Chapter 10: This little light of mine

A few weeks ago I told you how our pastor and his family is doing their own starfish thing.  Our church has grown quite a bit over the past few years and I don't always get to speak to everyone I know each week, and I hadn't yet had a chance to talk to her about Charlie.  One Sunday in late September, his wife came excitedly up to me after service.

"What is going on in your church?!" her caseworker had asked her the previous week.  "You guys are taking care of your little guy, the Weasleys are taking care of George, and the Wigginseseses are taking care of Charlie!"

Isn't that the coolest thing?  We are just doing what we were called to do, taking care of the "orphans" among us, but it is making God's glory known to the world.  Not the whole wide world, of course - at least not yet - but our little corner of the world.  People are seeing the connection - that people in our (very imperfect, mind you) church body love the Lord and want to put that love into action.  That's what it's all about, this light shining among men thing.

It blows me away.

Almost daily I'm blown away.

On a current-events note, it's been a wild few days here.  Our dear friends the Weasleys officially adopted George on Friday.  Ro and I got to go to the court with them and a number of other friends.  It was so moving and beautiful, and I am jealous - for when we can officially and legally make Charlie a Wiggins.

Today we met with Charlie's caseworker, his attorney (GAL), his Court-Appointed Special Advocate, his therapist, Mrs. Weasley, and two representatives from Specialized Alternatives for Family and Youth, over the course of two meetings.  That's a lot of people, and a number who were invited did not attend.  It was good, though - I feel we were all able to get on the same page with things.  And I cleaned my house 2 days *before* Thanksgiving.

Charlie has been with us for 2 1/2 weeks now.  Overall it has gone very smoothly.  We have had a handful of bumps and challenges, but overall - doing well.  We have begun re-introducing him to his brother George at church with brief meetings the past two weeks.  We are going very slow in this department as their last meeting many months ago yielded unfavorable behaviors on both boys' parts following their time together.

I think that is our greatest need - that the boys will be able to have a relationship that doesn't result in undesirable behaviors but is healthy and satisfying for them.  We also appreciate your prayers as we learn to find balance and priority as we've added not only a little boy to our home, but his team of half a dozen people who also want to see him regularly.

This afternoon I sit here, thinking about Thanksgiving, and feel overwhelmed by God's blessings.  To have all my children with me - four now... to have my Dad and Denise come (I haven't had a holiday with them in years)... to celebrate Charlie's upcoming birthday... to have been blessed with incredible support throughout this process... to have a heavenly Father who awes me by being intimately involved in our lives...  yep, blown away.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Chapter 9: Puzzle pieces

Meeting Charlie was the turning point in the shift of activity in our certification.  Things had moved slowly at first - taking awhile to get into the orientation class, to hear from his caseworker, to meet his foster family - but once we met him, things shifted into high gear.

The next day we met our caseworker (who is different from Charlie's).  We really like her and we began weekly visits with her to begin our home study, part of the certification process which normally begins after our training.  That evening we began our training, 20 hours of classroom training to help us understand the special needs of children who have a trauma history.  Over the next few weeks, we could continue to meet with our caseworker for the home study, fill out paper after paper, continue our trauma training in the classroom and then later online, attend a first-aid course, be fingerprinted, and get physicals (all five of us).  I'm sure there's something I left out.  It's a blur today writing about it as it was as we were in the process.  I am SO thankful for the flexibility Robert's job has allowed him in being able to do all that was asked of him.  I don't know how people with "regular" jobs get through this process.

But now I want to tell you a story, a story about being given a glimpse of the pieces of Charlie's story coming together.

I have been working this puzzle for THREE MONTHS.  Three months, people!  It is coming together, slowly but surely, but it is taking its sweet time in that we have had other priorities (like Charlie!) and frankly, all the dark brown in the undone spaces has been tough on my old eyes!  Every so often I get to sit down and work on a chunk, and it brings so much satisfaction to see the pieces come together and the image take shape.  When you start, it's just a pile of a thousand little pieces, disregulated and frenetic, and one by one they come together to make me smile.

On the second day of our training class, we had a different facilitator, a veteran foster mom with tons of experience, a plethora of contacts, and about a kazillion stories.  She shared her heart with us as well as her stories - her frustrations as well as her successes.  We enjoyed her quite a bit.

Now at the start of each class all the students have had to introduce themselves, explain a bit about their families and their reasons for being there, stuff like that.  Our class consisted of three other couples and one single woman.  The couple beside us has a young family - two children under school age at home.

During a break, the facilitator mentioned that she knew our Charlie's foster family.  I was surprised and delighted, actually, and I asked if she had ever met him.  She said no, so I took the "adopt me" flyer out of my notebook and showed her his picture.  At that point, the woman sitting next to me turned around and said, "Wait!  We have that on our fridge!  We have been praying every night with our children for Charlie to find a home!"

I was astounded.  Weeks later, I am still astounded.  But I asked, "Were you interested in adopting him?" 

"No," she said.  "He isn't the right fit for our family."

And being the smart aleck that I am, I said, "Good, because I'd fight you for him."  Everyone laughed, and I left the room to head toward the break room, and the moment I was alone, tears poured down my face.

Do you see what just happened?

God is at work in Charlie's life.  He is working in ways that I am not even aware of.  There are people I didn't even know 24 hours before praying for him... praying for US, his new family!  This is bigger than me.  This is God-big.  And our big God was gracious enough to allow me to see another piece of the puzzle come together in Charlie's story.

