In recognition and support of “National Adoption Awareness” month, we’re giving away another great book that we have found to be very helpful as we raise our adopted (and bio.!!) children–”Age of Opportunity” by Paul David Tripp.

If you’d like to enter the drawing for this book, just leave a comment to this post telling us that you’d like to be entered! We’ll draw and announce the winner on Friday (Nov. 13).

It is with much sadness that I wish our oldest son, Sergei, a happy birthday (he turned 22 yesterday).  You see, he has not been living in our home since October of 2007, when we had to turn him out and change the locks on our doors.  This was not an easy step to take.  In fact, it was the most difficult parenting decision we have ever had to make, to date.  We made many mistakes along the way as we parented this young man, adopted at the age of 13 from Russia (this photo was taken when he was 14), but his defiance of our house rules finally reached the point of no turning back.  With broken hearts, we sent him out of our home, where he literally slept in his car for many nights, before beginning a long string of couch surfing in the homes of his “friends”.

Sergei, like most older adopted boys, had a very rough childhood.  I cannot go into details without his permission, but suffice it to say that it was very, very difficult…  However, there was also a very sensitive side to this young man.  Soon after he joined our family, we discovered that he was a very talented artist.  Photography became his chosen mode of expressing himself, with some truly amazing photos emerging from his lens.  His love of nature was expressed with the true eye of an artist, as he could wait patiently for hours, watching for hummingbirds to snap photos of.

My heart breaks as I think of him now, staying with a friend just a block from our house.  We see him occasionally and he stays in contact with one of his brothers.  He has shown no repentance for his actions while at home, yet this mother’s heart yearns for his return to our family.  We will not give up our prayers on his behalf.  Please, as the Lord leads, would you say a prayer for Sergei, also?

And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us. And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of him.
(1Jn 5:14-15)

…yes, that says “winners“–plural! We decided to give away TWO copies this week! Congratulations to Rocky and Kim — check your email for details.

Thanks to all for visiting us here at “Adoption 3:16″. Be sure to check back with us on Monday when we announce another great book we’ll be giving away!

I was recently talking to our oldest daughter, whom we adopted from Russia at the age of 14 years old (she is in the photo above with her own daughter, 1 1/2 years old), regarding the early years of her life in Siberia.  As I hope to someday write an inspirational book based upon her life, I was asking her questions regarding what a “typical” day would have been like for her and her two brothers, when they still lived at home with their birth parents.  None of the answers she gave me spoke of a loving mother.  In fact, it became more and more clear that their mother had severely neglected them on a daily basis.  I was already aware of this at some level, but as she spoke matter-of-factly about their lives and struggles, I was struck by her lack of bitterness towards an alcoholic mother who never did much of anything to take care of her children.

In response to my question of whether she had any anger towards their birth mother (she died on our daughter’s 9th birthday, when she and her brothers were in the orphanage), she replied, “No Mom, I don’t.  I used to be very angry with her, but when I became a believer at 16 I realized that there was nothing I could do about those times and that I should not be angry with her.  So, I have not been angry since then.”

Wow.  At the young age of 22, our daughter is, in many ways, wiser and more spiritually mature than I am.   As I watch her with their sweet daughter, I am also amazed at the mother’s love that comes so naturally to her, though she lacked a motherly example in her own young years.   Little did we know, when we gave our daughter the middle name of Grace in Russia, just how well God would illustrate His own amazing grace in her life throughout the coming years.  To GOD be the glory, great things HE has done!!

DRAWING CLOSED – winner to be announced this afternoon. Thanks for participating!

Our first book giveaway during “National Adoption Awareness” month is a booklet by Paul David Tripp, “Helping Your Adopted Child – Understanding Your Child’s Unique Identity”.

To take part in this giveaway, all you need to do is leave a comment to THIS post saying you’d like to enter this drawing–be sure to leave us sufficient contact info. Please feel free to post links to our drawings at your blog and/or pass the word to friends.

