we're moving!

It's been a wonderful 8 years sharing with you at princecharmingandme.blogspot.com! God has indeed done "immeasurably more" in our home and our lives than we could have imagined. If you'd like to continue reading about our journey, you can find us at our new spot in cyberspace, Each Word a Gift.

joyful

Christmas isn't usually my favorite time of year. I took down the decorations first thing on December 26. I was glad to see them go! I enjoy surprises and gift-giving, but the confusing history of the holiday and mishmash of traditions tend to bother me. I've always been a bit grinchy.

But there was something special about this Christmas. It's great to be near family with no pressure to travel for the second year in a row, but beyond that, I think I understand more about JOY than ever before. In Luke 2:10 an angel says to shepherds, "I bring you good news that will bring GREAT JOY to all people." 

One evening, I went to church with Ezekiel, Eden and Isaiah. It was Mason's last weekend of Perspectives, and during that 15-week course he made sure I had the chance every weekend to attend church while he kept Kami. (Sitting with her in church is more of an intense training session than a time of worship!) These three sat quietly, coloring and listening - a Christmas miracle! - and I was actually able to relax and listen. Our pastor spoke about the GREAT JOY of Christ's coming. I couldn't write notes fast enough because I wanted to remember everything he was saying. The New Testament, he said, is the most JOYful book in existence. There are 326 words for JOY used in it. JOY flows from close union with the Holy Spirit. Listening to all of this solid teaching, my mind went back to the moment in time when the Lord told me we needed to give Kami the middle name "Joy." At the time, it seemed like a good fit; surely she'd be joyful to join our family, right?!?! Yay, we were bringing JOY to someone! WELL. It turned out that adoption wrecked her world, and the old Kami has had to die a slow and painful death every day for 2 years to give way to the new Kami, who is still a work in progress (aren't we all?). This girl, Kami JOY, sure complains, fusses and cries alot. God, what were you thinking in telling us to give her that name?! It has seemed ironic at best, if not a cruel joke. But...

JOY has to be cultivated. The God of JOY is present in our pain and sin. And as it turns out, that is where my greatest JOY is found! Even though the past 2 years have been the hardest of my life, and I'm currently getting treatment for health problems caused by out-of-this-world, way-beyond-stressed-kind-of-stress, I have more JOY now than ever before.

Our pastor went on to outline the source of JOY: God. And the focus of JOY: God's character and works. With all of the complaining that airs in our home (mostly from Kami JOY), I especially appreciated him touching on this subject! Complaining, he said, is always wrong and foolish, but even more so when:

1) We complain while we are greatly blessed.
2) We complain about trivial things.
3) The complaining is done by those to whom God has been especially gracious.
4)We complain about something that is part of God's plan to humble us. (Ouch...)
5) We complain while He goes on blessing us.

I'm reminded to turn my attention to the good news and stop complaining, even as I prayerfully and patiently cultivate JOY in our home.

All this talk of JOY reminded me of a discussion with a friend who visited from India in the fall. During his brief stay with us, we asked him all about life in India, wondering if his accounts would corroborate with the Gospel for Asia newsletters we receive. We've read about people turning to Christ in India through miraculous healings, and the stories are very exciting. We asked our friend if this is the main way that people are coming to Christ in India. He informed us that it's not miraculous healings that are making the biggest impact on India for Christ: it's the JOY of the believers. I don't know why we were surprised, because the same is true here.

I received another fun lesson in JOY (do you think God is trying to tell me something?) at a Mom-to-Mom meeting. Melanie Dale shared about her new book, It's Not Fair, and gave us moms a handy acronym to remember when we find ourselves in unexpected places (like the edge of a cliff):

C ount the wins
L earn to laugh
I dentify your grace-bearers
F ind professional help
F all apart with Jesus

I've been hitting all 5 of those points in one day lately! And boy, was it a fun, freeing time as she shared about how God has met her on every cliff. He's met me on every one of mine, too.

So as we enter 2017, my word for the year is JOY, and I am determined to laugh more than ever before. I'm already utilizing professional help, I'm getting better at counting the wins, I see grace-bearers all around me, and every time I fall apart with Jesus, He always puts me back together. 

