Prayer, Love, Relationships and Teenagers

Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. - Ephesians 4:2

I am a crier: a no-holds-barred, waterfall, river overflowing its banks kind of tear factory. I have no explanation for it. It’s just how I’m made. I even cry when I’m happy! So it should come as no surprise that when the teenagers, actually young adults, in my life do, say or act in ways that melt my heart…I sometimes shed a tear.

Just this past week they have done and said things that have made every prayer, spoken through tears, at the end of my rope worth the time and energy.

Raymond is a 20-year-old boy that was orphaned at the age of 13 and spent the next four plus years in IDP camps before he was finally put in an orphanage and then eventually ended up with Wezesha. He is impulsive and can have a very bad attitude, but he is also a gentle soul with a brilliant mind and bright future. He has come to understand his weaknesses and how they play out in his relationship with John and Grace. He is in his last year of high school and attends day school, which was his choice. He recently met his sponsor, Laura, in person for the first time.

He said of her, “The first time she told me she loved me, I didn’t know what to say. We don’t say I love you very often here. I don’t remember my biological mother ever telling me she loved me. We love each other yes, but we don’t say it. So I didn’t know how to react. Then she told me how much it cost to come all the way to Kenya from America and that she would never have come to Kenya except that I am here and she wanted to know me better. And then I knew what love was.”

“And you Auntie,” he said to me. “You taught me how to trust. Because Kenyan’s are very slow to trust. But you have never let me down. You are always here for me. Saying I love you and trusting are very new ideas for me. But I can say I know them now.”

Here is a young man that I have spent the better part of the week trying to get him to understand and praying that he would here me that his problems aren’t about his situation but rather, his attitude. And not only did he agree with me, but he melted my heart by telling me he is learning to love and trust. For a young man who has lived on the streets that is a miracle in and of itself!

Raymond carrying Tamara in the Ngong Hills last Sunday

Judie is my 23-year-old foster daughter. She has been with me for nearly 9 years. She is as stubborn as the day is long, and beautiful and silly and a great cook and the joy of my life, most days…

While my mom was here she showed off her not so pretty side, the jealous, rebellious, pouty side. She is also finishing her last year of high school and is not doing well. She is also having some health issues. She cycles through mood swings so fast, that she might wake up with a smile on her face and be scowling by noon. Today, however, was a good day. She goes to boarding school but has been coming to church with us on Sunday while my mom was in Kenya. She showed up to church today, 5 days after my mom left. I didn’t say anything much about it because she was smiling! After church she and Millicent and I went to lunch. She didn’t order anything (which is very unusual for a child that would give her right arm for a piece of chicken – they get no nice food at boarding school), she asked if instead of me buying her lunch, I would buy a pair of shoes for another girl in her school who is from a children’s home and didn’t have shoes.

Commence melting heart…although I kept the tears in check. My so often jealous and self-absorbed high schooler, sacrificed her own desire for a nice chicken lunch, probably her favorite food in the world, so that another child could have a pair of shoes. I need a proud mama button! Not that I’m not always proud to be her mother…but sometimes you just want to shout it from the mountain tops: “My kid has a big heart! The thing I actually appreciate most is that she was willing to sacrifice something that meant something to her instead of asking me to just pay for it myself.

This photo of Judie is the screensaver on my laptop. When she's in a bad mood I look at it to remind me of how beautiful her smile is!

My last heart melt story is about my new foster daughter Millicent. She is not nearly as shy as Judie is, but she is definitely feeling me out and is very quiet. I asked Raymond to ask Millie how she liked staying at my house. (I didn’t want the “this is what my new mom wants to hear” version and I knew she would tell Raymond the truth because they both come from the streets. She told him she was so happy to have her own room and space for the baby, and to be able to eat three meals everyday and that I was really nice.

On March 16 as I was falling to sleep, I got this text from Millicent who sleeps in the room next to mine:

Thank u for what u are doing

to me and the little tamara may

the lord be with u I love u mom

gdnt

On March 19 the next text came:

            You have realy changed my life

            and tamara thank you for

            putting hope in me I love you

mom gdnt

And on March 23:

I lov u mom hve a good day

Millicent's smile could light up even the darkest corners of this world. My prayer is that her future will be bright and her dreams will be many.

And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. - Romans 8:28

God may not have given me biological children, but these children of God that he has blessed me with fill my heart with a love so big I can’t even begin to explain it. And yes…sometimes being this happy and proud of my kids makes me cry!