Finding a new kind of normal.....

Because you know....you just might need a little head protection during a super intense game of UNO!?!?

Every time I look at this picture I just laugh to myself.  Is this really happening in my house?  Do I really have football equipment and boy toys...and heck....a young boy living in my house!  Talk about a new kind of normal.  Although our girls aren’t the girliest of girls, this Schulte crew certainly is experiencing a whole new world....a world with a crazy hyper, active, rough and tough boy!  There is a definite learning curve going on for us all.  I know my friends with boys just laugh at me!  But hey...instead of laugh at me....pray for me!  ha!  No in all seriousness, things are going really well.  Little man started school last Monday and had a great week!  The first day the principal walked out holding his hand.  I must say my first thought wasn’t positive, but rather, “oh no” however she just wanted to come over and tell me how great he did his first day!  Whew!  That was a great surprise and relief!  ;-)  And his teacher came out to meet me Wednesday with similar news.  Although he has shared that its been scary and nerve wracking at times starting somewhere new, all in all he has done well.  We are so grateful.  

Friday he found out he was going to be able to join a local boys football league that practices at his school.  He has not quit talking about it....literally....he has NOT stopped talking about it.  It is such a joy to see him so excited about something he hasn’t had the opportunity to do before!  But we did finally have to limit the discussion of football...it was a bit overkill!  :-/  Little by little we are getting to know little man better and learn more about him.  Today we were riding in the car and he just starting singing.  I didn’t say anything but just listened to his sweet little voice.  At the dinner table I asked him about it and he just smiled and said he was singing a song he had learned before at a previous church, then just started singing it at the table for us.  I thought that was so sweet!  He really enjoys having someone to play with and can often convince one of the girls to head outside to the trampoline with him.  

Often times people ask me how the girls are adjusting.  Quite honestly, I am very proud of how the girls have adjusted and taken little man in with such warmth and compassion.  Certainly there have been moments for us all that have been a little difficult, but being able to talk to them and have them be open and honest with us about their feelings has helped us all grow closer together.  We’ve had a couple of instances where someone has asked the girls to introduce him or ask to meet their brother and they proudly introduce him to them.  Early on in the adoption process someone shared with me about the reality of how much I will see my girls grow and learn during this family transition.  I couldn’t agree more...and couldn’t be more thankful for all three of them and their desire to embrace our new kind of normal!  I’m so grateful God gave each one of my girls to me!  

just the beginning.....

"God’s plan from the start
For this world and your heart
Has been to show His glory and His grace
Forever revealing the depth and the beauty of
His unfailing Love
And the story has only begun

And this is going to be a glorious unfolding
Just you wait and see and you will be amazed
We’ve just got to believe the story is so far from over
So hold on to every promise God has made to us
And watch this glorious unfolding

Just watch and see
This is just the beginning of the beginning"

These are some of the lyrics to a Stephen Curtis Chapman Song title "Glorious Unfolding".  This morning this song came on the radio and all throughout the day I continued to hear it repeating in my head.  Today was a big day for the Schulte family.  We are one step closer to becoming a family of 6!!!  Little man moved in!  :-)  This is just the beginning.....

And here's the link to hear the song.....listen to it...I think you'll love it to!  

http://youtu.be/rolTdI7I_4M

just some thoughts...and a prayer request too!

Our "official" placement day is fast approaching!  As a matter of fact so fast that it will be here in less than a week!  As I reflect on this approaching day and all the days we have prayed for this to come to fruition, I am struck with an odd and difficult thought.  Although we have prayed many nights for God to bring "our son" to us, I'm pretty sure "our son" hasn't prayed for this to be his course in life.  Ouch!  That doesn't sound...nor does it feel good to say.  Although we are excited about his entering our family, how does he feel?  Yes, yes, I know the right answer.  "Of course he's thankful to have a home where people will love him and care for him."  But does he really know and believe that?  What does "a family who will love and care for him" look like to him?  What is going on in his 8 year old mind?  You know, the longer we have been in the process, the more I have grown to see just how brave and strong he and other children in similar situations have to be.  He has come to stay with us several times.....an 8 year old, packing his bags and coming to stay...with complete strangers!!!  I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have done so well with that at his age!  As a matter of fact, I'm certain I wouldn't have!  I remember coming home homesick from camp...a week long camp...that I came home from a couple days into!  :-/  So with this post I simply ask a request of those of you reading and praying for our family and the adjustment.  Please pray for little man.  Pray for his adjustment.  Pray for him to feel safe enough with us to tell us where is and how he is feeling.  Pray for us to patiently wait and listen if/when he talks.  Pray for us to meet him where he is......good days and bad!  Thanks for all the support and love shown to our family.  We are thankful for you all!!!