Happy new year!

you don't have to like it, you just have to do it

I've been reading William J. Bennett's The Book of Man to gain more insight into raising our boys to be men. We tend to put a great deal of responsibility on our husbands to do this task, and rightly so; but the privilege also belongs to mothers.

Bennett included the Navy SEAL Creed in his compilation of writings on manhood. This selection stood out to me and has inspired me to apply such a standard of excellence to my own daily living, within a biblical framework (not based on my own abilities but on the power of Christ within me).

Here is the Navy SEAL Creed:

     In times of war or uncertainty there is a special breed of warrior ready to answer our Nation's call. A common man with uncommon desire to succeed. Forged by adversity, he stands alongside America's finest special operations forces to serve his country, the American people, and protect their way of life. I am that man.
     My Trident is a symbol of honor and heritage. Bestowed upon me by the heroes that have gone before, it embodies the trust of those I have sworn to protect. By wearing the Trident I accept the responsibility of my chosen profession and way of life. It is a privilege that I must earn every day.
     My loyalty to Country and Team is beyond reproach. I humbly serve as a guardian to my fellow Americans always ready to defend those who are unable to defend themselves. I do not advertise the nature of my work, nor seek recognition for my actions. I voluntarily accept the inherent hazards of my profession, placing the welfare and security of others above my own.
     I serve with honor on and off the battlefield. The ability to control my emotions and my actions, regardless of circumstances, sets me apart from other men. Uncompromising integrity is my standard. My character and honor are steadfast. My word is my bond.
     We expect to lead and be led. In the absence of orders I will take charge, lead my teammates and accomplish the mission. I lead by example in all situations. I will never quit. I persevere and thrive on adversity. My Nation expects me to be physically harder and mentally stronger than my enemies. If knocked down, I will get back up, every time. I will draw on every remaining ounce of strength to protect my teammates and to accomplish our mission. I am never out of the fight.
     We demand discipline. We expect innovation. The lives of my teammates and the success of our mission depend on me - my technical skill, tactical proficiency, and attention to detail. My training is never complete.
     We train for war and fight to win. I stand ready to bring the full spectrum of combat power to bear in order to achieve my mission and the goals established by my country. The execution of my duties will be swift and violent when required yet guided by the very principles that I serve to defend.
     Brave men have fought and died building the proud tradition and feared reputation that I am bound to uphold. In the worst of conditions, the legacy of my teammates steadies my resolve and silently guides my every deed. I will not fail.

Wow. Not only does this make me want to join forces with Mason to raise our sons to be men of integrity, it also inspires me to embrace the challenges of my own God-given role as a woman. Moms, would you agree it's fair to say that we require mental toughness?

Don't we sometimes operate near this level of exertion?

Or require this level of endurance?

Or find ourselves in situations like this one?

I think we have something to learn from these men. During their rigorous training they're often told, "You don't have to like it, you just have to do it."  While we were created to be helpers for our husbands, gentle and lovely in nature, strength is also required of us. (I'm sure that some of the intense physical sensations associated with motherhood, if replicable, would qualify for SEAL training in pain and stress management!)

SEALs train to control their body's natural stress responses so that they can remain poised even in the most stressful situation. Anyone who's walked our Bulgarian adoption journey with us knows that this is a training from which I could have seriously benefited!

Here's my adaptation of the Navy SEAL Creed - it more or less reflects the unique nature of a full-time mom's job, but don't take it too seriously. I don't actually intend to live by every word of this. It's interesting how little of the original wording I needed to change in order to make it applicable to moms...

   In times of war or uncertainty there is a special breed of warrior ready to answer her family's call. A common woman with uncommon desire to succeed. Forged by adversity, she stands alongside America's finest domestic operations forces to serve her husband, their little people, and protect their way of life. I am that woman.

   My Home is a symbol of honor and heritage. Bestowed upon me by the mothers that have gone before, it embodies the safety of those I have sworn to protect. By managing my Home I accept the responsibility of my chosen profession and way of life. It is a domain that I must arrange every day.

