“I change after America.”

She tells me this in the midst of catching up on her life: her friends, her activities, where relationships stand.

I am surprised.

She puts on a tough exterior, this girl of mine.  Heavy matters are dismissed with a shrug, everything is “whatever,” and life is transient.  This girl, surrounded her whole life by people caught up in their own lives, quietly teaching her that her emotions don’t matter, that even if she wants something no one is going to stop to worry much about it.   There were times of care and love, but….always the but.

I can’t fix the but.  I can’t fix her.  I choose not to try to fix her.  That’s not my job anyway.

I think often people see orphan care as a process of “fixing.” There are these children, and they are broken, and all we have to do is come in and give them love and a family environment and poof! All of the hurt and loss and broken is gone.  Sheesh, these kids should be grateful for our generosity!  They should be so thankful.  And once they get a good old fashioned dose of family lovin’…why, they will go away mended.  Better.

That’s not how it works.  They aren’t cars coming in for repair or tarnished silver in need of a good polishing.  They are people.  People who have lived in hard places.  People who have loved in spite of the darkest of spaces.  The thing these people need is not fixing.  It’s love.  Love unconditional, love not tied to the expectation of a result, love given without hope of return.

And as I listen to my girl talk, I hear that this is what it was.  This is what changed her.

“I change because I come,” she says.  “I change because I know I can do things now.  I come to America all alone.  Me.  No one tell me to do this, and no one come with me.  I know now that I can make choices.  I know I can choose who to help, who to listen to, who to have as friend.”

Please note: I did none of this.  All I did was give her the opportunity.  All I did was open up my arms, my home, and my heart.  The change came because she was brave enough to accept the welcome.

I “fixed” nothing.  I loved.  I loved a girl I didn’t know, because I know love unconditional, given sacrificially for me.

And we talk and I ask her the ways this change has played out in her relationships, and she tells me how her friendships have changed because of who she is now, and how hosting has altered the fabric of her thoughts but some of her friends don’t understand it.  I smile sympathetically.  I know that pain, too.

She tells me that she realizes that she doesn’t have to be passive in her choices; she’s realized the strength that comes with standing again after loss.  It’s a disorienting thing to know you are strong and resolute and vocal, and to still become a victim of others’ actions.  It causes you to question everything you are.  And she’s always been strong, but when her world collapsed, she had to reorient herself, and she needed to figure out who she could be truly open with.  Coming to America helped her realize this.  I catch my breath.  She is telling my story, too.

She tells me that she has found others like her, who have experienced hosting, and what that has done for their friendship.  She tells me about her friends coming for the first time this summer, and how happy this makes her.  She tells me how there is a special connection with those others who understand this time in America.  I nod.  Those are my thoughts, too.

These things that have changed for her…they are not things I have done.  They did not happen because we were the perfect family and we taught her all of these amazing things about life.  I don’t think I “fixed” a single thing in that sweet girl’s life.

But I hugged her.  And I told her I loved her.   All I did was show up.  I listened every day.  And then I listened more.  And then I listened to the revised version with a little more truth in it because there was more trust built.  And then I told her how I would always listen.

She left me at the end of Christmas hosting appearing to be unchanged. And she went home and realized how different things were.  But she never told me.  It’s been six months of Skype and Facebook and packages and loving across an ocean.  And only now do I hear how this mattered to her.  I know I’m one of the lucky ones, because most people don’t get to hear how their actions changed others.

And so we sit in my kitchen, two very broken people with no easy answers or fixes.  But with each other.

I change after America, too, my girl.  Thank you.

Veldorah is in the midst of her third hosting.  She is a volunteer with New Horizons for Children and blogs at www.hexagonalpeg.wordpress.com

This weekend, New Horizons for Children is celebrating St. Patrick’s Day by filling up a pot of gold!

There are still many children on our photolisting who have not been chosen for this summer’s hosting.  All of these children want to come to America.  Some of them want to learn to swim; others want to ride a bike for the first time; still others wish they could try out a roller coaster.  All of them want to experience a family.

This weekend through St. Patrick’s Day, generous leprechauns will double your gift! 

If you place a scholarship on a child not yet matched with a family, your gift will be doubled. 

Turn your $25 into $50, your $100 into $200, just like magic. 

All donations up to $500 will be doubled on any child not yet matched.    The goal is to raise $10,000 by midnight EST on St. Patrick’s Day.

Click here to donate.

Will you help these children chase their rainbow to America this summer?

“Why you want me?”

It was a question that surprised me, coming out of my confident and poised host daughter.  She is all spunk and light, and one of the greatest people-readers I’ve ever met.  And yet here she was, suddenly so much younger than her self-assured 16-year-old self.

“Why you want me?”

The tilt of her head a little more insistent, the pressed line of her half-smile a little harder, her arched eyebrow a little higher.  Her whole body was poised for my answer.