Check back Friday, Nov. 6 when we’ll draw and post the winner–check back throughout November for more giveaways!Dra

Did you know that November is “National Adoption Awareness” month?

Well, it is! And we here at “Adoption 3:16″ thought this would be a great time to give away copies of some books we’ve found to be very helpful in the area of raising our adopted (and bio.!) kids.

So, if you’re interested in adding some really great books to your library on this topic be sure to check back with us frequently this month. The details and instructions for our first drawing will be posted on Monday, Nov. 2

There was an article on Fox News yesterday about a young man who alleged attacked his parents after they took away his cell phone as punishment for hitting his younger brother.  It would be easy for parents to read this and gasp, thinking something along the lines of, “Wow, what a dysfunctional family that must be!!  A teen reacting that strongly must have a long history of rebellion and trouble with the legal system!”  Parents, please realize that there are some young people who are much more prone to become addicted to having a cell phone (and all that it represents) than others, and it is so important to remain IN your child’s life enough to know for certain if he/she is developing such an addiction.

So, what is the big deal about cell phones?  Why do some kids become addicted to them while others can take them or leave them without a second thought?  In order to understand this, you must first understand that it is not the cell phone itself that is the problem, but what it represents.  Have you ever really watched a young person with a cell phone for long?   If  not, try it sometime.  See how long they go without receiving or sending a text message.  For many of them, a five minute gap without communication is rare and, in fact, reason to begin wondering if everyone in the world is mad at them.  Seriously.  But, is this a real problem or just a phase they are going through?  Can an extreme reaction such as the one described in the above article be predicted?

In order to answer these questions, we must first understand what a cell phone may represent to a young person.  {Important caveat: This does not apply to ALL teens who use cell phones!  The point is to consider whether your teen is susceptible to such thought patterns or not.} It is their connection to what they consider the “real world”.  You know, the world with no rules, people who like them for who they are and just like to have fun (particularly the type of  fun they enjoy), people who make no demands of them, the world where the most important thing is what your friends think of you, what guy likes what girl, what he said, what she said, ya da, ya da, ya da…  That, parents, may truly be the “real world” for your teen.

Consider for a moment a Christian adolescent, as they begin the often scary journey into the teen years.  They are inundated with new feelings, a different body, changing friends, and things that just don’t make sense to them anymore.  It is not uncommon for them to begin to question beliefs they have held since placing their faith in Christ as they find themselves immersed in this new universe.  Given a cell phone and texting capabilities (a.k.a., instant and continual communication with others who are going through similar challenges, some of whom may not share those basic Christian beliefs), they enter a new world where it is possible for them to receive input each and every moment from others who may be just as confused as they are.   Indeed, their brains are being bathed with gossip rather than godly wisdom on a continual basis.  Consider the following definition of brain washing from Answers.Com:

1. Intensive, forcible indoctrination, usually political or religious, aimed at destroying a person’s basic convictions and attitudes and replacing them with an alternative set of fixed beliefs.
2. The application of a concentrated means of persuasion, such as an advertising campaign or repeated suggestion, in order to develop a specific belief or motivation.

The difference between brainwashing and what these teens experience with texting is based in the intentions; however the end result is often the same.  Although unintentional, the continual communication that comes with cell phones often serves to “destroy our young people’s basic conviction and attitudes, replacing them with alternative, fixed beliefs.”  They begin to lose sight of where God is in their lives and they stop reaching out to Him.  Problems are solved with the help of  friends, via texting keyboards, rather than seeking out counsel from more godly sources.  Tension builds as they become more and more immersed in this teen culture of acronyms and emoticons that are understood by few adults.

