Travel Adventure

I was looking at a book about New Zealand today. My brother traveled there a few years ago for his job, and evidently brought back a book with beautiful, National Geographic-like photos of the country.
Hot springs, volcanoes, mountains, lakes, waterfalls, pasture, cities, bays, wildlife, and a host of other subjects populate this book. New Zealand apparently is filled with places of beauty, awe, and not a little danger.
I’ve always had a fascination with the places “down under”. Ever since elementary geography, I’ve had a yearning to go to Australia or New Zealand. I’m not sure I want to endure the flight to get there, but if I could somehow teleport there, I’d go in an instant.
Just as was the trip to the lower part of Alaska, this would be an adventure to places that I’ve only read about, but would long to see. Crossing the equator and the international date line, and coming so close to Antarctica would be well worth the trouble, I would think.
Alas, I think that the New Zealand trip is farther off than Alaska ever was. But there’s always hope….

The Adventure Continues

Well, we are safe and warm and not hungry. We’re living with my brother for awhile until we can get back on our feet. We are so thankful to have family, and to have a church family that cares as well as biological family. I’m not sure what people do who either don’t have family or have burned bridges and family help is no longer an option. I know that we would be in deep doo-doo if it was not for those we know and love.
One of these days soon I’ll have to take a look at the blog and make some changes in the headline. The Adventure indeed does continue and I’ll not change that, I don’t think. We are saddened at what has happened, but yet cautiously optimistic that we will have yet another fulfilling and great adventure in this thing called life.
Our sons are here today and have helped carry and move things. They have also provided us with encouragement just by their being here. Granddaughter Rachel is a continuing joy and a sight to behold. These times serve to keep us together and bring us to the realization yet again of that home sometime soon where we’ll never have to move out…we’ll never be fired…and we’ll never be in need.
Thank you to all who have expressed support and have prayed for our situation. We are blessed to count you as friends. Thanks especially to Kevin and family, Marianne and family, Chris in Topeka, and others who have helped pack and move. We’re doing OK, and will be just fine.

Done

It is over. At least one chapter of our lives is over, and another is beginning. Due to an unfortunate set of circumstances regarding a procedural matter at the home, I am no longer employed there and Pat will be leaving shortly (this week, I think).
Although I’ll not write in the blog about what happened specifically, I will tell you emphatically that this has nothing at all to do with my relationships with the girls. I can’t stress enough how much we loved and cared for the girls, and we would never do anything to detract from their progress and growth. I will also say that, given the circumstances were the same, I would make the same decision again, no question.
I kind of liken our situation to the infamous preacher massacres that occur still all too regularly where the preacher lives in the parsonage and has to be moved out within 24 hours due to some issue that probably should never have been. Having said that, I’ll now say that we are living with my brother and his wife in Valley Center (bless them) and are taking some time to make decisions regarding what we will do next. I will also say that I hold no ill will toward the home and wish it, the staff, and the girls all the best.
I will also say that I believe with all my heart that the Evil One took an incident that should have been nothing and managed to make it into something that disrupted a successful program, caused anguish and pain all around, and caused the girls who were doing so well to have yet another thing to deal with. I don’t believe that any person or persons are or were controlled by the Evil One, but only that he took circumstances as they were and made them into something that caused havoc in the lives of people.
If you have read prior blogs, you know that I have been on him constantly and have been battling him face to face, so to speak. I will not back down now. I will not shrink back. I will not quit. I go on record today that I will continue the battle with all my heart and soul. I am more determined than ever to use the armor of God and the power of the Word of God (John 1) to battle this enemy.

Is There a Lesson Here?

