What's in a Name?

When I first began this adventure with my Angie, there was talk of changing her name. It's a common thing to do when one adopts a baby, and turns out it's not an uncommon practice in older children either. My friend who works in a home in Cochabamba that has many adoptions, says the parents almost always give their little ones different names and the kids love their new identity and fresh start.

At first I thought it seemed a little crazy to change an 8 year-old's name. I didn't even change the name of my 6 month-old adopted dog 'cause I didn't want to confuse her. But then I found out "Angelica" was also the name of Angie's biological mother, of whom to this day I've unfortunately never heard a good story. So, I asked Angelica if she liked her name, and I learned she did not. We thought about a few similar options like Angelina (which now that I know what a ballerina I have, would have been very appropriate), but the problem wasn't so much Ange, but me. After a year of calling her by one name I couldn't think of her as something completely different. Fortunately, she loves "Angie", which she still seems to think is the English way to say Angelica, instead of just the nickname that it really is. So we've stayed with that and added a middle name, a concept not so common here, but seemingly very fun for the little Angel.

Angelica Kira Spears

Kira was the name of my first Spanish teacher, and now dear dear friend. It's a name that works well in Spanish, which is a great benefit when Spears is so difficult that you often have to say "Like Britney" to help people understand. And it's the name of Angie's one and only sweet beautiful aunt, Kiki.

The name Kira was a bit of a sensitive subject in our house growing up. My sister, Kira, never seemed to fully appreciate its weirdness, and definitely not its significance. In high school when I soaked up every word of Ayn Rand with a passion that bordered on unhealthy, I coveted the name Kira, as I read the book it came from, "We The Living."

When I told my sister the story of Ange's past, and how she arrived at the orphanage, she was the first to notice how remarkable it was. How incredible for an 8 year-old to recognize the darkness in her own home, the oppression in her family, and most impressive to me; the idea that her life didn't have to be like that. She left everything she knew for something completely unknown with the hope that it would be better. At 8 years old, she pursued her own freedom.

My sister surely wasn't thinking of this at the time, but that is exactly what her name stands for. Kira, the character in "We the Living" lived in communist Russia where she fought for freedom until the very end, trying to escape the oppressive darkness and start fresh in another country.

Angie loves her middle name so much that sometimes she just labels herself "Kira" when she draws pictures of the family. I pray she also recognizes the freedom we have in Christ, and the blessings He's showering on her everyday.

A little bit of HUGE news!!

I would like to introduce, drum roll please... Angelica Kira Spears! Yes, after our successful adoption audience Monday morning, I can legally say there is one more Spears in the world. And she already fits our team motto, "you can always tell a Spears, but you can't tell 'em much."

Happy belated Birthday Kiki, your first niece, and possibly first namesake!

Happy belated Birthday and Mother's Day Momma, your first nieta!

Happy belated Birthday Paula, Beth, Kenny, your first grandniece (is that a word)?

Happy early Birthday Heidi, Byron, Jeanie, ditto.

Happy early Father's Day and B-day Daddo, your first grandbaby and next tennis protégé!

Bubby and Daddad, just think maybe spoiling a great granddaughter's even more fun than granddaughters, one way to find out!

Cori, Josie, Rachel, start working on your Spanish, cause there's someone very excited to play with you in July!!!!!!!!!

Thank you all for all your prayers and support. Maybe, Lord willing, some of you will be meeting her face to face in just a couple short months...

(Forgive me if you already read this on FB, Blogger wasn't cooperating so I'm just now getting the news up here.)

Mamá

Happy Mother’s Day to all you extremely hard working, self-sacrficing, compassionate, gentle, loving mommas out there, and especially to mine; by far the best mother, role model, friend, and now grandmother ever.

Since coming through the obligatory adolescent years of wholly undervaluing one’s parents I don’t feel that I’ve lacked much in the area of appreciating my momma for the awesome person and mother that she is. But since I’ve become a mother I’ve been treasuring her more and more, and more.

One thing I’ve always loved about her is that she listens so well you resolve your own problem without her ever having to tell you you're wrong. I can call her with a seemingly legitimate complaint, but a complaint nonetheless, and by the time I’ve ranted and raved she’s said exactly the right words to validate my pain without completely condoning my attitude, that I very often recognize my own selfishness, without her ever having to mention it. I'm not sure that she's ever complained in her life, but somehow she leaves room for me to come to her with anything without being judged. I've never met anyone else who does that so well.