I wanted to scoop her into my arms and never let her go.  Oh, my dear one.  Why?  How could I not?  You are in my very soul.  I love you beyond the bounds of what I ever thought possible.  Want you?  No, I didn’t just want you.  I needed you.  My whole life I have been waiting to find you.

But I know why she asked the question.  She wasn’t a nine-year-old, like I had hosted before.  She wasn’t “cute and adorable” on a photo listing.  She wasn’t adoptable.  She was a teenager.  And who in their right mind wants a teenager, especially one with prickly hurts that sometimes peek out of a strong and confident exterior?

It sure wasn’t me six months ago.

I found out about hosting last year, after hoping to adopt for four years but having no success.  Perhaps during the wait, I could use my time wisely and show a sweet child the love of a family.  And maybe this was a path that would lead to adoption after all—I was open to the possibility.  I hosted a nine-year-old boy that summer, and loved him very much—more than I expected, actually.  But while he was here, I discovered that I could not adopt him even if I desired it.  And I found out something even more surprising: it didn’t matter.  He was a special little boy, and my love for him just poured out easily.

But what of my plans?  Sure, I still wanted to adopt, but I found myself seeing a world even bigger than adoption.  Love doesn’t end just because a child isn’t adopted.  Family isn’t defined by legal words on a piece of paper.  We were designed to be relational, to be known intimately.

Every child feels that need to belong. Every child needs to know love.  Every child needs to know that they are seen, that they matter, that they are not forgotten.

Goodness…isn’t that what we ALL want?  I don’t think that there is ever an age when we stop needing that.  And so my heart opened a little bit more and I realized that maybe my vision had been too narrow.

I think it’s easy to see that the little ones need arms to hug them, need someone to tuck them in at night, need someone to kiss their boo-boos.  And they do.  But at what age does that stop?  At what age do they stop needing someone to care?

I think we quickly forget how much we needed our mamas when we were 15 or 16 and our hearts broke for the first time.  Our memories fade on that time the tears flowed when the boy didn’t ask us to the dance, or when the girl laughed at our awkward attempt to tell her how we felt.  And we forget how we fell into our mom’s arms, or just wanted our dad to put his arm around us and tell us that it’s not the end of the world.  Our boo-boos were different, but oh, how we longed for someone to kiss them and take the pain away.

And these teens, their world of heartbreak isn’t a school dance or a flippant girl.  Their problems are sometimes adult-sized.  Their pain is often more than most adults could bear.

And yet, here they are, faces smiling with courage maybe their hearts don’t have.  Daring to hope that maybe things will get better.  Believing that it has to.

And they go into these interviews with New Horizons for Children, and they tell their stories, all the time believing that no one will want them.  Probably the cute little kid will get picked, and they will be forgotten again.  And still they go.

Still they go.

Still they speak.

They say, I’m still here.  I’m still fighting.  And I want to be seen.

Such bravery in the face of such hardship.

And I was moved by it.  Me, who never would have looked twice at a teenager a few months ago, was captured by the bold hope on those faces.  And there was one sweet, brave girl, with a hundred watt smile and a mischievous sparkle in her eyes.  I saw her, and I did not want her to be forgotten.

I wasn’t going to host over Christmas.  I was instead going to support others who were.  And I certainly wasn’t looking for a teen.

But I couldn’t let her go.  I was originally intending to advocate for her to others, but the more I talked about her, the more I knew I needed her.  And so she came, and we became family.

She has changed me.  Made me better.  And I found that her age didn’t matter.   She needed me as much as that nine-year-old did.  Maybe more.

And I told her so.  Why did I want you?  That’s simple.

I want you because I love you.

Love doesn’t have an age cut off or a cuteness factor.  There is One who loved me in my sin, when I was the most unlovable.  How can I not love others that way?

But the thing is, it’s not hard.  These teens, they want a mama’s love.  They want a daddy’s affection.  They want the same thing you do.  They want to be known.

And when I look into my girl’s eyes, all the questions about whether I could do it or if I could be enough just melted away.  I didn’t see a teenager all cocky and confident in front of me.  I saw a girl, a young woman, hoping that maybe it was true.  Hardly believing it could be.

“Why you want me?”

Because, my love, I saw you.  I truly saw you.  You are not forgotten.

Today our interview team took a risk and walked out onto the ice of a frozen lake. We thought it was risky to step onto that lake. That first step was hard. It took courage, and it forced us to reflect on our host kids and the huge risk they take when they choose to come to America. They will face so many unknowns…our team was unsure if the ice would hold their weight, these kids are unsure if a host family will be able to hold the weight of their heart. They too have the courage to face weeks inundated with a language they don’t understand, courage to try new foods and to leave behind their friends and all that is familiar to them! Will you choose to step out onto the ice and host a child this summer?

