A Lightning Rod For Glory

I went to kindergarten with my daughter Remy today. Again. I’ve attended school so much this year, my husband calls me Billy Madison. The only exception is that I am the character who is one nanosecond away from painting my face with glue like Miss Lippy. (Related: I’ve formulated a reasonable salary for kindergarten teachers based on observation and empirical research, and I believe a practical wage is ten million dollars a week. Obviously a little low, but we’re in a recession.)

We brought our daughter home from Ethiopia at the end of July, and we brought our son home at the end of August to join the three bio kids we already have. Our life is now officially a circus. We’re neck deep in language barriers, poop specimens, and meltdowns. I can barely eek out a shower and it appears I’ve forgotten how to spell.

We are in the weeds right now.

Our daughter isn’t diagnosed with special needs, but here is what she deals with: trauma, abandonment, vomit inducing fear, absolute insecurity, chronic terror, acquiring her third language in a year, grief, and utter loss. She has asked me every single day since we picked her up on July 17^th if she is going back to Ethiopia. When I told her cashews would help her grow big and strong, she pushed them away and cried, “No grow big! Remy big and then go-go to Ethiopia on an airplane!” A new face, an unfamiliar environment, something out of order, a shift in routine, an unexpected errand…these changes induce meltdowns that would make Dr. Karyn Purvis quit her day job.

There are somewhere around 160 million Remy’s on earth right now, many with special needs, and all of them with high-level needs like our kids. They have no face, because there are too many of them. They have no story, because most of the world is blind to their plight. They have few advocates, because they will cost so much; emotionally, financially, physically. Their cries are too painful, so we turn up the volume on our first world problems like the dissolution of the Big 12 and our lack of free time, choosing to spend our emotional energy in safer demographics.

It’s hard to attach worth to the invisible.

This disparity reminds me of another school observation. I don’t know if this is some disorder, but I cry at every single school play/program/ceremony/musical my kids are in. Normally a stable human, for some reason, the *preciousness* of second graders singing while dressed as carrots, performing in the cafeteria packed with parents holding cameras and grinning madly at their beloved radish on the second row makes me come undone. I have the same exact thought at every school program I’ve watched for ten years: “These kids are just so loved, it’s ridiculous.”

But here is the tension: The five-year-old boy sleeping under a bridge in Uganda is equally as precious as the singing radish with a doting Mom and Dad and four grandparents crammed into an elementary cafeteria to proudly watch him say his one line.  The kids with special needs stuck in an institution in Guatemala are every bit as dear as the third grade class reciting the Martin Luther King, Jr. acrostic to a room full of delighted parents at Elm Grove Elementary. These forgotten kids are just as valuable as the children we organize our entire lives around because they were lucky enough to be born into our homes.

These abandoned children worldwide have the very same potential for genius, the identical capabilities for talent, the equal need for love. They are funny and smart and necessary; kind and brave and important. They have quirky personalities and remarkable gifts. They would alter an entire family and light up a home from the inside out, just like any biological child does when he is born. These children were not created for an orphanage. They are worthy of families where they can unleash their charms and delight parents within an inch of their lives.

Their needs are simply a heightened opportunity for God’s grace to be multiplied; they are a lightning rod for glory. Ask any parent who has entered the brokenness of an orphan with high needs, and you’ll hear about untold mercy, untapped beauty, and the God they thought they knew until they discovered Him in the eyes of their daughter, the laughter of their son.

So I’m cheerfully going to kindergarten (it’s Library Day!), providing the stability of a mother to my girl until she finally understands that I am forever. We will hold her tight when fear gets the better of her, and whisper words of love into her little brown ears. We’ll enter her suffering with the mercy God has given us to parcel out, trusting Him to heal our children and transform them into vessels for his glory, knowing all along it is really us who are transformed, healed, changed, renewed. And we’ll celebrate the glimpses of the gospel at work, as our daughter says:

“Texas America is I love you forever. Dis is yes. Zalalam. Remy Hatmaker.”

99 Balloons would like to thank everyone for their generosity in giving through our International Project Page. Last week, we were able to raise the entire funds for the first project in just a few days!