I, obviously, can’t ever guilt trip Angie with such maternal classics as “48 hours of labor and this is the thanks I get?!” “I brought you into this world child, and I can take you out of it!” But that doesn't mean I'm not tempted when I’m feeling completely taken advantage of. However, Mom had some serious ammunition in that area, I’m pretty sure I wasn’t a fun labor, especially with the added pressure of getting this birthing checked off by 5pm so everyone could focus on the more important event of that day -- UL winning the NCAA basketball championship. Not to mention that I earned the nickname Piranha shortly after birth, for reasons I’m sure I don’t need to explain. But the only way you’d know these stories would be from friends or family members that were there, because she’s never once brought them up, let alone used them against me.

Not to mention the notes on the napkins in the lunch box, the Snickers bar surprise snacks before tennis meets, the care packages, cards, and candy for EVERY imaginable holiday, now the babysitting via Skype when this mommy needs a little rest, and the innumerable acts of love that have gone unnoticed but shaped me into exactly who I am today. I could go on and on, but I know that's not what she wants.

The point is, that whenever I’m lost for what to do with Angelica, I think back to what my mom did in the same situation, or I ask in one of the multiple emails we still exchange everyday. Now if only I had half her patience, gentleness, kindness or humility, Angie would be destined for perfection.

By the way, our final adoption audience with the judge is scheduled for tomorrow, so if you could please pray that I can give my perfect Mom her first grandchild as a belated Mother's Day gift, that'd be wonderful. Thank you!!

Learning the Hard Way

Why didn’t anybody tell me this parenthood thing was gonna be hard? Oh that’s right, everyone did.

It’s been a rough week. On a scale of 1 - Rough, we’ve probably been landing somewhere around an 8.5. The adoption’s had some annoying (seemingly very avoidable) set-backs, we’re moving out of our house, but the house we were moving into fell through the night before our move (due to the even rougher week my pastor’s family’s been through), and on top of all that Ange and I have been struggling.

I thought maybe if I shared the lessons I’m learning with you here God will believe that I really have learned them and not feel the need to keep teaching them to me.

Love is not a feeling it’s a verb. We’ve all heard this, and I think I’ve definitely practiced it before, but when someone’s being awful to you it’s hard to even like them, let alone love them. However, if love’s not a feeling, how you’re being treated shouldn’t have anything to do with how you act.

If you can’t change the circumstances change your attitude. (My lawyer said this to me after he’d goofed up big time and I was a bit disappointed, I nearly answered “but I can change my lawyer.”) Later I realized I can’t change how much homework Ange has, and I can’t control her attitude, but I can control mine.

Motivation is more effective (and more fun) than punishment. Frankly, I don’t like bribing the child much more than punishing her, since both are works-based and I lean a bit heavy on the grace side of the Old vs. New Covenant spectrum. But I’m coming to realize that as long as my love isn’t earned or lost by her behavior, other prizes might not be totally out of the question. She’s already responding really well to the chart I made with silly pictures of her, where we talk about how she did each day waking up, doing her homework, going to bed, etc.

Love like Jesus showed does not expect anything in return. I’ve, honestly, always been horrible with doing things anonymously. I rationalize that I just want to know if it was well received so I’ll know whether to do things like that again or not waste the time, effort, and money, but really I probably just want to be appreciated. Since I never learned that one well, God’s giving me lots and lots of practice serving this little one who can’t return the half of it and often doesn’t even notice. What an awesome idea to give for the sake of giving instead of receiving.

Finally, the good times are totally worth the rough ones. And learning to be more selfless was part of the reason for this whole crazy adoption idea in the first place, so it’d be ridiculous to reject that benefit now.

Here I Am

Angie has her own room with a double bed (a luxury I never had, ironically, until I moved to Bolivia.) But sometimes she just doesn't want to be that far away from me. Last Wednesday, after I got back from my overnight trip to the Beni she begged and begged to sleep in my bed. The problem is, as you may recall from former posts, she's a serious wiggle worm in the middle of the night. Flailing about, using me as her dream soccer ball, talking sometimes. So, in attempts to not set any school night precedents about sharing a bed, I stuck to my "no."

But Sunday night I woke up in the middle of the night to find her lying next to me. In the morning I asked her why she'd come into my room and she said she'd heard something scary and jumped up and come to me, but I didn't hear her when she said "mommy" so she just lay down and thought, "she won't notice." It was the first time she'd ever come to me scared in the middle of the night, so it was pretty cute and I didn't think anymore of it, except maybe to dwell a bit on what a bum I was to sleep through her needing me.

