Anita By Any Other Name

It was our first week in Ethiopia and the school down the road needed an English teacher for their grades 7 and 8 classes. I volunteered.

I had no idea what I was doing. The school did not have a curriculum for me to follow, nor did the students have textbooks, workbooks or even notebooks! One of the other teachers gave me a piece of chalk on my first day because I didn’t know I was to buy my own ahead of time. I hadn’t yet started my language and culture orientation classes, so I really didn’t know anything about Ethiopia or how things worked.

But I did think to ask one question before I headed off to class: How should the students address me? Well, that’s what I meant to ask. What I actually asked was “How do you say ‘missus’ in Amharic?” The answer to that question is wizero. And so I introduced myself to my students as Wizero Neuman.

By the time I realized that people just call each other by their first name, it was too late. I was already known as Neuman instead of Anita. That is what they called me in class, and that is what they hollered for all the world to hear when they saw me walking down the street. “Hello, Neuman!” Right out of Seinfeld – except they didn’t know it was funny.

My misunderstanding of the first name/last name situation was further complicated by the frequent question, “What is your father’s name?” That seemed an odd thing to ask, back in those first few days when I was so new to the country I wasn’t even over jetlag yet. But I assumed it was one of those basic questions that every language learner memorizes and practices on others. How old are you? Where is the bathroom? What is your father’s name?

I was wrong. Their father’s name and father’s father’s name are like our western middle name and last name. Their lineage is their name, regardless of gender, and it doesn’t change when they get married.

When students asked me, “What is your father’s name?” and I answered “Jim” (because I thought they were simply practicing their English), they thought Jim was my second name. And then they would ask, “What is your grandfather’s name?” and my mind would immediately go to my maternal grandfather, with whom I was very close. Coincidentally, his name was also Jim.

So instead of just introducing myself as Anita Neuman right from the start, I stupidly and inadvertently let 100+ students think my name was Neuman Jim Jim.

All I wanted to do was fill the need for an English teacher. I was trying to help. But despite my pure and honorable intentions, I came off looking like a schmuck.

It happens to the best of us, doesn’t it?

So let’s remember that when we see someone else who’s coming off looking like a schmuck. Maybe, just maybe, they’re actually a kind and generous person who simply made a mistake. Let’s show them a little bit of grace.

As I progressed in my Amharic language and understanding of Ethiopian culture, I began to introduce myself as Tsegah. This was a much easier name to remember for most of my Ethiopian friends and colleagues, and it happens to mean grace – just like Anita does.

Grace is the name by which I would rather present myself to the world. Even when (especially when) I come face-to-face with someone who’s acting like a Neuman Jim Jim.

 

The Tough Stuff

Ah, this journey called life. It’s a romantic picture, isn’t it? Long peaceful stretches of road, triumphs at the top of difficult mountains, sharing the burdens with our travelling companions, and all the while drawing ever closer to the sweet oasis of our destination.

In our little family’s journey, welcoming our boys home was a wonderful, joyous occasion. We had them home in time for Christmas and in time to meet my brother and sister-in-law who arrived the following week for a visit from Canada. We were able to bring them with us to our mission’s biennial conference in the Ethiopian countryside. The timing was ideal for enrolling Teddy in school after the Christmas break. It was bliss.

It was the calm before the storm.

We knew the storm was coming. We expected it to be bad. But we also expected that if we pushed hard, we could keep travelling through it and eventually the sun would shine again. After all, life is a journey and we would just keep rolling along!

The odds were stacked against us right from the start: adopting an older child, adopting out of birth order, language and cultural barriers, being a bi-racial family, and on and on and on. We did the very best we could in order to prepare for the worst, even while optimistically thinking that our “worst” wouldn’t be as bad as all that, and we would strategically use our preparedness to plough through the difficult phase and then we would be fine. We read books, talked to other adoptive families and counselors, and did on-line research.   Our extended family was supportive. We had supportive neighbours on our compound in Ethiopia where we were to live for six more months after we got the boys. We had great school support – both at the school the kids attended in Ethiopia, and the one they would attend when we moved home to Canada. We were as prepared as we possibly could have been.