Once in a while I click on a favorites listing in my browser for Antarctic weather. As of when I checked (6am this morning), the South Pole station operated by the United States was reporting 76 degrees below 0, and the Vostok station operated by the Russians was reporting 111 degrees below 0. I was interested in checking further, and Googled Antarctic weather.
I found out that the average relative humidity there is .03%, and there is less than 1 inch average snowfall in a given year on the continent. The coldest temperature recorded there was 129 degrees below 0 at Vostok in 1983, and winds sometimes reach 200 miles an hour on parts of the continent.
At the same time as the above temperatures were recorded, however, Palmer station, operated by the United States, was recording a balmy 22 degrees above 0. Talk of a land of contrast! On the same continent, there was 133 degrees of difference in temperature at different stations.
I don’t know about you, but I am a temperate climate person. Not having experienced the extreme cold of the poles or the extreme heat and humidity of the tropics, I don’t speak from much experience. However, I can’t imagine living in either of those places and being anywhere close to comfortable. Certainly, living there would be an adventure in both comfort and survival.
When we stop to think about it, we really have it pretty good here. We are amply and bountifully supplied with all that we need and more. We have the ability to make our environment even more temperate than normal with air conditioning and heating systems. We can humidify the air, de-humidify the air, clean the air, purify the water, and cook our food. Our waste products break down due to beneficial action by bacteria and other life forms. Overall, we have it made.
So why do we continue to complain? I don’t know. Maybe we’re a “stiff-necked people”, as Moses wrote long ago about Israel. They had it good, too, but couldn’t see the forest for the trees. Hmmm. I wonder if there’s a lesson there for us….

Freedom

I’m going to return to a topic I’ve talked about before. Some of my past blogs have talked about a girl that we recently admitted to Prairie View. I’ll call her Ariel. She has emotional issues that we are not equipped to deal with, so we had to admit her to another facility.
Ariel continues to vividly remind me of the song that I’ve put the lyrics of on my blog before. “Let Freedom Ring” is a song that talks of the freedom that can be had in Christ. Just yesterday I popped the DVD into the PC and played that song as performed by the Gaither Vocal Band. Doing that helps to “ground” me and reminds me why I do what I do.

Let freedom ring wherever minds know what it means to be in chains.
Let freedom ring wherever hearts know pain.
Let freedom echo through the lonely streets where prisons have no key.
We can be free and we can sing --- let freedom ring!

Ariel’s mind is truly in chains. The Evil One has seen to it that she will never be able to escape on her own. This is more than just mental health issues. This is warfare, and Ariel is a prisoner of war.
Ariel’s heart truly knows pain. She was told by her mother that she was a child of the devil. She literally believes that, in her childish way, I believe. Can you imagine the pain of this child as she processes that statement by her mother? Can you imagine what she thinks of her father?
Hers is indeed a wandering on the lonely streets of the prison of her mind. The Evil One has succeeded in isolating her. There is no key…only aimless existence until the key that is Jesus Christ unlocks the chains that bind and the doors that close her in.
I pray that in some small way, we can help her to accept the key to her freedom, which is Jesus.

A Long Day

I just spent all afternoon and long into the evening yesterday in an attempt to get mental health care for one of our residents. She’s not been with us long, and from the beginning demonstrated behaviors that could have been interpreted as mental health issues, but no one really knew for certain. We also did not get “the rest of the story” from the facility where she came from. They withheld information that would have been beneficial to us in making a determination whether to accept her or not. But that’s another blog.
After three elopements from school, three incidents of cutting, two incidents of theft, and many other negative behaviors, we determined that she needed help we were not equipped to provide. So we set out to find that help.
We’re not novices at navigating the mental health system in Kansas. We’ve done it before, and our Director of Services is a three-decade expert in Kansas mental health services. He knows his way around.
However, it isn’t as simple to obtain mental health services as it is to obtain services for, say, a broken arm. With the arm, you call an ambulance, show up at an emergency room, or go to a doctor’s office and they take care of you. With this issue, we had to go through three assessments within a 24 hour period, be seen by three different providers, visit with the insurance company, talk with providers, and generally cajole and convince people that this girl needed help. No psychiatrist ever physically saw her. Only one provider (behavioral health ARNP) ever talked with her.
I can understand why people hesitate to access these services…unless you know your way around, you get lost in the shuffle as they slide you back out the door you entered and onto the street. And the thing about it is they do it in such a way that you’re not even sure what happened until it’s all over.
What was supposed to be a direct admit to a facility (I’ll just tell you it was Prairie View in Newton, Kansas) turned into a four hour marathon of questions, phone calls, faxes, and thinly-veiled statements that she would not probably be admitted because she “didn’t meet criteria”. We had already obtained approval from the girl’s insurance, by the way. The doctor on call wouldn’t return his page. They called the medical director, who shoved us off onto another physician, who finally decided to admit.
I told the social worker who interviewed us (we never spoke with an RN or medical provider) that I was tired, hungry, and angry. I told her I would hold myself together in order to see this through for the benefit of the girl, but had no kind words for the system or for the facility. I asked the social worker what it took to obtain needed mental health services. She had no answer.
What would have happened had our girl been 18 years old and showed up there on her own to obtain services? She wouldn’t have had the staff at the children’s home, the ARNP, the counselors, the people at the insurance company, and others to make phone calls and ask professional friends and colleagues to help open doors for her. I know most of what we did to obtain services. It evidently takes at least that much. She wouldn't have had a snowball's chance on her own.
I’m not so tired today, but I am still angry. The admission to Prairie View will do little more than buy us more time to find an appropriate placement for the girl. We will have three to five days to make that determination and find an open bed for her. Prairie View will assess yet again, adjust medications, and warehouse her for the required period of time before declaring her “better” and dismissing her. At least Prairie View now has the burden of helping find an appropriate setting for her before they dismiss her. They cannot by law set her out on the street without needed services in place, even though I am convinced that they would do that in a heartbeat if they could. The story continues.

