Responsible Father

. . . And a poem.

I assume many of you have heard about the foolish act by the family in Tennessee that sent the seven year old boy, who they had adopted from Russia 3 years earlier, back to Russia, with a note saying that they couldn’t take care of him any longer.

And perhaps you have heard that Russia is considering stopping all adoptions to the US as a result.

This is an extremely sad situation. And right now I am thinking about the families who for months have been in the process of adopting a child, perhaps having even visited the child once in the orphanage, who now cannot adopt. And I am thinking about the thousands of children in Russian orphanages waiting for homes who now (at least for some time) will not.

The Joint Council On International Children’s Services has asked that adoptive parents who blog do something and so I am. I’m writing a post about our eight year old daughter Anna. Here goes.

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Our oldest daughter Anna joined our family when she was three and a half. Our kids were so happy to fold her into our home. She took all of the changes (new home, new family, new bed, new continent) in stride and we learned quickly that she loved animals.

Animals, especially dogs, are her favorite subject.

She also likes running and climbing and finding things. She was, by far, the best garbage gatherer in our family’s park clean up outing last weekend. And when we geocache, we sometimes have to say, “Okay, Anna you can’t find this one” because she’s found the last three.

When I think of Anna still in the ‘baby home’ in Borovichi (between Moscow and St. Petersburg) as an eight year old, it makes me very glad for the opportunity we had to adopt her. As I’ve heard stories from others, I’m guessing that the orphanage she lived her first three years was not nearly as bad as some, but children need families. Children need families. Children need families.

Anna (right) With Sister Adelyn

Anna is beautiful. Anna is a child of God. We love her. We will always love her.

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I’ll close with a poem about Anna in Moscow the day before we left her country. It’s a description first of the spot outside our Hotel and then her (in the last paragraph).

Outside The Moscow Radisson Hotel

You are standing inside a 200 meter circle
The edge of the circle is a 5 meter high platform for sitting
The center is a
complex and everchanging
fountain
This circle is a monument to the Union of European Nations
You feel
As an American
A little left out.

You are facing away from the center of the circle
But inside its perimeter
Looking towards the impressive, new Hotel
Which a nervous couple entered and was glad that its employees spoke English

Turn a little to the left
(We’ll go clockwise)
And you see the grand entrance to a significant train station
Which is very large and clean inside.
You are standing near the entry point for many visitors from other European countries.
Daily.

A little more to the left and you see steps
Going down
To a significant subway station
The subway here is called the metro
This station is the junction of three different underground trains

A little more to the left
(now you have turned 90 degrees)
And you see a tall wall which hides construction from the road beyond.
Cross this road and you will see a familiar looking building which has a familiar looking sign
If you look carefully the sign says in Cyrillic – “Macdonalds”
This was the first place the nervous couple went, because
Unlike other well seasoned travelers
They wanted something familiar

Another turn to the left and you see the disorganized random parking lot for the train-station
Actually you have been looking beyond this for awhile
But we will disregard it
And keep turning.

Another turn to the left
(now you have turned 180 degrees)
and you see a park.
It is filled with trees and benches and the remains of a bonfire
This would be a pleasant area to walk through if it weren’t so filled with litter
And party leftovers

For the remaining 180 degrees you see river
The primary river for this capital city
The river for which this city was named
The couple toured this river with their college choir
before they were a couple
they were both less and more nervous then.
And when you have made your way almost full circle
You see a bridge, with impressive architecture, interesting to walk across
Where you might note a police officer tossing his cigarette bud into the river
Where you can see
From opposite sides
A University and a hotel which look very similar
And a restaurant that looks like a Viking ship
What?
This bridge might be a good way to visit the city center
Rich with history and religion and shopping
You might find very cute dresses for two new sisters