Post by guest blogger and host mom, Hyacynth Worth. You can follow her awesome blog here.

They told us this would be exhausting.

They said that blending a family with a child from half a world away who doesn’t speak the same language and doesn’t have a family to call keeps forever would be challenging and rewarding

and that our hearts would be full.

They cautioned us to set boundaries, guidelines and stick to the many, many rules put in place to protect the children and the families.

The shared statistics, helped us understand what happens to these children, many of whom have found themselves in situations that bad dreams are made of and helped us see what the love of a family does to turn around a life — what being chosen and Chosen does for a hurting heart.

They said to keep it simple, show love and limit sweets.

They promised our sentences would become broken fragments of two different languages and that laughter would become our universal language.

They warned time would swoosh by too fast, that our hearts would be forever changed, that we’d suffer the kind of whiplash that only occurs when you’ve been swept off your feet by God’s amazing goodness on display.

And all of that has been true.

They even told us we couldn’t possibly fit everything we wanted to send back with her into a suitcase and adhere to the 50-pound weight limit … and they were right about that, too; there was no way our family would fit in it even if we tried.

As she placed item after item into her suitcase, I thought about how much stuff accumulates in one month … and I thought about how it doesn’t even compare to the amount of love; I found myself grateful that love doesn’t pack into a suitcase, or we’d surely have blown through that limit like you wouldn’t believe and like I could never explain.

No one told us that.

But how could they? How could anyone have put that kind of love to words? How could anyone have said we’d feel like a piece of our heart had stepped out from our chests and boarded a plane to Europe, still tethered to us?

People kept telling us how we were blessing her with this gift of a month in our home … and I know there’s truth in that as I recall some of the last words, hugs we shared this morning before she stepped through security.

But that’s not the whole of it, and I’d be sorely amiss to end there.

That beautiful girl came bundled with many gifts — she added to the love, laughter, fun and spirit of our Christmas and New Year Celebrations and our home. She lavished attention on the boys and brought us all lots of smiles and giggles. She was a patient language teacher for me, and she reminded us to slow down and savor life.

Those are all really big, wonderful gifts.

But the real gift? The real gift was simply knowing and loving her, a beautiful blessing from our extraordinarily good God.

There’s a lot no one told us about hosting. And there’s a lot I never would have understood.

No one told us that we’d be left feeling like the gift we’d given

would feel like it was given 10-fold back to us.

Whatever is good and perfect comes down to us from God our Father, who created all the lights in the heavens. He never changes or casts a shifting shadow. James 1:17

Post by guest blogger and host mom, Veldorah Rice

Recently, I worked on a commercial shoot.  I love working in the film industry, and always look forward to the next gig.

The thing is, most of the time, no one knows what I *do*.

I mean, when you talk about a film you like, you probably discuss the actors and the director, right?  If you’re really into films, maybe you discuss the cinematographer or the music director.

But rarely do people talk about the producer, or the craft services outfit, or the production assistants.  Unless you were there, you don’t really know they exist.

That’s my job.  I don’t exist in the final product to most people.

For this last shoot, I was the unit producer, which means I did a lot of paperwork, managed a lot of people, and made sure everything was running smoothly throughout the day.  You won’t see my work in the finished project.

But you’ll see the results of my work.

For example, there was one moment in the shoot when someone walked into the place we were shooting and wanted to know from the director what we were doing.  This person had an issue that needed to be resolved.  That’s where I come in.  I took the person aside to see how we could help fix it.  In the time that I took to help this person, the director got the shot he needed.  If he had stopped to resolve the situation himself, the shot wouldn’t have happened.  I may not have worked on the shot myself, but I enabled it to happen by taking care of the things around the director. And every time I see that shot, I’ll know that I did a good job and worked hard.

 That’s the way it is with hosting. 

 Often, all we see is the kids.  We see where they start and where they end up.  We see what a change hosting made.

What we often miss is how that process happens.
The change can only happen when we create an environment that allows the children to grow.  We need to take care of the things around them.  We need to give them a chance to feel the love of a family.
And there are lots of people working hard to do just that.  The teams of volunteers helping to match the kids.  The people who support the families financially.  The prayer partners who faithfully intercede for each hosting.  The chaperones who give up their holidays to travel halfway around the world in order to help these children.
There are so many people who work together to make a hosting succeed.  Most of their work will never be recognized in the final product: a changed child.  Yet still they work.  And that child would not have been changed through a hosting experience without their efforts.

 So let’s come together to help these children.

As we come to the end of the matching period, there are still so many children waiting to be chosen by a family.

They need you.
They need to have you on their team.
Host a child.  You’re not doing it alone.  There’s a whole support system to help you.
Or be part of the support.  Host a chaperone.  Give financially.  Pray.  Tell a friend that they can do this.
Sometimes just knowing that there are others with you is enough to take the leap.

So leap.