Being Set Free

I said in my last blog that I thought the common denominator for the issues and problems that are facing us is evil. I said that whatever you prefer to call it…Satan, the Devil, or whatever else…evil is the common theme. I am more convinced of that than ever.
Last night one of our girls cut her arm. This was the third time in the short time she’s been here that she’s done that. We took her for an evaluation, but they determined that since she wasn’t an immediate threat to herself or others (go figure), she didn’t meet the criteria for admission to a mental health unit. Never mind that she cut so deeply that the blood was dripping on the floor. Never mind that she said she likes to see the blood and let it dry on her arm. Never mind that she has said that she will up the ante until she is taken from this place. She’s back with us. One of the staff stayed up all night with her to keep her from harming herself in the night.
I also read the application for admission for yet another girl this morning. As I read through one of the narratives, I ran across the following statement, “Jeanna (name changed) must learn to take responsibility for her actions.”
If I’ve read that once, I’ve read it a hundred times. It seems that virtually every parent or guardian who has applied for admission to this place on behalf of their girl has said that or something like that in the application. There are indeed common threads in the issues that face these girls. And these threads are also common to the world at large.
Think of the episode some years ago when our President was involved with a certain female intern. He insisted that his statement that “I did not have a sexual relationship with that woman,” was correct because although she had a sexual relationship with him, he did not have one with her…he was a bystander and she was the one who was active in the relationship. If you recall what physical act the relationship primarily consisted of, you can use your imagination to determine the truthfulness of that statement.
Think of the Watergate mess some years ago. The same kind of word play and thought contortion, along with the desire to not have to take responsibility for their actions led several down the primrose path.
You may not believe in a being called The Evil One. That’s OK. You just continue on in your delusion. But in one of your more lucid moments, take a job as a caretaker for troubled persons. Become a school psychologist. Be a social worker. Teach in a public school. Be a counselor. Whatever. I don’t care whether it’s girls, boys, adults…makes no difference. You’ll soon find that you encounter The Evil One toe to toe, head to head, face to face, in the lives of those who are tortured by his schemes.
Things then become much more clear. You begin to see things as they really are. This world is sometimes not a pretty place. You can begin to understand why that great apostle Paul of Tarsus wrote that even the creation longs to “be set free from the slavery of corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God.”

Don't You Dare

I haven’t written in awhile. I’m sorry for the delay. You see, I’m becoming forgetful. Yesterday (or was it day before? Well, sometime this week.) was my 58th birthday (or was it 57? 67?), and we all know that old people become forgetful. Yeah, that excuse probably won’t fly any further than I can throw a cannon, but it’s the best I can do until my feeble brain can come up with something better.
It rained yesterday here. We had over an inch of badly needed showers and thunderstorms. It won’t result in much growing outside, as fall has also arrived and things are pretty much shutting down in preparation for the winter months. But it certainly refreshed the earth and our spirits as well.
We will interview a family this evening who needs to place their daughter somewhere. I never know what to say or do at these interviews. We are to evaluate the situation and make some kind of decision (although not right away) on whether to recommend placement. I know that by the time they come here, there is a certain amount of desperation involved, and that they have tried most all other options, probably without success. I know they are looking at us as the saviors of their marriage/family/daughter, and we are very well aware that we are totally human and can only do what we know to do. We’re certainly not miracle-workers and cannot save everyone.
If this girl doesn’t work out, there is another one in the wings that wishes an interview. There always seems to be one more “out there”. We never seem to run out of girls who are in trouble and families that are in crisis.
There has to be a common denominator to all of this. What we see at MCCH is just a microcosm of what is out there on a massive scale. We can pontificate all day, but the long and short of it is that the common denominator is evil (Satan, the Devil, whatever you wish to call him/it).
Tell me I’m a religious nut if you like. Tell me that it can’t be that simple if you like. But until you’ve been a house dad to troubled teen-age girls and dealt with parents who apparently don’t have the sense God gave a goose, don’t you dare tell me I’m wrong.

