We are coming up on three years on the mission field. In the plus column, my language skills are improving, and I know the city of Reynosa well enough that when I get hopelessly lost, I can usually find my way back to civilization (AKA the border) without panicking. On the downside, my ability to handle the fact that NOTHING happens on time and NO ONE returns their grocery cart to the cart return thingamabobbers waffles between thin patience and homicidal tendencies. When I head back to the Midwest and see the store shelves so neatly lined up, I want to weep in ecstasy.
While life is progressing on the mission field, we have had six months with our oldest squirrel that I can only deem as "the chickens have come home to roost". That being, when one adopts, there are just some common issues that can arise with an adopted child that relate to attachment, abandonment, rejection, low self esteem, anxiety, food hoarding, and hyperactivity. These things affect children differently - some weep buckets over a birth mother they may never know...some try to run away or sabotage a good placement because they have felt rejection so many times before...some constantly sneak food into their rooms or get panicked and flip out if they think they will not get to eat when they want or in the immediate future. Since we really have seen very little "typical" adopted child behavior, we figured we must be doing things right! Or maybe, since big and little Squirrels have been together since birth, we would avoid some of the problems.
But no...junior high...a landmine for even a well-adjusted, sheltered, "normal" child has practically been the undoing of our home. Hammie was the target of a mal-adjusted, suicidal, self-mutilating, openly bisexual tween who I should be praying for and instead want to ship off to Zimbabwe. Unbeknownst to us, this girl had been texting Hammie all summer and suggesting/pleading/cajoling Hammie to make really poor choices. Without going into great detail, let's just say that a school suspension, principal office visits, strange journal entries, and many other signs led us to believe that our once happy, social, funny girl was being sucked into the darkness. So what could we do?
We pulled her out of traditional school and enrolled her in a virtual academy. Now, she is taking classes online, connecting via virtual classroom with other students, and able to go off her ADHD meds (and eat all the live long day). We don't mind if she needs to run laps in between working on her homework. I don't mind if she wants to listen to her music while she reads (why this works for an ADHD girl but would drive me batty, I will never know). We don't view this as a permanent solution as I hate to have Hammie miss out on the good things (e.g. sports, theater, chorus) that come with public school...but it has brought an immense measure of relief to our household. Word has it, The Problem Girl will be moving at the end of this school year. So we will see...
I am not the rah-rah, Homeschool with a capital "H" mama. I work more than full-time between my small business and the mission. I do not enjoy teaching and am terrible at explaining math. But I am also a Mama Hen who will do everything I can to protect my child from The Darkness. In the midst of all this drama, I would go up to Hammie's room at night...long after she was asleep, and just kneel by her bed, lay my hands on her, and hold God's promises up to Him. The promise that He who began a good work in her would be faithful to complete. The promise that if we trained her up in the way she should go, she would not depart from it when she was older. The promise that nobody can pluck her from His hand. That He has placed His mark on her. Some days, these promises are the only thing that spur me to put one foot in front of the other. Parents of tween girls...you get this, right?