     My loyalty to Husband and Children is beyond reproach. I humbly serve as a guardian to my little people always ready to defend those who are unable to defend themselves. I do not advertise the nature of my work, nor seek recognition for my actions. I voluntarily accept the inherent hazards of my profession, placing the welfare and security of others above my own.
     I serve with honor on and off the battlefield. The ability to control my emotions and my actions, regardless of circumstances, sets me apart from other women. Uncompromising integrity is my standard. My character and honor are steadfast. My word is my bond.
     We expect to lead and be led. In the absence of orders I will take charge, lead my children and accomplish the training. I lead by example in all situations. I will never quit. I persevere and thrive on adversity. My Role expects me to be physically harder and mentally stronger than my children. If knocked down, I will get back up, every time. I will draw on every remaining ounce of strength to protect my family and to accomplish child training. I am never out of the fight.
     We demand discipline. We expect innovation. The lives of our children and the success of their training depend on me - my technical skill, tactical proficiency, and attention to detail. My training is never complete.
     We train for war and fight to win. I stand ready to bring the full spectrum of disciplinary power to bear in order to achieve their education and the goals established by God's Word. The execution of my duties will be swift and violent when required yet guided by the very principles that I serve to teach.
     Brave women have prayed and prevailed preserving the proud tradition and vital occupation that I am blessed to uphold. In the worst of conditions, the encouragement of my fellow moms steadies my resolve and silently guides my every deed. I will not fail.

Except...I would absolutely fail without the power of Christ in me. There is no way I could serve my husband and train my children with joy and any degree of success apart from Him. "For in Him we live and move and have our being" (Acts 17:28). 

It is my personal relationship with Jesus Christ that sustains me in my task of homeschooling our four children with varying gifts and needs, and loving my husband of almost 10 years. More important than any creed, Navy SEAL or otherwise, are the words of Jesus:

He is ALL that we need.

looking to survive

I can't remember a time when our life has been so delightfully and chaotically FULL. Each of our children could singlehandedly keep us busy, and together the four of them keep our days absolutely filled to capacity. After everyone recovered from Eden's recent medical emergency (a run-in with unexplained anaphylaxis at the beginning of September), our focus shifted to Kami's upcoming vision evaluation.

Most children coming from Kami's background experience some degree of abnormal eye alignment. This comes from spending years laying flat on the back with no meaningful visual stimulation. The first thing a loving mother does is hold her baby in her arms, about 8-12 inches from her face, and gaze into her little lovey's eyes. Kami never experienced this. Since she entered the institution at 6 days old, she was deprived of even the earliest right to eye contact, which is the necessary start of visual development.

Two years ago, her eyes were almost always crossed. I have videos of our orphanage visits that document this. She could scarcely focus on anything or anyone, spending most of the day staring off into space with crossed eyes. Her ability to make eye contact and focus has improved tremendously over the course of her two years in our family. We knew early on that we would eventually need to get her eyes checked out, though. Her first therapist, Jennie, who started working with her 6 months post adoption, noted that Kami's eye turn would need evaluation. Because there was were so many issues that needed to be addressed at that point, we took a triage approach, and vision was not at the top of the list since it didn't seem to be interfering with daily life. 

One of the first things to be taken care of was extensive dental work, which was done under sedation within a few months of adoption, as well as a physical checkup. At the physical, our pediatrician in Louisiana was shocked to learn of the conditions Kami experienced in Bulgaria. Taking into account the gross malnutrition and neglect she had suffered, he was expecting her blood to reflect this history. I remember when he came back into the exam room in October 2014 and told me that her blood was unbelievably healthy. He almost couldn't believe it. On one hand, I was surprised; but on the other hand, I wasn't. We had been praying for months ahead of Kami's adoption that He would preserve her health, and we also had felt much more prepared to deal with emotional problems than physical health problems in a child. Our family doesn't frequent healthcare facilities. We're quite unfamiliar with the processes and procedures of the medical industry, and we just didn't feel like we'd be a good fit for a child who was sure to need extensive medical care. (Not that we can choose these things when we give birth to biological children - but when we adopt, we fill out piles of paperwork detailing what conditions we think we can handle. It's just part of the process, as strange as it sounds.)