But don’t think
Now that you have come full circle
That you have seen it all.
No. Try looking down.
You see that a three year old girl is holding your hand.
She has blonde hair
They kept it short at the baby home.
She is your daughter, but you don’t know her.
And since she speaks a different language, you may wonder what she is thinking
Clearly she is interested in the dancing waters of the fountain.
Indeed she wanted to climb into it.
And she has looked in wonder at much she has seen in the last twenty-four hours
And she seems to be cheerful, but
Does she have any real idea what is happening?
And to the degree that she does, does she have truly joyful feelings about it?
My suggestion is that you pray
To the God who made both her and you
Pray for peace for her and wisdom for yourself

Over at my other blog, for the first year or so, I used to post entries every Saturday into the ‘Saturday Poem’ category there. Thirteen of them are of the same type, a poem about truths learned while out with my family at beautiful (with one exception) locations. I thought it would be handy (at least to me) to have these specific poems listed in one place. Here you go.

All locations are Minnesota, unless noted. And all of them are a specific spot in the named location.  I recommend Mystery European City (read to the bottom), Daniel’s Broken Arm and any poem with a location that you’ve been to.

Minnesota State Fair
Split Rock State Park
Grand Marais
The Arch, St.Louis, Missouri
Red Wing
Atlanta, Georgia (Daniel’s Broken Arm)
Cascade Lodge, Lutsen
Mystery European City
Devil’s Tower, WY
Wild River State Park
Frontenac State Park
Door County, Wisconsin
Wild River State Park 2

The guys over at the Fighter Verse Blog let me write something about kids and this week’s Fighter verse, which, at first glance, seems rather harsh.

Hop over and take a look

A truth I’ve learned while jogging with my Mom’s dog, Mocha, who we recently dog-sitted:

A repeated and constant tug forward motivates me to move forward, and makes me run faster.

Here’s a good resource for families with young kids. Some comments:

1. The title has a double meaning. It is, in fact, big. Colorful art with images that draw you in and create interest. But it is also “Big Picture” in that it tries to portray the overarching themes from the bible with broad strokes. We have lots of Children’s Bibles. This one is unique.

2. How about this (from page 45) for good theology: “God cursed the snake. God punished Eve. God punished Adam, too. Do you know why God had to punish them? God punished them because they disobey God’s word, which was meant to rule over his place and his people. Did you know that some good news came on this sad day too?  God gave Adam and Eve a hint that he would not always be angry with them. God promised that one day someone would come and crush Satan’s power over people.”

This becomes the theme and is highlighted in the later stories.

3. Yes, Genesis 2 is on page 45. The book is 452 pages long. That’s a lot of pages.

4. Be warned – lots of stories that you are used to in a kid’s Bible are not here. This is to be expected, give the book’s big picture aspect. But there are some surprising and helpful inclusions (such as the rebuilding of the temple) and make sure you look at the details of the pictures for stories not overtly mentioned in the narrative.

5. When I say that it’s for families for young kids, I should be clear: All of my story-listening children (ages 6-11) enjoyed it. I read it out loud to my kids and it was common for them to say “Keep reading” at the end of a section.

6. As portrayed, the death and resurrection of Jesus is sweet and powerful. The gospel is explained.

This book is highly recommended by JamFam.

This post is a review for Crossway Books.

Last year, at the end of January, I posted some of the contents of our Christmas letter, with an explanation.

This year, I’m even later. Can you figure out how I determined the order?

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JAMFAM BY THE NUMBERS – 2009

Ages of our kids as of Dec 16: 6,7,8,9,10,11 (years) and 12 (months)
Degrees outside (and inside) when we drove home from the North Shore with the van heater not working: -4
Fighter Verse sets recorded in song: 2 ½ (half of them)
Years Debbie has led K/1 choir and Scott has led K/1 Wednesday night class at Bethlehem: 4
Months with no TV reception (so far): 6 * Dozens of cookies made this month with grandparents: 13
Recording sessions to record 15 songs (including 2 sessions in Arkansas): 15
Miles biked to the Mississippi River with the three older boys in September: 15
Years of joyful marriage for Scott & Debbie (celebrated on the North Shore, just the two of us): 15
Number of MN State Park official geocaches found: 20
Years in a row that Scott has been to the Bethel Festival of Christmas: 25
Pages of stories from this year’s kids’ journal that we had to trim down to a half page: 28
Percentage of our kids who took swimming lessons this year (funding/transportation by Grandma): 85.71
Earliest picnic: March 15 * Picnic count (beat last year’s record of 81): 92
Pages now in our kids’ journal (all years): 300+
Weight of all of our children (on the big scale at the pumpkin farm): 416
Lord of the Rings pages read (as a family)(now at Helm’s Deep): 529

James 1:17 – Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights
with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.
Percentage of good things we enjoy that are from God: 100 (JamFam give thanks.)