Back to the questions, “But, is this a real problem or just a phase they are going through?  Can an extreme reaction such as the one described in the above article be predicted?”  Parents must seek to keep all levels of communication open with their young adults, in order to better discern whether such a habit is a serious problem or a phase for their child.  If such channels are kept open, extreme reactions such as the young man in the article had are more likely to be nipped in the bud.  In fact, the moment a young adult begins to shut down communications with his or her parent, action must be taken.  Waiting to see if the phase passes can be a dangerous choice.  Parents should have open access to a teen’s phone – contacts, received and sent messages, etc – and this should be checked on a regular basis.  Remember that foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child (Prov. 22:15) and bad company ruins good morals (I Corin. 15:33) .   A teen who begins resisting allowing his or her parents such access to this information must be followed closely and observed for signs of rebellion and disobedience.  Any time a parent is flat out refused “permission” to view a cell phone, steps must be taken immediately in order to avoid potentially dangerous problems.   Parents must have the courage to completely remove the privilege of allowing their teen to carry a cell phone.  In a situation where a phone is needed for the purpose of communication, one can be provided that does not have texting capabilities.  Some phones are now available that only have certain numbers that can be dialed, also.

Is your teen/young adult addicted to their cell phone?  Talk to them and find out.  If they refuse to talk to you, be concerned and begin removing phone privileges until you have their full attention.  Do you really think that spiritually edifying conversations are taking place via those keyboards?  When is the last time your teen/young adult said, “Hey Mom, look at this great verse my friend shared with me on my cell?”

There has not been much time for pondering and posting lately, as we started our homeschool again July 20.  Lots of changes going on and one of these days things will slow down enough for me to share some of them on this blog, Lord willing.  In the meantime, I did want to share a couple of thoughts as I was looking at these (cool, if I do say so myself) photos that I just took:As parents, we must continually consider what perspective we are seeing our kids from.  Are we looking down on them, as in the photo above, or…

are we looking at them eye to eye?  Notice how different things look from this perspective?  If you look real close you can almost see the reflection of the camera in this little guy’s eye.  What is the reflection in your child’s eye?  Is it indeed a reflection of the love of Christ shining from you?  Or not?

I never really liked green food much.  Green beans and broccoli are tolerable, but celery is among my least favorite things ever!  I also never enjoyed avocados, although I have recently developed a taste for guacamole on Rosie’s nachos.  Since our oldest son – the one whom we had to “kick out” in October of 2007 – has recently expressed an interest in repairing his family relationships, guacamole has become much more important in our house, though!  Why, you may ask?  Well, this son works at a local Mexican restaurant and he makes fresh guacamole every day!  When I found this out, I asked him to come and make some for us on his next day off.

I bought the ingredients, Grandma made nachos, and our son came and made us the best tasting guacamole we had ever had!!  It seemed to make him feel very special to be able to do something like that for us, too. 

This past weekend, he sent some fresh guacamole and chips home with his brother, who lives at home.  Since we “fend for ourselves” for dinner on Sundays, I snuck into the kitchen, made some cheese nachos with the chips he had sent, then hurried into the sunroom with the pan of nachos and container of fresh guacamole.  After hanging our “Do Not Disturb” sign on the French doors, my husband and I dug into that yummy guacamole!!  It was absolutely delicious but the most wonderful part was that our son – the one who had made the guacamole – came to visit and “caught” Dad and I enjoying his gift to us like that.    His face glowed as I explained what we were doing and how much we enjoyed his guacamole.

I never would have thought that God would use a green veggie (OK, fruit for those who want to be technical!) based concoction to draw our son back to us.  I do love the simplicity of His Providence in this matter, though, and I look forward to seeing where our relationship with our son goes from here.

A good friend used to have a saying that has stuck with me over the years, “Two choices on the shelf, pleasing God and pleasing self.”  As we continue to try to get biblical principles across to our kids, specifically our deaf daughter who is 19  but was recently shown to have a much lower comprehension level due to not having much language at all in her life until she was 9 years old, we search for more concrete opportunities to teach these ideas.  This shelf is in our living room, where they will see it everyday, so maybe the saying will firmly lodge itself into their minds, now!