At two years post-adoption, it was finally time to pursue the vision evaluation. Her therapist, Kathy, very kindly urged us to get this done. So last week, Kami and I took a special trip together. We drove over to the area of town with the university where Mason and I graduated back in 2007-2008. Now that we live here in Florida again, it's always fun driving over to that part of town where we had our first little apartment as newlyweds! It seems like another lifetime, but it was only 9 years ago. Driving on those roads to the optometrist, I was struck by the fact that when we moved into our first apartment Kamelia was a newborn baby in Bulgaria. While she suffered on the other side of the world, we lived just around the corner from the location of the visual health office where she would be evaluated 9 years later.

This center came highly recommended, and I was excited about the trip. Actually, I was excited that Kami had finally reached a place where I could take her to an appointment and expect nominally good behavior the whole time. I still remember when we could hardly take her outside. The iPad always helps in these kinds of situations, since it's the only time she gets to play with it. All she wants to do on there is look at pictures, especially pictures of us in our Louisiana house.

She understood where we were going, and the office staff understood where she had come from. They were very interested in making the visit as pleasant as possible given her traumatic past. We waited  only a few minutes and then were ushered back to the exam room for a full hour of the doctor's undivided attention. Dr. Chi was a kind, young doctor with a gentle and patient demeanor. He works primarily with special needs kids, so he wasn't thrown off by any of Kami's reactions to him. None of the equipment in the photo was utilized, but she did sit in the chair while he used his flashlights, lenses and prisms to magically discern what was going on in those searching brown eyes of hers.

She only cried out one time, when we put a pair of sunglasses on her, and quickly calmed down with my calm admonition. I did bribe her with fruit snacks as a reward for staying calm. Dr. Chi wisely decided to skip the dilation procedure, as he didn't think it was necessary and knew the benefits would not outweigh the pain. As he carefully got in her face with his lights and lenses, she murmured over and over to herself, "He not hurt you, Kami; he not hurt you." The iPad came in handy since I was able to hold it up for her to view pictures and videos while Dr. Chi examined her eyes. I'd never been to an eye doctor in my life, so the fact that he could shine a light into her pupil and exclaim "I saw it! I saw the nerve!" was pretty amazing. He worked hard to catch glimpses of the internal workings of her eyes, and somehow he saw everything he needed to see.

Kami's eyes, though one of them turns 20-30% of the time, are perfectly healthy. There is no damage, which is a wonder, again, considering the malnutrition and lack of proper development. What she does have is low muscle tone, since her eyes weren't exercised properly as she grew. For her entire life, she's been using her sight only for survival - literally looking to survive. Not looking for meaning, not looking for enjoyment, but looking merely to survive. I can see this now that the doctor explained it to me. This is why I often have to send her back to her room during my final minutes of dinner preparation, because she is staring intently at every food item I put on the counter. She's visually making sure that the food is there, and practically devouring it with her eyes to make sure that she gets some of it. I've figured out that I just can't make dinner with someone staring at me!

Our goal is to encourage her to keep learning to use her eyes for things beyond survival. Dr. Chi said that continuing to encourage her to climb, jump, play, and interact with her world meaningfully is what we should be doing. We're seeing glimmers of this already when she does a puzzle now, for example. It used to be she'd angrily overturn the puzzle and wail because she had zero visual recognition skills. The idea of matching the wooden shape to the matching hole made no sense and had no impact on her survival, so why should she do it? But in recent weeks, she's mastered an entire stack of wooden puzzles in our living room. This simple stack that used to bring her misery now brings her a sense of accomplishment that she knows what to do and how to do it. Our goal is to teach more of these visual skills through practicing matching and recognition.

The appointment was wonderfully encouraging because it confirmed to us once again that Kami is physically very healthy. God, in His wisdom, has equipped us to raise her. This was also the first doctor visit I can think of where the medical professional brought up the name of God before I did. I probably mentioned Him at some point in the conversation (because He comes up pretty naturally anytime we share Kami's story!), but Dr. Chi noted in amazement that there comes a point in optometry studies where everyone has to acknowledge God's design. I had heard this before - that of all the parts of the body, the eye is so masterfully complex and beyond human understanding that it's brought many doctors to their knees in awe of His intricate and intelligent design.

If you're so led, as many of you have been, you can pray for Kami to understand that her eyes are meant to do so much more than merely look to survive.

