all things new

One morning recently I walked across the house to find Kami waking peacefully in her room, putting on her slippers, about to head to the bathroom. Many, many mornings over the span of the past 7 months since her homecoming have been anxious, loud and stressful, but on this particular morning I suddenly realized that peaceful was becoming the new norm. It was the week Ezekiel, Eden and I were studying butterflies in school. You may remember me mentioning that at several points, the children's "words to remember" from our curriculum turned out to be words I clung to myself even as I tried to teach them. This was one of those weeks! Our words to remember were "God can make me new."

They reminded me of this song, "All Things New" by Steven Curtis Chapman. It's a song that I would listen to early in the morning in my dark dorm room as a freshman at the University of Florida, wearing headphones so as not to wake up my sleeping roommate as I got ready for class. It moved me then, as I stepped out onto campus and watched the sun rise, but now it moves me in ways that would blow away 2004 Christen. The Christen of 2015 has a much deeper understanding of newness.

You took the hopeless
The life wasted, ruined and marred and made it new

You make all things new
You make all things new
You redeem and You transform
You renew and You restore

We had a cup of caterpillars sitting on the kitchen counter for about a week before they spun their cocoons. Ezekiel knew what was supposed to happen, but he would carefully and quietly study the caterpillars and ask, "Is God really going to turn those caterpillars into butterflies?" Those ones, the very same ones that are crawling around in their own excrement, doing nothing but eating and growing furrier by the day? Will they really transform into something totally different, wings and all, he seemed to be asking? I knew the answer but was still eager to watch the transformation. This 28-year-old was as amazed as the 5-year-old. 

We learned that once inside the cocoon, a caterpillar's tissues actually liquefy and are restructured to form the butterfly. The caterpillar parts not needed for the new creation are expelled as red drops from the butterfly's intestines. We watched and waited, cheering on the last of the five caterpillars as he finally made his way up the side of the small cup and hung in the J-shape where he could spin his cocoon (I don't remember if this was Guido or Luigi - one was named Guido and four were Luigi, so odds are it was a Luigi). When all 5 were finally hardened, we transferred the paper disk into the butterfly habitat and waited for the butterflies to be born. Upon returning from Ezekiel's Saturday morning soccer game, we discovered that the first one had emerged! We then witnessed our first ever expulsion of red liquefied caterpillar parts. Three more have followed and once the final one emerges, we'll release them on a (hopefully) warm day (hopefully) before they have a chance to make friends with each other and produce more caterpillars. How amazing that we serve a God who transforms us completely, who makes something new where there was once nothing that even remotely resembled it...

The round white disk with the cocoons is pinned on the left with one of the new butterflies resting beside it. Since Guido and the Luigis became new, their names did too: last I heard they were Zacchaeus, Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie, and a poor nameless one.

Yes, and it's happening elsewhere in our home, too (minus the liquefied parts)!

My longstanding prayer of many many months before Kamelia joined our family was that the LORD would restore her to the state she would have been in had she been born into our family. I still pray this every day. I think I took a brief hiatus from this prayer during the very dark first months together. It was all we could do to pray for survival, but the new year has brought hope, and we are beginning to see just how many chains have already been broken in her young life. 

We are about one month into Kami's occupational therapy, and it has been a blessing and a help. Her skilled therapist has become a trusted adviser to me, and we're exceedingly grateful for her support. Jennie has become the first adult besides Mason and me to both see Kami on a consistent basis (twice a week) and deeply care for her well-being and progress. While therapy is helping, as is the growing distance from orphanage life, it is God's Word that is changing Kamelia. It is living and active, and more powerful and adequate than any other source for raising an adopted child, a biological child, any child. It was a significant turning point for me as a mom to stop depending on a source besides Him for raising this new child. Between the adoption books that say "forget every traditional method you used with your bio kids, they won't work" to the helpful social workers whose advice and opinions often contradicted one another, I became aware of the fact that God placed Kami in our care because He was planning on giving us and us alone the wisdom required to train her and facilitate her healing. This is not to say we spurn all advice and help; on the contrary, there is wisdom in a solid team of advisers, and we use them! But they are just that, advisers. One strange and challenging part of adoption for me has been learning that my responsibility in raising her is to the Father alone - not to her birth country, not to an agency, and not to any adoption experts, though we must submit periodic progress reports to Bulgaria in order to keep the international adoption process smooth and unencumbered for other families. This message from Maggie (our facilitator in Bulgaria, you may remember her from past posts) regarding our 6-month report brought us such joy and encouragement: 

Dear Christen,

It is always so exciting for me to hear from you! I am soooo happy to know how well Kami is doing.