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Later this week: What was on the flip side

At times discipline, wisely administered by loving parents, will sting.

This does not make you a mean Dad or Mom.

Yesterday, in one sitting, 22 pound son Foster dranks a cup of milk (8 oz – along with regular solid food). This is not uncommon for him nor is it uncommon for a typical 14 month old, which he is.

If I were to drink a comparable amount of milk, I would have to drink a half gallon plus a pint.

I figured this out comparing my weight to his. Here’s your homework:

1. How much do I weigh?

2. What interesting my-weight-to-Foster’s-weight factor currently exists?

I’m doing something that I haven’t ever done before – reposting something I have previously put up.

I’m doing it for a few reasons:

Firstly, it was a fairly well received post, secondly it makes more sense to have it here at the father blog than my other blog.

But the main reason I’m doing it now is – Earlier this week I commented (with a link to the previous post) over at Stuff Christians Like and lots of people have come from that post. Several of them have written out their divorce and almost divorce stories. They are quite interesting. I recommend you go over and look at it.

Here is the post. But please know that it is not my intention to judge people who have divorces in their history.

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I’ve got a few years before I put this in play, but I am thinking about something I’m going to start telling my kids in their teen-age years (i.e. before they start Dating/Courting).

It would go something like this:

Asking someone to marry you, or saying ‘Yes’ to a proposal is a pretty big step, and a pretty strong commitment, but during your engagement period, even if it’s the day before your wedding, we will support you if you really want to break off marriage plans.

We might encourage you to rethink your decision, and suggest that maybe you are just getting cold feet, but if in the end you don’t want to get married to this person, for whatever reason, we will support this decision.

But (and here is the main point), once you get married, if things go bad, we will not support your decision to divorce your spouse, except for extremely extreme reasons*. We will encourage you in a hard marriage, we will protect you in a dangerous marriage, we might encourage temporary separation, we will pray for your marriage and we will hold you and cry with you. But we will not say that it is okay for you to end the marriage.

So it will not be grounds for divorce (from the perspective of our family) if you feel like your spouse doesn’t love you anymore, or isn’t really a Christian, or is abusive, or is a workaholic, or really bad with finances or lazy or mean or whatever.

(Again, I would tell them this before they find The One, so they don’t think it’s about that person.)

What do you think? Too harsh?

I feel like I want to get them to agree in writing that we are reasonable in saying this. But that may be a little over the top.

*The big question is, what would be the extremely extreme reasons. Severe Physical abuse? Only unfaithfulness? Pastor John wouldn’t even agree to that as a reason for divorce.

Seriously? Enough Quotables From One Sermon? Yep. It was an extremely impressive sermon. I could have made this a two weeker, but decided against it. If you don’t have time for the whole thing, let me recommend skipping down to the last one – It’s my favorite – good content, good family story and funny. And I’ll note again in passing that none of these are in the written transcript.

 Everything I Ever Needed To Know About Children, Racial Harmony And The Gospel I Learned From Pastor John’s Sermon Last Week