Kami's new dinnertime verse:

The eyes of all look to you in hope; you give them their food as they need it.

Psalm 145:15

Look, I am about to do something new; even now it is coming. Do you not see it? Indeed, I will make a way in the wilderness, rivers in the desert.

Isaiah 43:19

come and see

We've lived in this lovely house for over one year now. When we first moved in and tried to settle our things inside, it felt strange, small (by comparison with our last house), and foreign. I've moved enough in my life, a large handful of times as an Air Force kid and another handful of times as an Air Force wife, to expect this by now. It takes me a good year to feel at home in my new environment. It takes that long for each room to soak up enough memories to become familiar. The hardest time for me can be 6-8 months after moving in, when I'm no longer brand new, but also not feeling established in the new surroundings yet. Especially with the huge life change we made in leaving the military, it was easy for me to miss our old home and wonder if we'd made the right decision. One day in March, about five months ago, I wrote in my prayer journal about a few things that were on my mind. Writing is one way I really enjoy talking with God and processing life. I ended the entry by asking God to do something crazy tomorrow to show His power in our family. What happened the next day was one of the craziest moments of my life.

This story won't be new to my Facebook family, because I shared it immediately out of an overwhelming desire to shout from the internet rooftop this reminder that God is powerfully in control of every detail of our lives. But I love my non-Facebook family so much that I need to share this with you, too! I actually have a great deal of respect for those of you who continue to live your lives apart from social media. And it's not right that you sometimes miss the great stories, so here you go.

The day after I made this request of God in prayer, we had a visitor. We're renting, and our landlord had from time to time sent out a kind, helpful emissary named George. He'd been by to feed the grass before, and on this March day he was here to cut down two small trees in the backyard and replace them with a palm tree. Though we'd never met our landlord, he had been absolutely wonderful to us from day one, going above and beyond in taking care of our family. He even paid to install a solid backyard fence for the kids shortly after we moved in - a huge and unexpected blessing.

On this day, we watched through the sliding glass door as George cut down the trees. He worked diligently, carrying the branches around the side of the house to the curb. He worked with an unassuming air, but the shiny black Cadillac in the driveway told us this wasn't his day job. He was obviously a friend of the landlord, doing him a favor by taking care of his house. At my urging, Mason popped his head out back with an offer to help, but George politely declined. His task was nearing completion and I just couldn't let him leave without thanking him properly for all of his hard work. I ran outside and met him in the front yard, his arms full of branches. From the few times we'd spoken before, I knew that he had a foreign accent, but it was decidedly not Hispanic. We live in a Hispanic area of town, so any other accent stands out sharply to us. I'd been wondering where he was from, so I decided to ask him after thanking him for his work. Our conversation went like this:

"Your accent is beautiful. Where are you from?"

"I'm from Bulgaria," came his reply with that thick, rolling accent.

"NO WAY! We have a daughter from Vidin!!"

George's eyes grew wide and his mouth dropped open. With a big smile, he shouted, "GET OUT! I'M FROM VIDIN!!!"

At this point I'm sure I practically shrieked at him. It was a chilling moment in the best sense. After I gleefully babbled at him for a moment about adopting a girl from Vidin, I ran inside to get Kami and Mason, and we enjoyed a conversation about Bulgaria in the driveway. He spoke a bit in Bulgarian to Kami, who stopped what she was doing, listened, and responded with one word: "Vidin." I'm sure she understood where he was from. It turns out that George is actually the cousin of the owner, who is also from Vidin. 

Vidin is a town of less than 50,000 people in the northwest corner of Bulgaria. Of all of the houses we could have chosen in Central Florida, we rented this home sight unseen through a property management company while we were still in Louisiana. 

It was no surprise that two days later we received an e-mail from the property management company stating that the owner wanted to renew our lease for another year at the same rate.

Only God could orchestrate something like this. And it came at the perfect time, because in March we were still struggling in the trenches with Kami. I still wondered if we were really going to make it out of the woods and if we were really the right family for her. This was her Creator and mine, the LORD of the universe, responding to my fearful, exhausted questions with a resounding "Yes! Yes, Christen, she is in the right family, and you are in the right house, and Mason is in the right job. And I AM."