Answered prayer!

So school for the little man has been a bit of an unknown for me.  First off we are required to have him schooled in an accredited school while in custody and although we think the Schulte homeschool is top notch ;-), its simply not accredited so he can’t “attend” here.  We had discussed our available options and decided that using the public school system is what is best.  We live in an area zoned for a particular school that although we’ve never heard anything bad about it, we hadn’t heard anything good either.  And there is another school not but a mile down the road that is considered a “magnet” type of school.  We have friends who have and do use this school and all have been very pleased with it.  So based solely off this we decided we should seek out this school as our top priority.  Not being zoned for that school has presented some issues and for the last month we have been working on just even getting a meeting set up with the principal......which still hasn’t happened.  It’s been rather frustrating and disheartening as well.  The logistics of the “move in” and school starting are already going to be tight so I was really hoping to get all this ironed out this past week!  So after not hearing from this schools principal by mid afternoon Wednesday,  I decided maybe it would be a good idea to contact the school we are zoned for and just go by for a visit.  That way at least little man would have seen it before school starts seeing as this was likely going to be the school he attended.  So I called mid afternoon and unbeknownst to me at the time, got the principal on the phone.  As we talked she just asked if we were busy and if not she would stay for us to come up to the school and check it out.  So we all hopped in the car and went!  Now as we were walking in little man comments, “I hope the principal isn’t white.” To which I asked why?  His reply was that his last two principals were white and he didn’t like them.  I then laughingly asked him if he realized that I was white too?  He just kind of laughed.  I then asked if it had more to do with the fact that he possibly spent a good bit of time with them in their office....to which he readily admitted yes to.  :-0    So when we get there we all introduce ourselves and the principal immediately recognizes Nettie’s cochlear implants.  She then tells us that her son has one also and she is so excited to introduce Nettie to everyone.  Immediate connection!  So from there we end up going down the hall to view the rooms.  Two of the three 3rd grade teachers were there, and what I learned later was that they weren’t even required to be there that day...just “happened” to want to be there getting their classrooms ready.  And they stayed to talk to us bc the principal had told them we were stopping by!  How awesome.  So as we enter the classroom, one of the teachers asks little man what his favorite thing about school is to which he promptly replies, “I hate school.  I don’t like anything about it.”  Lovely.  :-/  However this teacher responded with such love and grace and just continued talking with him.  As I watched them interact I really began to get a sense that this is where little man is supposed to be.  So we talked a bit more then the kids wanted to see the playground.  As we were leaving I felt the need to communicate to the teachers our desire to be involved and part of the whole schooling process for him and they both shared how much they wanted to come alongside and make it a team effort.  How encouraging!  So as we saw the outside play area little man spotted a basketball court....to which he was super pumped.  He loves playing basketball.  I told someone the other day...he has bounced everything bounce-able in my house..and even some things I didn’t know were bounce-able he has bounced!!! ;-)  The principal also told us that this school has a football program.....who knew?  She said the coach is a top notch man.  He really seeks to teach the kids the importance of school work/grades and behavior above sports and if either are out of line, they won’t be playing.  She said he also spends time in the school with the boys.  She also thought to point out he was AA.  This alone is an answered prayer!!  We have been praying that God would send opportunities our way to find AA men to invest in little mans life and help him with things we know we won’t be able to.  (much of this awareness has come from our education and training from Bethany Christian Services...and for this we will be eternally grateful!)  At two times while the principal was directly talking to little man he looked away and didn’t look her in the eye.  She calmly asked him to please look her in the eye when she was speaking to him.  Although this sounds simple and basic, it was as if the Lord was giving me a little glimpse into the care and compassion this woman exudes...and I don’t even know her.  Eye contact is a difficult thing for many but especially important for us to be intentional with little man on and I felt such thankfulness that the principal just naturally did it herself.  So as we were getting ready to leave the principal asked me if she could ask me a personal question...to which I replied yes.  She asked me why we weren’t planning to homeschool him like the girls.  As I explained that we couldn’t legally right now and were just going to pray about it for the future as we did with each child each year thus far, she was so supportive and encouraging and I didn’t feel “judged” by my choice of homeschooling vs public school.  Another sweet blessing.  And right before we left, she looked little man in the eye and told him how excited she was for him to be coming, that they had lots of fun there at the school and she wanted him to have fun there too.  She also told him that they wanted to encourage, support and love on him as best they could.  So as I left the school, I was so encouraged and incredibly thankful for that experience and thankful for the confidence that I now feel in regards to the school issue.  Answered prayers!!  I had been praying that we could get things worked out with the other school and never even considered this one might be just where God would have us!  

