered."  I thought it was a harsh and a little backwards.  After all, she lived with 300 other children and had to share everything, even clothes.  Two months later I can verify that statement.  She lived with others, but was not taught to care about their well being.  It's the little things we do for each other in family...

Another concept is something I have worked with our American children on all their lives. You are responsible for your countenance.  This one is complicated by both age and cultural differences.  The Russian culture simply does not smile a lot; and truth be told, 16 year old girls can be very moody.  Walking down a typical street in Ukraine will not make you the recipient of friendliness.  Thus, along with many myths, she is convinced that you should never smile unless you are genuinely happy; it is insincere.   It has been through several embarrassing moments that I've realized what a smiley culture we have in America.  She doesn't realize that without smiling, she is glaring and causes those around her to think she is angry at them.  I explained that it hurts feelings to be greeted wordlessly that way.  I asked that if she couldn't smile with happiness, could she please try to smile with love.   "I can" she acquiesced and she has done much better.  She is a quick learner and she is trying very hard most days.

"Everything is permissible but not everything is beneficial" I Corinthians 10:23.  She doesn't understand why the availability of 24/7 WiFi should not mean 24/7 internet and television; why we won't allow her to watch certain movies when they're right there on Netflix; or why the presence of 24 hour a day hot water should not mean twice daily hour long showers; or why the ability to ingest sugar should not mean abstaining from real food in favor of spoonfuls of the stuff; or why homeschooling should not mean sleeping until noon and staying awake until 2am; or why owning an iPod should not mean plugging your ears when you wake up and not unplugging them until the buds accidentally fall our when you're sleeping; or why having the ability to Skype call cheaply should not mean calling Ukraine every day,  living in the past.  We are now, as we were when we had multiple toddlers, playing a prerecorded "No" message.  I feel like I have "Bad Guy" stamped on my forehead most days.  In many ways, the rules of the house feel like a prison to her.

There's no such thing as a free lunch. She is very willing to work doing her assigned chores around the house, but has no real concept of the work involved in most things in life.  They did very few chores at school.  They were rarely in the kitchen but for a cooking class or two in the course of her life.  She sees me paying bills with imaginary, apparently limitless money.  We realized last night we need to show her where the hot water comes from and why it runs out and how it costs money.  They were never privy to store prices, income and budgets.  She doesn't believe us when we say we have no more money for a phone or clothes, because we bought groceries the next day or paid for her doctor appointment.  She asked for a phone, an iPhone to be specific, and didn't believe Tom when he said they cost $500 and then $100 per month thereafter (after stating that she'd need a job first).  She's questioned our honesty multiple times when we've tried to explain realities for her.

The more you know, the more you realize just how much you don't know.  She believes herself to be street smart and savvy in a way that our privilege would never allow.  And I have heard many comments that suggest other people think she has been living as an adult, learned adult lessons and is probably pretty safe left to her own devices here in the safety of our home.  That couldn't be further from the truth.  And that's where the complexities come in.  Americans refer to complaints about our "plenty" as First World problems.  I gotta say, I'm pretty sick of that phrase and the guilt with which Americans operate these days.  Giving to the poor and caring for orphans and widows are Biblical mandates, but I don't know where it says we should act from guilt over being born in the U.S..  We return from mission trips talking about how much suffering to which our people are ignorant.  But there's another side to it.  There is another side to bringing someone from that suffering and the ignorance of that world, into ours.  We have a lot...including information.  They have little...including information.

Everybody needs somebody.  Yes, she's 16.  Yes, she's lived without parents.  Yes, she's been more or less on her own.  Yes, she's been punched in the face and given the same.  But it created all manner of misconceptions about life and reality.  For all that, these kids are possibly twice as deluded as spoiled American children.  It was a sheltered existence in a tiny corner of a tiny village in a remote part of the world.  They had t.v. babysitters in their rooms at the orphanage but never watched the news.  (You know what the teenage girls watch?  Bollywood romance.  That's where a lot of myths on relationships & what constitutes loyalty came from).  When she defended herself it was from children throwing tantrums, not big, strong, creepy men with malice of forethought.  These are the things our misunderstandings are made of.  She knows so little of the world, but she doesn't want to need anybody.  She believes hiding her emotions is a sign of strength.

When you have a baby, you know you will have to teach them EVERYTHING.  Absolutely everything under the sun.  To teach a young child the truths of the world, you need time and patience.  When you adopt a teenager, know that you will have to undo and RE-TEACH them everything.  Everything under the sun.  To teach a 16 year old, you first have to convince them that they do not, in fact, already know it all. :)  That's a tall order.  So we choose our lessons and our battles.  There is a lifetime of information to impart in a very short time. Sometimes it feels like talking to a five year old about why she should drink water or wear a jacket.  Sometimes we are dealing with the emotional fall out from issues that shouldn't relevant until her twenties.

Each day is filled to the brim and overflowing.  Sometimes we make a mess of it or get burned. Some times it's sweet and fulfilling.  And every day, there is hope.