However, last night at about 1:30am I found her in my bed again, this time not as still and peaceful. I hope she got a good night's sleep cause she woke me up at least every hour until my 5:40 alarm for my run (she blames this on the mosquitoes.)

At breakfast once again, I brought it up.

"So, why'd you come sleep with me again last night?"

"Weren't you calling me?" she replied.

"Huh?"

"Didn't you say 'Angelica, come here,'?"

"No. Wait a minute, did you read ahead to April 19th last night?" Ange and I read a day in the Spanish Bible in a Year for Kiddos every night. And she's recently been so into it that she stays up with her book light from Grandma and reads the next day's passage. Which is exactly what she did last night.

Any guesses what the story for April 19th is???

1 Samuel 3

I'm inclined to think she fell asleep thinking about the story and dreamed about it, but just in case I think I'll teach her to respond to the Lord, "Speak, your servant is listening." And maybe I'll try to quit being so negligent in the middle of the night.

Getting to Know Trinidad

I usually love traveling for work or pleasure, but this week traveling meant leaving my little Ange for the first time overnight, and on Día del Niño at that! But, other than getting a little sick, probably from lack of rest due to the school-night sleepover, she did well, and I had a great trip too. A little absence makes the heart grow fonder, right?

Coalson Lacey is a Texan vet with thoughts of serving with VetRed here in Bolivia longterm, specifically in the small city of Trinidad. Trinidad is the capital of Bolivia's department the Beni, an 8 hour-ish car ride, or 1 hour flight, Northwest of Santa Cruz. So, to help him solidify his ideas about God's plans for his life, Coalson's been visiting us here in Bolivia for about 10 days, very generously doing whatever's been requested of him by us, the veterinary school in Santa Cruz, or the university in Trinidad.

Requests as wide ranging as couriering down a portable isoflurane machine from the US, giving a lecture on shock to hundreds of students and professors at a veterinary conference, training the Trinidad students in small animal surgery, training the veterinarians in treating an equine foot abscess, giving a semi-spontaneous sermon at a church service, and castrating whatever large or small animals the Trinidad professors could wrangle up. Much of this while being recorded for the local university cable channel and closed-circuit TV for the students who wouldn't fit into the surgical suite.

He's held up amazingly well under the pressure of the film crew, large audiences, and the language barrier, even when he had to improvise on the spot or reach back 4-5 years in his memory for the last time he'd thought about the procedure asked of him. The cool thing about Coalson seems to be that he can do all these things not because of his own skill or expertise, but out of his reliance on God. As you might hear him say if you ask him to do something seemingly crazy or at least outside his comfort zone, "Nothing is impossible with God." An attitude I hope rubs off on me more when Coalson comes to join our team serving in a similarly hot, sticky, mosquito-filled tropical region of Bolivia. Don't worry Coalson, even surviving Dengue Fever is possible through Christ who strengthens us.

(I also want to recognize the sacrifice my co-workers Bill and David have made to leave their families for a week and show Coalson the beauty of Bolivia. Bill is now stuck in Trinidad indefinitely because of blockades preventing him from driving his car back home to SC. I'm sure he would appreciate your prayers.)

Día del Niño (isn't every day?)

Today's the Day of the Kid, and it's kind of a big deal. This is clearly my first of such holidays where I'm in charge of spoiling one of these aforementioned kids, but from what I can tell it's on a scale with Christmas and birthdays. We could maybe say it's a joint birthday party for every kid in Bolivia, replete with soda, cake, piñata, and sugar coma.

Sunday, to kick off the country wide celebration of youth, we joined a little rural church plant for a neighborhood party.

The meeting place was under a big tree, the stage - a flatbed truck, the publicity - speakers from said flatbed truck.

A hilarious clown attracted the children from the neighborhood. Then there were songs, a story about Zacchaeus, with an adorable craft, face painting, empanadas, and to top it all off of course, balloon animals!

To spare the children and faint of heart, I won't post a picture of the clown face I was decorated with, let's just say it was described as "intense". But it wasn't enough to scare away these kiddos, in some semblance of a line, eager for their balloons!

At the end of a great afternoon, I think this little 4-family church that meets in a house was quite happy with their party, and I know the kids were ecstatic.

“Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. Truly I tell you, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.” And he took the children in his arms, placed his hands on them and blessed them." -Mark 10:14-16

I love how this verse in Spanish says Jesus hugged the kiddos.

Now, I'm leaving my Angel for the first night ever for a little work trip, better go get my hugs before the sugar coma sets in.