You know, I have my own theory that since many of the developed countries have not had orphanages for quite some time, and definitely nothing close to an orphanage in Eastern Europe, the people there have kind of "forgotten" what that does to children. I know from my personal experience how frustrating it could be to try to convey the potential that you see in a child to others. After all, you and Kami might just prove some people wrong along the way. I see that happen a lot.

Kami has gone a long way and you walked that hard road with her. Thinking about what the 7 years in the orphanage have been like for her, I just could not be more amazed that now, several months later, she SPEAKS, and that is in ENGLISH, and that is in SENTENCES. 

Frankly speaking, her eyes tell me more that any report could because I can feel she is no longer the child I met while you were in Bulgaria, she is no longer the Kami that I knew in person. She has started turning into Kamelia Joy Martin, and that is going to be a completely different child. (emphasis mine)

It is a proven fact that a mother's heart knows best. You know the truth about her in your heart. 

Sending you lots of hugs,

Maggie

"Look, I am making everything new!" - Jesus (Revelation 21:5)

Raising these four children can feel overwhelming to us at times. It's usually not the homeschooling part that overwhelms me, because I truly enjoy being with them all day, teaching them, playing with them and watching them learn. It can get loud and hectic when a few require discipline at the same time, or when we have to get somewhere on time, but tonight reminded me that of all the times of the day, shower/bath/bedtime is the one that should really not be performed by one parent alone (it was wild). When Mason and I are both home, we can divide and conquer fairly easily. Being responsible for two children at this point seems like a breeze. This is completely relative because I remember what it felt like to add Eden to our family and go from one to two babies; we didn't know how we would find time to eat dinner again. Many of our friends are just starting out their families, transitioning to one or two small children, and they feel like it's insane. I sometimes feel like our situation is insane with four of them developmentally under the age of 6 (Ezekiel will be 6 in May), but then I think of moms who have 5, 6, 7 or 8 young children and realize that they would look back on "just" 4 as feeling like a piece of cake. (I wish I had more of these women in my life! I have virtual relationships with a few adoptive moms of this caliber and am encouraged by their mere existence!) The point is, we rely on God to get through these highly demanding years.

Sweet, bubbly Eden is beginning to read and too-complex-to-condense-into-two-words Ezekiel is well on his way. We're a few weeks from completing their kindergarten curriculum and will then fill our remaining time in Louisiana with studying topics of interest to their precious little minds. We have about four months left here! There are so many people that we'll miss, yet we feel ready and eager for the new adventures and ministries that await.

As for Isaiah, he is just a riot. As we easily predicted when he was in the PICU teetering dangerously close to intubation as a newborn, he is the child who can do practically no wrong. (To be clear, he is just as much a sinner as the rest of us, but he is also 100% the baby of the family. You babies out there may know what I'm talking about.) Like me, Ezekiel and Eden still think he is a baby. One way you can tell Isaiah is the baby of the family is that I have busted out cloth diapers again! Cleaning his diapers is truly fun. There is something about believing that this is my last baby that makes me enjoy these things that once felt burdensome. When Ezekiel was wearing cloth and I was pregnant with Eden, I couldn't handle diaper duty without getting sick. (Maybe it's partly that I wasn't using Fuzzibunz back then!) The baby of the family gets a good deal because mom is focused on him instead of growing the next tiny human. I have never had so much fun hanging out with a child sitting on the potty. He looks so fat and cute sitting there with his big, easygoing grin, and the great thing is I don't care if he potty trains now or 6 or 12 months from now. He still sleeps in a crib two feet away from me, so when his cheerful little face wakes me up in the morning I just pull him into bed with us and he becomes my human teddy bear. I am treasuring these last few months of him sleeping in our room because when we make the move to Florida, he will start rooming with a sibling and have a big boy bed. It's such fun every day to hear him expressing more thoughts as he learns to talk. He is an absolute joy to our family and keeps us all laughing.

We continue to anticipate God's direction with Mason's next career and are about to start preparing to rent out this beautiful house that He clearly led us to 2 years ago. I'm excited for the next family who gets to live here, and also glad that we won't be leaving it completely behind by selling it just yet - we have made many memories in these walls.

Around here, we are grateful for the illustration of new life that sits on our kitchen counter. I'll feel a little sad when we release the butterflies, just because they offered so much educational entertainment to the children, but will be glad to have the smell of rotting foliage out of my kitchen (I've never been one for keeping insects inside the home anyway! It's a wonder I caved and ordered the caterpillars!). 

There is so much life in this home! Jesus said He came that we may have life, and have it to the full. I pray that you, reader, will experience the abundant life that comes only through Him!