Walking forward....

The weekend visit has wrapped up and although I have run the gamut of emotions, as I sit here currently I miss the little guy!  Unfortunately most of our activities we planned had to be changed due to the weather not cooperating, but we adjusted!  Friday night ended up being a pizza and movie night.  As a family, we love our Friday night movie time so this felt very normal to us.  However, quickly into the movie I realized this wasn’t quite so normal for the little man.  He was up and down, up and down, and just couldn’t sit still and watch it!  I know some of you parents of boys are laughing at me right now saying, “Rachel....that’s just boy” and maybe your right...but I don’t know boys...yet.  :-)  However I thought to ask him if he watched many movies or much tv.  He said no.  Oh....well that makes sense!  So the journey begins of getting to know him better.  (although I sure hope he begins to enjoy a movie from time to time.....cause we sure do!  :-) )  So Saturday we all went to the farmers market and Walmart.  That was our first time out all together and proved to be quite uneventful....which by the way....is a good thing.  We had plans to head to the pool but oddly enough it was closed!?  So we hung out at the house then went to a dear friends house for dinner.  She has several boys so he thoroughly enjoyed himself running and playing with them. (and I am sure it was a welcome break from all the estrogen!! )  Sunday we all went to church together then hit the pool.  This however didn’t go without eventfulness!  :-0  As we got ready we had asked him if he could swim (yep....you know where this is going.....).  His response was yes. Thankfully neither Russ or I believed him....cause he couldn’t!!!  Russ said you know its like....you don’t have any fear until fear slaps you in the face.  Well fear slapped him in the face in the deep end of the pool.  Honestly he was just playing in the area he could touch and slowly crept out to the deeper waters.  As Russ watched him get deeper and deeper, he began to bob up and down and panic lit up in his little face.  And yes...the good parent...Russ was right there to get him.  Seriously it wasn’t as eventful as I am making it sound.....but he sure didn’t want to get back in the water until we found a life vest.  Hopefully he will learn quickly to love the water.  The girls are little fish and we swim all the time!!!!  That night at the dinner table we were recapping our “highs” and “lows” of the day.  He laughingly said his low was when Russ almost let him drown.  Russ quickly spoke up...”Wait a minute!!!!  I didn’t almost let you drown ...you did that yourself!”  Oh dear.....I can hear that one not going over so well with the social workers!  ;-)  So Monday rolls around and its time for him to return to his current foster home.  As I was driving to meet his social worker it just all become surreal to me.  How unnatural this whole situation was/is seems so natural and normal.  Time and time again God has confirmed in my solid and in my shaky moments that this is the path he is leading Russ and I and our family on...and with confidence we walk forward!  

Finally....an update!!!!

You know when you have that moment of thinking, “you know I’m so far behind why does it even matter?”  Well....that is how I feel right now about this blog!!!  I mean....really.....its been quite some time!  But as I discussed in my previous post....oftentimes there is no news....so no news doesn’t really breed any new posts!  But guess what?  We have an update to share!!!  