But it was way harder than we expected.

We had this unspoken expectation that it would be hard for a finite amount of time. That we would endure the worst of it for the first year or two and then things would begin to get better. We still envisioned the “someday” picture of being a stronger, more loving family for having overcome such difficulty. We were not naïve about the ups and downs that would come, but we fully expected to see a gradual progression in a positive direction – not this swirling downward spiral like one gigantic, cosmic toilet flush.

I cannot look back over the collection of heartbreaks that we’ve accumulated in the past four years without feeling like I’ve been walloped in the stomach with a fence post. It makes my head spin and sucks the breath right out of my body. This, what we have right now, is not what God intended families to be.

However, this is what God intended for our family for right now.

That is hard to write. I have wrestled with that a lot. A lot! I have asked myself the same questions many times over. Did we make a mistake? Did we mishear God? Did He make a mistake? Did we mess up His plan? Are we not good enough parents to fulfill His plan?

For a long time, I boldly claimed the promises from God’s word that I thought were due us. I can’t tell you how many times I quoted Jeremiah 29:11 and Romans 8:28 and Philippians 1:6 to God Almighty and begged Him to get on with it. My prayers went something like this: “Lord, You began this good work in us, in our family. You chose Teddy for us and You chose us for Teddy. I cannot see right now how You possibly thought this was the best match. But I believe You are in control, and I know Your plan is perfect. I choose to trust that You are still at work on this because today there is nothing good in this that I can see. We are a mess. We have failed so badly. We can’t fix any of it. So please, God, please work something good out of this. And do it now, because we cannot take any more. You’ve said You won’t burden us with more than we can bear, so FYI, we’ve reached the limit. It needs to stop and it’s up to You. Please.” Sometimes I whispered, sometimes I yelled, sometimes I silently rocked back and forth in a corner. Always I cried.

It’s hard to say which phase has been the worst. There were months of violent tantrums that had me clutching Teddy in a full-body hold for an hour or more while he kicked and spat and bit and tried to bash the back of his head into my face. Sometimes Pat would take that job while I tried to keep the other kids calm and sheltered, but I was the one with training in Non-Violent Crisis Intervention. I was marginally more capable of restraining myself as well as Teddy. Marginally. So more often than not, it was me hauling our thrashing boy outside – away from our other kids, away from our furniture and belongings, and into the line of sight of our neighbours where there was at least some measure of accountability.

Gradually, the physical tantrums subsided, but in their place came verbal assaults: screaming and swearing and threatening. After some counseling and interaction with police, I think we are better equipped now to deal with those outbursts more stably and rationally, but it sickens me to admit how easily and how often we were sucked into combat against our son in those months of verbal warfare. We have this inherent notion as parents that we need to have the last word in order to make it clear to our kids that what they’re saying or how they’re acting is unacceptable. We also feel like we need to show them – the child who’s acting out and the children who are witnessing the altercation – that we as parents are the ones in control. And so, when the verbal assault escalates, we engage. There is a compulsion to “win” so our kids will learn. But I’ve had to realize that they don’t learn from that, nor does anybody win. Even now, when things start to get heated, I go through a ferocious internal battle between my fight instinct and my resolution to walk away.

We have spent a year doing educational and psychological testing and counseling in order to address the difficulties that Teddy was having in school. The results of these tests have revealed that he is struggling with learning disabilities that are way beyond his earlier ESL (English as a Second Language) issues and far more complex than our initial assumption of dyslexia or some other comparatively simple challenge. We have learned that he is a couple of years older than the date that we picked for him when he was adopted, which is of course the date that is firmly established on all of his legal documentation. So his body thinks he’s two years further into manhood than what his birth certificate indicates. Conversely, we have also learned that he is psychologically underdeveloped. So his integrity, sense of responsibility, reasoning skills, – you know, anything that has to do with wisdom and maturity – those are all many years behind.

