Where are my teaspoons?

I am not sure where to even begin to express all that is going on in my heart right now.  I think it is safe to say that I have just walked through two of the worst weeks of my adult life so far.  Even I struggle to understand at a deeper level why it is that I have not already come completely undone.  It is an understatement to say that I was by no way prepared for my world to come undone like it has…

Let me back up…

In May we had to prepare final court documentation for the adoption process, which included a budget.  As Holger sat and looked at our budget and what it costs us to run our family, we were shocked by two things… first what it costs and second what we have left in savings etc.  Why had we not looked at this closer at this point? Well, two reasons, we thought we had enough for the year and secondly… we are exhausted, and life is crazy, and we just did not take the time.  AND maybe our deep belief that how we are doing what we are doing is our best, and we are doing what ever it takes to make that happen.  Also, our unwavering belief in the goodness of God and the fact that we believe He has put our family together.

You see when it became clear at about this time last year that we had to move off the farm.  That the dream of living in community of people doing what we were doing was not going to happen and the prospect of a free home, first world education and medical care was not going to happen… we had to continue to put the pressure on ourselves I think to make sure that our children felt how much we valued them by making sure they got great Christian education, development of their talents (carrying on with our parenting philosophy we had with our biological kids… but these little ones also came with lots of medical needs, therapeutic needs and school is a big challenge.  This is a financial pressure of unbelievable proportions.  Our life is full of activities and homework and very little free play and fun lately.

Time pressure and financial pressure had become companions that share our home.

Other things that started visiting our home was the increase of anxiety, meltdowns, allergies…  the therapeutic and medical needs of our biological children increased too!

A week ago, when we got a letter from the school that we dearly love giving us a deadline to pay our fees, I felt sure in my heart that the money would come.  After all, I have been open on social media about our struggle since about May, inviting friends and supporters into our journey.  Everyone around me knows how committed I am to the school and how much I love that community. People have been so kind and supportive; a financial gift has allowed us to finish Daniel’s time at El Shaddai including his exams in first world education… but only for Daniel?!

Earlier I mentioned the increase of mental health issues in the home again… by last week I had this growing feeling that we need to just STOP AND BREATHE.   It is all madness, I could not spend another week begging, asking for help, experiencing the incredible kindness of people who really want to help, but our need is overwhelming…  something had to change.  The letter from the school forced me into an arm-wrestling challenge with my desired will and my reality.

By Wednesday this week, I knew I had to give up my desire to have my children in El Shaddai and praise myself for how hard Holger and I tried.  I had to surrender to reality…  I had to give in and strangely enough the surrender felt good, and right?  The feeling shocked me!  Perhaps it was my will to have my children in the school and not God’s? Perhaps?...

We have cried so many tears this week as we realise that we are exiting the school we love with our family at the end of next week.  Except for Daniel!  

And all I can think about at this point is that at least I will not have to keep looking at the bottom of school bags for teaspoons for a little while… because until it all becomes clear what the next step is, we will spend time reconnecting, slowing down the pace, visiting the library more than every second week and eating our school yogurt at home.