There’s a back story to how we got here, so I guess I should share that first.  In October we renewed our home study with Bethany Christian Services.  As we were in that process, we were continually confronted with the question of why were we adopting?  We have asked ourselves that over and over and our answer continues to come that we are to provide a child with a home who otherwise wouldn’t have one.  So in this lay our struggle with infant adoption.  As we hashed out our thoughts with the director of Bethany, she was very honest with us in commenting that there really aren’t any infant orphans in the US.  Someone in the US will adopt an infant.  That the orphans stateside are those children who are older in age.  She encouraged us to began looking at other agencies as we wrestled with this idea.  So we...well, I did!  And I selected profile searches based on sex and an older age of 4 and under.  After many searches it became quite apparent that there just aren’t many children even under 4 who are legally free for adoption.  So I slowly crept my age limit up to 6...still feeling comfortable!  Then one day I ran across a profile of a young boy named Darryl who lived in AL.  Darryl wasn’t 6....he was 13!  :-0  So I sent Russ an email of the profile and asked him to take a look.  I fully expected him to reply by telling me that I had lost my mind and to shut down my computer and walk away!  But guess what?  Much to my surprise...he didn’t!  He simply replied, “Let’s talk about this when I get home.”  Which to me meant it wasn’t ruled out.  But wait a minute!!!!  That wasn’t what he was supposed to say.  Oh my!!!  What had I done?!?!  (ever had those moments!!!!)  So he gets home and we talk about it and for whatever reason we ended up inquiring about this teen.  God used this inquiry for us to learn more about out of state adoption and about adopting out of DHS custody.  We quickly realized we really wanted to try and stay in state if possible.  And we also realized we needed to take some further classes if we wanted to adopt through DHS.  So our pursuit of that began.  And this story in itself is another interworking of the Lord.  I had a college sorority sister who had helped start 200 Million Flowers which helps people interested in adopting.  So I picked up the phone and called them.  The lady I talked with actually had worked with Russ before in a previous counseling position so that was fun connection.  She then referred us to an agency called Southern Christian Services.  So when I called them, I began telling a little of our story and the lady then asked me what our last name was.  When I replied “Schulte” she then said, “Oh my goodness...I know your husband.  I have clients of mine talk about how helpful he has been for them!”  That was cool to hear!  And so our journey with Southern Christian Services began......

We started our mandated DHS training in March and finished that the end of April.  It was during that time that we narrowed down our window of age to 12 and under.  My rationale (good or bad...I don’t know...please don’t judge me ;-) ) was that we already don’t know boys, don’t know black boys, don’t know adoption so we didn’t need to add the “don’t know jr. high” in there as well!!!  Elementary was our cap!  By the end of our training we were being told it could be any day...and with our age range being relatively high that it likely would be quick.  And in the grand scheme of things...it has been quick, but for the next two months...it didn’t feel so quick!!  So we waited sometimes patiently, sometimes not so patiently.  But then, June 18, 2014, the call came! Our social worker called to tell us there was a child....potentially!  What?!?!  A child....maybe?  Either there was or there wasn’t, right?  No..I am kidding.  There were some logistics around the situation that I won’t go in to, but the case worker knew that no matter if this child were to be presented to us or not that we would be praying for them so she decided to go ahead and tell us.  He was an 8 year old AA male.  Well, two days later, Friday, June 20, we were given the green light to view his profile and begin the process!  In God’s perfect planning, we were leaving for the beach the very next day!  Really!!!!  There wasn’t anything we were going to be able to do for another whole week.  Dang it!  But that in itself was a beautiful gift as well.  It made both Russ and I be more aware and intentional with the girls while on vacation.  It kind of reminded me about times past when pregnant with the next child...I’ve always had those moments where I get a little sentimental thinking this is the last time such and such will happen as a family of three...as a family of four, etc....  So I must admit what I already know to be true...God’s timing is perfect!!!