Ready to Go

We’re back. Of course, as in all time off, it disappears all too quickly. The money also seems to disappear at an accelerated rate during times of leisure. But it was a time that we looked forward to, and it didn’t disappoint us.
This year we did a little differently in that we didn’t do a lot of sitting and visiting, but rather saw some of the sights of Branson. We went downtown (which we had done before, of course) and ate at a sandwich shop. There were, it seemed, a million people walking the sidewalks of historic downtown Branson, and most of that million milling around in the stores, but when we went into the sandwich shop, there were few customers.
The Five and Dime was busy, as were many of the other stores in the block. We perused the collection of articles for sale in a Victorian-themed gift shop and saw the shop that advertised a thousand clocks for sale. We then went down to the lakefront and rode on the excursion train that leaves the depot every two hours or so for a 20 mile ride into the Ozarks.
Following that, we went out to the S of O (School of the Ozarks) campus where my sister and brother-in-law graduated college and took in the new conference center and restaurant. What a pleasant meal we had there, with good food and wait staff. We then took in a show (The Haygoods) and went back to the motel.
By the way, if you have a chance to see the Haygoods, please do. They’re a high-energy, multi-talented family who gives much more than value for the price of the ticket. They displayed, I think, better quality than did Shoji Tabuchi a couple of years ago. It was one of the better and more quality performances I’ve EVER seen.
The girls get back this afternoon. Right now we have the carpet cleaner in. I’m not sure what I’ll be doing today except stay out of his way and think about the next three weeks or so. I am ready for the girls, but the high maintenance of a couple of them will challenge us in ways we haven’t thought of yet. Pray for us this next couple of weeks. I think this will be a pivotal time in the lives of several of our girls.

Long Weekend

We are packing to leave for a long weekend. We’ll be going to Branson and staying at a resort on Indian Point. The resort is far from the Branson crowds, and is a place we’ve been before when we wanted to get away.
My brother and sister will meet us there tomorrow evening. We’ll spend the weekend there, then come back on Sunday afternoon. We’ll mostly sit, eat, visit, walk, and do those things that older people generally do. Sis wants to go to SDC to the crafts festival, but as of right now, I’m not sure I want to do that. I may stay back at the motel. Right now, I don’t want to see crowds.
I’ll let you know how it goes there. The motel will be a little crowded, but we should be able to have space to ourselves from time to time. Mike and Handan are good hosts and see to it that we have what we need for a pleasant stay. I don’t know if I’ll blog while there or not. If not, it’ll be a few days.

Count Your Blessings

One of our girls has a dad who is serving in Iraq. He was there when she came here earlier this year. He came home and saw her a few months ago, and now is back in Iraq.
One of the toughest things I think that can happen with the people who serve our country is the separation of families. This particular family has need to be together…to take part in therapy and marriage counseling. Obviously, this is quite difficult when one family member is 8,000 miles away.
He tries to be part of the family by sending me letters that I copy and give to his daughter. He is beginning email and phone therapy with the counselor. But these things are a poor substitute right now for the real thing. And the girl and the family are not doing as well as they could in part because of this separation.
Life isn’t fair sometimes. We know that, but we sometimes think that applies to people other than us. And in some respects, we are treated more than fairly. We consume most of the world’s wealth and resources. We are not hungry, homeless, or naked. We have access to health care and clean water. We have friends, family, and those who care about us that we’ve never met.
I know that we could improve health care, and that there are hungry people in this nation. I know people in my community are homeless. The point of this article, however, is not to point that out, but rather to let us who read this know how blessed we are.
I told one girl once, “So your Dad abused you, your Mom abandoned you, and you’ve been in four foster homes in the last year and a half. So what?”
She looked at me rather quizzically. I didn’t say that to be mean or uncaring. I said it to say (and I did tell her) that life wasn’t fair to her. However, she now has the opportunity to pick up and go on rather than let those people of her past continue to drag her down and control her future.
This girl was blessed to be in a place where she was safe, had good food and clothing, a roof, bed, and place to call her own, and people who loved and cared for her. It was time for her to realize that and start to put her life back together, even though she had suffered torturous unfairness in her short time on earth.
“Count your blessings; name them one by one.”
“Count your blessings, see what God has done.”