All of these factors have contributed to four years of mass confusion and conflict. We have made so very many mistakes in how we’ve dealt with various situations because we just didn’t fully grasp what exactly we were dealing with. As the details of the picture come into clearer focus, we see more and more where we went wrong, but we are frequently bewildered at what on earth might have been a possible “right” way to do things.

I’ll say it straight out: we really don’t have any idea what we’re doing. With our other children, as difficult and stressful as it is sometimes, there are at least a few things that we can logically work through in order to reach a reasonable resolution. When most children suddenly exhibit an objectionable behavior that is new and different from how they’ve always acted before, we can generally get to the root of the problem – or at least narrow it down considerably – by considering a few possible factors. Is she stressed about school work? Is adolescence messing with her hormones? Is she overtired? Has she just had a bad day? A few simple questions or some mandatory quiet time before a calm conversation are often all that’s necessary to figure out what’s wrong and how to deal with it.

Not so with Teddy. When he is instigating conflict, we don’t know if it’s a boy thing, a cultural thing, an adoption/abandonment/attachment thing, an adolescent thing, a school thing, an integrity thing, an anger-at-all-of-the-above thing, or what! And if he knows what it is, he’s not about to tell us because we are Personal Enemy Number One. There are no calm discussions or simple questions. Probing and prying are not allowed. Any and all inquiries are received as accusations.

And so, we flounder around, trying to parent surface stuff without understanding the underlying issues. Add to that his delightful response to every single thing we do as parents: deeper anger and hatred. You see, logical discipline and consequences have yet to produce the fruit of repentance or submission or any form of respect or humility in Teddy. He does not bear any concern or responsibility for the way he acts and treats other people. His default mode is ignoring or dismissing rules and expectations. And when that isn’t enough, he has no qualms about adding a hearty dose of deceit, manipulation, and blatant lying.

Let me be clear: we are not trying to place blame on him for the dysfunction and trauma that led to him being an orphan. We are very aware that he has had to deal with way too much horror and pain. The effects of his suffering and loss are deep and multi-layered and far-reaching and lifelong. We get that adopted kids have to cope with stuff that kids who are raised in their biological families never have to face and rarely have to think about. We know in our heads that part of their coping mechanism is to push away their adoptive parents and siblings and to fight against love and acceptance and boundaries. We can see that his seven-year-old psyche is in conflict against his fifteen-year-old body amidst his thirteen-year-old peers. We get it.

But there is no how-to manual to guide us through it. And there is no armour to protect our hearts from the fall-out. It sucks. It hurts. It is toxic. It has interrupted our journey.

The storm has blown in and it has been stronger and more violent than we ever imagined it could be. It has whipped us around, obscured our vision and thrown us off the road. And now our vehicle is upside-down in a ditch somewhere and nobody knows where we are. We are mangled and bleeding and we know we should move, but the pain keeps us frozen in place. We are suffering.

I know that we are not blameless in this. We have made huge mistakes in our parenting. We have been angry when we should have been merciful. We have floundered in our consistency. We have tried and failed and given up on too many different strategies. We have shut down emotionally.

I know that Satan is not seeking to trip us up or fool us or bruise us. He is seeking to destroy us. Satan doesn’t just want us to fail. He wants us to annihilate ourselves. He is using past and present pain to fill Teddy’s head with evil lies about responsibility and respect and love.

All of this is so far beyond what we expected when we began our adoption journey. It is so far beyond what I can put into a casual conversation when you ask us how we’re doing. It is so far beyond what I feel capable of handling, nevermind handling well.