So, we return from vacation on a Friday and set up a meeting with this young boy for that Sunday.  Russ, myself and the girls drove to meet him in Starkville at a yogurt shop.  We met for several hours and all enjoyed our visit.  Leading up to this meeting I was really nervous.  I mean, how does this go?  Is this like an interview?  Hey....you like us?  Do we like you?  I mean really????  Awkward!!!  How do you hold a conversation for any length of time with an 8 year old (boy at that) who you don’t know but want to get to know well...quickly.  I just couldn’t picture how it was going to happen.  But even with all those thoughts, two nights before our meeting God gave me an overwhelming sense of calmness and peace about the meeting.  He also woke me around 5 am the day before and it was almost as if I heard a little whisper saying “pack a bag of games and toys to play”.  Ahhhh!  Genius!  It was such a gift that the Lord gave to me.  So I packed a little bag of toys and they were a hit.  The kids played and talked and we talked and played some as well.  So thankful!!!!  Then came the bizarreness of saying goodbye....not really knowing how he felt...and wanting to all process how we felt.  But we survived!  

Since we met in Starkville, Russ and I decided to take the girls over to the chapel on campus where our whole relationship started.  This is where Russ and I had our “defining the relationship” conversation as well as the place where he proposed to me over 15 years ago!  (yikes...that long, really?)  Here’s a picture we took from the exact pew where we sat.  It was really a special moment with the girls and one of great reflection for me as I sat and thought about where the Lord has guided and directed us since those first days.  Such a testimony of his faithfulness!!!  

I

So in the days following we learned that he had a good time and was asking when he could come see our home in Jackson.  The following week the girls were headed up to St. Louis for their annual week at Meemaw and Pappaw’s, so we decided that would be a good time for him to come down and visit and us to get to know him better.  So with that visit we met for lunch with plans to then come to our house for a bit.  We were encouraged that during lunch he had asked if he could ride with us in our car to the house.  As we were driving I was steady asking him lots of questions.  Shocker, I know!!!  For me I long to connect with people by knowing what they like or dislike, what makes them happy, etc... and since I didn’t know him, I needed to get to know him so I could connect!!  So as I fired off the questions, I quickly realized he was getting overwhelmed.  I told him that people often say I ask a lot of questions and asked him if he would agree.  He just looked at me, then looked at Russ as if to ask, “am I supposed to be truthful here?” and laughed as he shook his head yes!  So I took the hit and quit asking questions....for a bit!  ;-)  We had a great visit at the house, playing the wii, walking the dog and throwing the ball in the yard.  We were so thankful to have this opportunity to spend more time getting to know him.  I took this picture below while we took our dog Ozzie on a walk.  Per advice from our social worker, I wanted to have a picture or two of him on the refrigerator for when he came back.  So I printed and placed this one on the fridge today..before he came to visit.  After doing so, I realized the words written on the magnet I used to hold the picture on...Jeremiah 29:11 “For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord.  Plans to prosper you and not to harm you.  Plans to give you hope and future.”  Coincidental???  I think not!!!    :-)

So, after the day visit came an overnight stay.  And that is where we are currently!  He came today at noon and will be with us over the next couple of days.  We look forward to time spent getting to know this young fellow.  And I look forward to documenting more of our story as the days unfold.  For now I sign off thankful that as I think about how many nights we have prayed for “that little boy” whoever he might be and prayed for his head to soon be resting on the pillows we have on the bed in “his” room....I am confidently optimistic that “that little boys” head is sleeping soundly on that pillow tonight!!  

Is No news good news???

I have had to ask myself this question on more than one occasion. In the adoption world (particularly the waiting stage) IS no news good news?  Often times my emotional side says ,"no...it isn't good news".  We just had to renew our home study which in some ways is even difficult to write. Waiting, completely ready for a solid year!!  But alas, I'm so very grateful for God's promise that He makes all things beautiful in His time...key word for me...HIS time....not Rachel's time. :-). So many things GOOD things have happened this year, and I rest with peace that His plan is perfect, therefore we wait for our next child to come into our family.  So with confidence I can say, "YES!!! No news IS good news!"