Come and see what our God has done, what awesome miracles he performs for people! 

Psalm 66:5

"radical" revisited

Five and a half years ago, before Eden was born, I wrote briefly about the books Radical by David Platt and Crazy Love by Francis Chan. I had intended to post updates as we began to work out how to apply more biblical principles to our lives, but 5 days after writing that post I gave birth to Eden. My intentions were lost in the whirlwind of the next few years.

For Christmas 2010 I bought the book Radical for Mason, and I later wrote that it was "changing everything about the way he, and consequently we, want to live." I am finally about to finish the book myself, and reading it is in some ways like a review of our past five years. It's huge what God did to my husband's heart through that book. Platt quotes a lot of Jesus' words, so it's easy to check his sources. I was absorbed in adoption/orphan care literature during the time that Mason was reading Radical, but the two went hand in hand since orphan care would be the area in which God would first move our family to take radical action for him.

Platt's premise is that "we desperately need to explore how much of our understanding of the gospel is American and how much is biblical." He cautions against spiritual deception on the dangerous "religious road that makes grandiose promises at minimal cost." He systematically, boldly, lovingly, and accurately deconstructs the American dream using the words of Jesus. The gospel and the American dream, he says, "are clearly and ultimately antithetical to each other. While the goal of the American dream is to make much of us, the goal of the gospel is to make much of God." He expresses concern that we "have blindly embraced an American dream mentality that emphasizes our abilities and exalts our names in the ways we do church."

Platt highlights the global purpose of God, which is "to bless his people so that all peoples would glorify him for his salvation." The message of biblical Christianity is not just the sad, self-centered "God loves me." It is this: that "God loves me so that I might make him - his ways, his salvation, his glory, and his greatness - known among all nations."

God used this book to help us "trade in the American dream for a dream that extends far beyond the country and culture" in which we live. We're learning, as Platt says, that "success in the kingdom of God involves moving down, not up." Platt also discusses discipleship and challenges us to reproduce rather than merely receive God's Word.

Perhaps the most challenging chapter to American Christians is the one that discusses the glaring blind spot so many of us have: materialism. "We look back on slave-owning churchgoers of 150 years ago and ask, 'How could they have treated their fellow human beings that way?' I wonder if followers of Christ 150 years from now will look back at Christians in America today and ask, 'How could they live in such big houses? How could they drive such nice cars and wear such nice clothes? How could they live in such affluence while thousands of children were dying because they didn't have food and water? How could they go on with their lives as though the billions of poor didn't even exist?'" Mason and I now understand that we, like every Christian, need to "wrestle with what Jesus is calling us to do with our resources as we follow him."

After Mason read Radical and we examined Scripture with eyes open to our cultural blind spots, we concluded that we don't have time to waste our lives on an American dream. What it promises is nothing compared to what God promises to those who radically abandon every part of their lives to him.

Platt closes with this powerful truth:

"You and I have an average of about seventy or eighty years on this earth. During these years we are bombarded with the temporary. Make money. Get stuff. Be comfortable. Live well. Have fun. In the middle of it all, we get blinded to the eternal. But it's there. You and I stand on the porch of eternity. Both of us will soon stand before God to give an account for our stewardship of the time, the resources, the gifts, and ultimately the gospel he has entrusted to us.

When that day comes, I am convinced we will not wish we had given more of ourselves to living the American dream. We will not wish we had made more money, acquired more stuff, lived more comfortably, taken more vacations, watched more television, pursued greater retirement, or been more successful in the eyes of the world. Instead we will wish we had given more of ourselves to living for the day when every nation, tribe, people, and language will bow around the throne and sing the praises of the Savior who delights in radical obedience and the God who deserves eternal worship."

If you haven't seen Francis Chan's red rope demonstration, you can watch it below right now. It's 3 minutes of your life that might just change the rest of your life.

"the first part, we need it"

The Zapotec people speak 1 of 364 indigenous languages in Mexico. They have the second half of the story - the New Testament -  and are excitedly awaiting the first half. Listen to Rolando communicate how urgently the Zapotec need the Old Testament. His words are powerful... and the sense of urgency to receive God's complete Word extends beyond Mexico to the ends of the earth!