But God is bigger and stronger and already victorious. As much as He is grieved by our current suffering, He is still in control. He still has a plan. It’s a perfect, meticulous plan and it is for our good! And maybe – no, most definitely – this suffering that we’re going through is for a purpose that’s much bigger and better and way beyond the little bubble of time and space that is visible to us.

 

“Write! Canada” Third Place Entry

A month or so ago, I entered the Write! Canada writing contest in hopes of winning free admission to their annual conference. Sadly, the third-place $50 prize isn’t going to go very far towards the conference fee. However, I’m very pleased that I placed at all. And happy for Write! Canada to have received at least three entrants in the Young Adults category. (Yes, yes I actually belong in that category. Zip it!)

I have been working on and off (okay, mostly ‘off’ since I had to re-complete Angry Birds and I had a couple of other writing projects to finish for Easter…but those jobs are done now) on a book about our parenting experience. I whittled down Chapter Two to fit the 1500 word limit and that was my contest entry. Would you like to read it? Here you go!

Contrary to all the joking about bringing home adorable African babies, we had not moved to Ethiopia intending to adopt. We had two children and we were happy with them and they were happy with us. The end.

It’s like God thought I was daring Him.

After two weeks in Ethiopia, another missionary invited me to attend a ladies’ brunch so I could meet other women and begin making friends. Brunch included a panel discussion about adoption. My first thought was, “Lord, we’re not having that conversation. Don’t You even start with me!”

By the end of that brunch, I had my fingers in my ears as I sang, “I can’t hear You!” That never works well. (Someday I’ll remember that.) I reluctantly committed to pray about this adoption idea but it was really more debate than prayer. I had legitimate concerns (like expenses! and my precious time!) that I loaded onto the “cons” side of the scale. Onto the “pros” side of the scale, God threw little ditties about undefiled religion and orphan-care. Boom. Scale unbalanced.

I eventually seceded from the argument and begrudgingly agreed to the next step. But little did God know what He was up against. My secret weapon. Ain’t no way my man was going to agree to extra kids!

In this corner, wearing black shorts, is Patrick Neuman, weighing in at (number withheld for author’s protection). And in this corner, wearing the luminous robe, is Almighty Creator of the Universe, weighing in at Completely Immeasurable! To your corners, gentlemen! Ding-ding!

So much for my secret weapon.

We agreed to pursue adoption proceedings, but we were suspicious that God was only testing our willingness to obey him and any moment now He was going to let us off the hook. We bulldozed through our paperwork, showing God how obedient we were. We met with officials, sent emails, did research and kept waiting for the door to close. But that door just stayed wide open! And we found ourselves getting excited about the idea along the way.

Throughout the process, we had ongoing discussions about our future kids (yes, two). We adhered to conventional wisdom about maintaining natural birth order, which meant we wanted kids under the age of six. We also had no inclination whatsoever to repeat the baby stage, which further narrowed our age window.

Because we lived in Ethiopia, our adoption process was considered local. We obtained permission to bypass the adoption agency quagmire and work personally with the Ministry of Women’s Affairs (MOWA). This loophole in which we found ourselves certainly had pros and cons. It greatly reduced the number of people, offices, and governments for whose approval we needed to grovel, and whose extensive (and varied) requirements we had to fulfill. Our to-do list was comparatively short.

We did, however, have one giant task before us that most adoptive parents don’t have to personally face: finding and choosing children. I clearly remember the day we brought our truckload of official documents and notarized paperwork to the MOWA office. We presented our dossier to the director and waited in his office while he read it, signed various pages, stamped numerous places with the official MOWA stamp, and asked occasional questions. Then it was over. He stood, shook our hands and said we were approved. He ushered us towards the door. We were dumfounded about what that meant.

“What do we do now?” we asked.

“Go find children. Then come back here.”

Right. Okay then. We’ll just walk out into this city of 7 million people and pick two children. How exactly do we do that?