God is Good

The hectic morning is done. Chores have been done and are being checked. Girls are showering and other such like things. There’s a quiet, soothing relax CD playing in the background. As of this minute, no one is carping at anyone else.
It’s a welcome and all too brief respite in the day with six teen-age girls who are here “for a reason.” We enjoy the more animated times with them, but also enjoy the more sedate and serene times, which seem to come all too infrequently.
It’s cloudy here today, with the prospects of a good shower tonight or tomorrow. It’s badly needed as it’s been awhile since good precipitation has fallen. K State is playing KU, and the world will live or die (at least in some people’s reality) depending on who wins and who loses and by how much. The new house parents are moving in today, a welcome addition to our clan. And we are looking forward to a week off beginning Monday evening.
I don’t know about you, but it could be a lot worse than it is. God is good, and we are blessed.

Engaging the Enemy

Yesterday, I thought long and hard about the words to two songs written by Bill and Gloria Gaither. “Let Freedom Ring” and “It Is Finished.” Both talk of the sacrifice of Jesus and what it means for us as human beings. Now, if you’re not a Christian and don’t believe all of the stuff about the Bible, Jesus and God, you probably won’t care to read what follows because you won’t understand what I’m talking about. And even if you are a Christian or an adherent, you may not quite understand why I am so worked up right now.
A few lines of “Let Freedom Ring” go like this:

God built freedom into every fiber of creation
And He meant for us to all be free and whole
When my Lord bought freedom with the blood of His redemption
His cross stamped pardon on my very soul
Let freedom ring down through the ages from a hill called Calvary
Let freedom ring wherever hearts know pain
Let freedom echo through the lonely streets where prisons have no key
You can be free and you can sing let freedom ring

Lines from “It Is Finished” read this way:

There's a line that is drawn through the ages
On that line stands an old rugged cross
On that cross, a battle is raging
To gain a man's soul or it's loss
On one side, march the forces of evil
All the demons, all the devils of hell
On the other, the angels of glory
And they meet on Golgotha's hill

These songs, along with a host of verses out of the Bible, talk of a spiritual battle that takes place for the hearts and souls of humans. This war rages in a realm about which we know very little, but I believe is real, nevertheless. Once in a while, the battle breaks out into our three dimensional existence and we can see not only the effect, but sometimes even the agony of the war within.
Such has been the case recently with several of the girls. The evil one has chosen some of the most vulnerable people on the planet within which to wage a war that continues to torture them far beyond what they should have to bear. These girls have already suffered mightily from the effects of the evil one’s actions on others as those others abused and mistreated these girls in some way. Now this same evil one comes to the setting of a Christian children’s home to continue the war. Up until now, the girls have been fighting back virtually alone. No more.
I haven’t been this angry in years. Yesterday as I sat at the computer and listened to the Gaither Vocal Band sing “Let Freedom Ring” on the DVD and called up the lyrics to “It Is Finished”, I clenched my jaw, shed tears, and made fists. It was all I could do to keep from crying out loud and breaking something. There’s something fundamentally wrong with leaving the most vulnerable on their own to fight a certain losing battle for their own souls and for the soul of the society in which they exist.
And these girls are only a microcosm of what is “out there”. I know why the world seems to be going to hell in a handbasket. It seems that way because it is that way. But God works through me to positively affect the lives of the girls who come our way. I’m engaging the enemy. I’m making a difference. I’m fighting along with the girls and with other like-minded Christians. I’m in this together with King of Creation.
The evil one wants to fight…I’ll take him up on that…gladly. I’m not going to let these girls face him alone.