I may not see the entire picture of his story complete this side of heaven.  In fact, I'm almost sure I won't.  But allowing me to see this piece of it amazed me.  It comforted me.  It encouraged me.  This mighty God, this universe-creating King... He cares for Charlie.  This is part of His plan for him. 

Not to mention... this sweet young couple would be able to go home to their sweet young girls and tell them how God has heard and answered their prayers - big, big prayers!

I am so in awe of Him.  I am so grateful. 

Chapter 8: Meeting Charlie

September 22, 2016:  Meet Yer Starfish In Person Day

The Dursleys invited us for dinner.  The plan was to be introduced as new friends of the Dursleys and stay for about an hour.  We stayed much longer.  The Dursleys ordered pizza and we brought salad.  (No, we never have salad with our pizza at home.  It was an attempt on my part to look as if we are balanced people.)

I remember feeling pretty normal as we got there - not too nervous, maybe a little excited.  But when we were welcomed into the entry way and I peered beyond Mrs. Dursley and saw this little child on the couch behind her, my heart stopped and I had to breathe deep to not get emotional.  That was the first glimpse I had of my new son.

First impression:  he looked very small, almost fragile.  He is extremely polite, with a childlike voice, a more immature voice than I had been expecting.  Though we knew he was in speech therapy and had in fact come into foster care nearly unintelligible, we could understand him well.  He wasn't shy or intimidated by these strangers at all.

We sat in the living room and talked, mostly about rules.  Charlie went and got a floor puzzle and Robert got on the floor to work on it with him.  When the pizza arrived, we all went into the kitchen to get things ready - Robert and Charlie remained in the living room.  Charlie looked at Robert and asked, "Are you gonna have me?"

{The joke was on us -

no one wanted to get his little hopes up in case things didn't work out.

Letting this little boy down again would be hurtful.

But he knew ... he knew more than we thought he knew.}

Robert was caught off-guard, but said, "Right now we are just friends of the Dursleys... but do you want us to have you?"

"Yes."

I want to think this was a God-ordained moment of confirmation - and really, maybe it was.  But it also begs the question:  How desperate is this child for a set of parents to want a pair he'd met only 15 minutes earlier?

Dinner was a joy.  Charlie asked me to sit by him, and as we ate we played an ice-breaker type of game planned by Mrs. Dursley (kudos - great idea).  Charlie read most of the prompts - tentatively, but he knew most of the words. We learned that he loves vegetables, had never had a peach before coming to live there, and wants to be a firefighter.  I was asked to describe myself and I said, "I love Jesus."  He went after me and said, "I love Jesus, too."

I love Jesus, yes I do.  I was only there that day because of Him.  I only sit here at this desk today - a mom now of four - because of Him.  And I am genuinely, sincerely thankful.  And humbled.  And awed.

Chapter 7: Let's try a little hashtag

Somehow in September I managed to get a killer deal on airfare - $84 round trip to LA - and decided to spend my sister's birthday weekend with her in Vegas, watching her play softball in the world championship series (THEY WON - WOOHOO!).  It was such a fun trip, and right now I am especially glad I was able to do it because it doesn't look like I'll be able to make my usual trip in December where she and I and our mom road trip back to Colorado.  THAT I will truly miss.  We've done that the past few years and I love-love-love it.

While I was away from home, however, God still kept His calling close to my heart.  (In fact, this morning, I woke up amazed at how quickly this all has unfolded.  I kept expecting a block in the road or a door to close, but here we are...)

I crocheted on the plane on the flight to California while my seatmate watched a movie on her phone.  I had taught a girl in our life group how to crochet a few weeks earlier and, having no current project going, decided to make an afghan for Charlie.  It was a sweet time for me - I prayed as I crocheted, primarily for Charlie and everyone I could think of who is involved in his life.

I looked over at my seatmate's phone and realized she was watching The Blind Side.  I saw the scene come up where they are doing a photo shoot for their Christmas card, and I couldn't help but smile, because, you know, The Blind Side is about this ordinary, regular family who takes in this kid who was neglected and had a drug-addicted mother and raised him as if he was there own.  Nothing to relate to there.  ;)

I'm not a hashtagger, and I'm sure I'm doing this all wrong, but I started calling these little jewels #dailyconfirmation.

I had been discouraged that week by the timeline we were given: certification and placement would be 60+ days after we completed our training (which finished 10/2).  One of the things I began to ask God was that Charlie could be placed in our home by Thanksgiving, which happened to be his birthday, and honestly I knew it was a long shot.  When I got to California, I heard from Robert that he had received a message from the county, offering to come to our home to do individualized training to speed up the process.  Mind blown.  #dailyconfirmation

And, if you've read another recent post, you already know that God has ANSWERED THIS PRAYER with 20 days to spare.  Twenty days, people - nearly three weeks!  We are *not* certified, but nearly (they expect it to be done in the next two weeks), and they are allowing Charlie to move in with us early.  November 4th was Bring Yer Starfish Home Day!

Would you believe over that same weekend, God showed me a verse that I have read many times that I've never really "caught" before to give me another #dailyconfirmation? Oh, how I love the way He encourages me!  Check this out:

God sets the lonely in families.

Psalm 68:6a NIV

Holy smokes.  God, You amaze me!

Might've been prophetic... ;)

We had to do a major overhaul of the basement in preparation for Charlie.  In doing so, we found this, from around 1990.

In the final stages of labor...

Our Charlie is due to arrive in about an hour.  He is moving in today!

I'm sorry I haven't blogged in a little bit.  We've had a lot on our plates, but I'll catch you all up soon!