It’s easier said than done. Most legally adoptable children are already registered in orphanages that are directly affiliated with international adoption agencies. We weren’t agency clients, so those children weren’t available to us. Conversely, most government-run orphanages lack the infrastructure or policies allowing them to work with foreign families. Oy.

It took us seven weeks to find a place that could work with us. I immediately called and arranged a next-day appointment. We took our daughters along so the director could meet our whole family and make the best possible match for us. We had all our signed, stamped documentation from MOWA. We spent an hour travelling across town, anticipation building all the way.

When we arrived, we were shown into the director’s office, where he glanced through our paperwork. We told him we wanted two children between the ages of two and five. He led us into a lounge area where we could all sit comfortably, and then twenty kids between the ages of two and five streamed into the room. They climbed into our laps. They stroked our hair and our hands. They tried on our sunglasses. They dug through my purse. They hugged us, sang, laughed, and danced. We smiled and played with them and wondered where the director had gone.

Eventually, he returned and said the words that broke my heart, “Pick which two you want.”

Seriously? Pick two from these twenty who were all looking at us expectantly? How? What ungodly criteria could we possibly use? The cutest ones? The ones whose names we could pronounce? The ones who were hugging us the tightest? We couldn’t do it. We couldn’t look into all those beautiful faces and randomly choose to take two and leave the rest.

We thanked the director for his time, took our paperwork, and left. Seven weeks we had spent looking for a place that would work with us, and then we couldn’t work with them.

God graciously provided a new option the very next day and this time, we did not take our girls with us. We couldn’t risk putting them through the same ordeal. The director of this orphanage welcomed us into her office and took her time reviewing our paperwork. As before, we stated that we wanted two children between the ages of two and five. She had a wonderful boy that she really wanted us to meet. We asked how old he was and she said he was eight. We told her we wanted younger children. She insisted that we meet this wonderful eight-year-old boy. We said we already had an eight-year-old. She said, “He’s actually nine.”

Huh?

Well, his intake file said he was eight, but he’d been there for more than a year, so he must be nine now. This did not reassure us in the least. We argued, but she brought him in anyway.

We smiled at him and shook his hand. We hoped that it was normal procedure for children to meet visitors and that they didn’t look at everyone as possibly being “My New Parents Who Will Love Me Forever”. We tried to converse, but he didn’t speak English. We were limited to, “How is it with you?” and “How old are you?” He told us he was eight.

Clearly we couldn’t work with this orphanage either, if they would disregard such simple parameters. We left completely discouraged.

During the drive home, we re-examined our reasons for adopting. It wasn’t because of a need to expand our family; it was about obedience to God. We reconsidered our motives for our specified ages and realized we had let go of all other parameters (gender, special needs, health concerns…) and committed to take the two kids who needed us the most – except for our specified ages. Maybe, just maybe, the kid who needed us the most, the kid God had chosen for us, was beyond the scope of what we had envisioned.

We evaluated what we had to offer: knowledge of Ethiopian culture and language, plans to stay in-country for seven more months, a school where he could learn English and still receive tutoring in Amharic, and a bilingual neighbourhood support network. Maybe we could do this.

Plus, he’d been in the orphanage for over a year. We knew the statistics: older kids only get adopted when they come with a baby sibling. This boy was alone and had waited long enough. He needed us.

As soon as we got home, I called the director and told her we’d take him, but she would have to choose another child for us quickly so we could complete both adoptions with one court process. And we were firm that this one had to be between two and five!

Two weeks later, they matched us to another child. They said “baby”, but in Ethiopian culture, that could be a four-year-old, so we weren’t concerned. It was a boy. He’d just been taken into care and we could come meet him immediately. He was one month old.

We didn’t argue.

The ensuing court process, complete with developing-world efficiency and language barriers, made us consider that maybe the astronomical expense of hiring an agency to do all this for us might actually be a bargain. In the end, we welcomed our boys home on December 20, 2007. Levi was two months old. Teddy was eight. Sort of.