 The US Census Bureau says that by 2042 whites will be a minority and non whites will be a minority and since I’m pretty sure that’s the way its going to be in Heaven, I’m okay with that. Just statistically, what’s happened in history and where it’s going today, we just better be okay with that. *** Children, if you can understand what I’m saying, listen up. Here’s my goal is for your parents. Your parents love you really well, they really love you. You know that. Parents love their kids a lot. But parents are always growing in how to do it well. *** So dads: a special focus in this text, indeed in the Bible. Dads have a special responsibility, a special authority, a special role – Mom’s have their own special <role>, but this is special. And dads have a special responsibility for not angering, but rather bringing up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord and the Lord has a lot to say about racial harmony. *** You can teach your kids about race at one year old.  *** Help the children . .. when I say “Help”, “Help”, “Help”, I mean, Model and teach. If you teach but don’t model, you’re a hypocrite. And kids will pick it up really quick. And they’ll be gone, real soon. If you model and think teaching’s not important, you just sacrifice one of the precious means of grace, and that’s not going to go well either. . . . Be what you say . . . I’m assuming that parents have impact when those two come together with authenticity  ***  Most little children are wonderfully free from fretting about their bodies. *** This starts at age . . . 9 months? You don’t start this at age 11 when the crisis happens. Month and after month after month. He made you. He made you. He made you! He’s wise! He’s good. It is not a self esteem issue, it’s a God issue. *** A one year old can get this. Questions! Where’d I come from? God made you. Whoah, how? Challenges! Join the club. *** If you teach a kid he is the end product of animality, he’ll act like an animal. *** It doesn’t save a kid to teach him the golden rule, but you teach him the golden rule! Law-giving usually precedes gospel-hearing. ***  Oh, the gift of parents, who can get this into a little pagan at four years old. *** The issues for our kids are all about God. Everything is about God in these families at Bethlehem. If everything doesn’t relate to God, you don’t get it yet. *** Elbows on the table, No? It relates to God. I could do an exposition of 1 Corinthians 13 – don’t act unseemly – and show you how the Gospel relates to elbows on the table. *** There will come a point when their conscious comes alive, and you need to capture, with great discernment that point. ***  Teach the children that their own sin is uglier than anybody they think is physically unattractive. Sin is not a funny blunder. Sin is not a noble flaw. ***  If our children are ever to grasp the gospel, they must grasp this about themselves. And we parents must feel it about ourselves first… There will be a flavor. Dad has authority in this family but it is a broken hearted authority. It’s a humble authority. It is a ready-to-admit-wrong authority ,an ask-forgiveness-from-a-five-year-old authority. *** Our children will never cherish the gospel if they aren’t sickened by their own sinfulness. They need to learn they don’t just do bad things, they’re bad. And I know there are a lot of people who say you should never ever say that to a child. “Just tell them they did a bad thing. Don’t say he’s bad.” Sins don’t come out of nowhere. ***  . . . I’m corrupt, I’m proud, I’m selfish, I am this way. And until I own this, the Gospel won’t land with power. I will always be healed lightly. *** And then you gently, lovingly help your kid get this. It doesn’t damn them, I promise, you it doesn’t damn them. It frees them to get the gospel. It makes the gospel the sweetest thing in the world. *** So now, we tell them and we tell them a thousand times! When God sent his son into the world, he was demonstrating his infinite love for you! In your sin! In spite of your sin! ***  Knowing Christ Jesus for the Christian is more valuable than anything. Teach them that. That is a work of the Holy Spirit in their life. You cannot make that happen. But you can tell them it’s true. And pray night and day.

***  ***

Number 8, the last one. Teach the children to love others who are different from them – I’m going to do it this way: Last night, I went into Talitha’s room. She said “Are you going to say that at church?” I said “Probably.” She went, “Ohhh!” She didn’t say no! So she’s not here. She’ll be here tomorrow morning and I’ll ask her tomorrow morning again. So I sat down on the bed like I always do – she’s fourteen – with my hand on her head and I blessed her and sang my little song and I said, “Can I ask you a question? This is the last point in the sermon tomorrow and I want to see if you get this. Okay, finish this sentence for me, Talitha: ‘The Children – you – should love people different from yourselves not in order to be accepted by God, but because. . . ‘ and I stopped, and she said “because . . . I am accepted by God?” I just came out of my chair! Yes! Yes! Yes! She thought that was so funny. Just like you did. I tell you, you could not pay me a million dollars for that moment. That’s the gospel. All Daddy’s do’s – Do this! Do this! What are they? Ways to get God on your side?  And she knows: No. . . . He’s on my side because of Jesus.