the story

You would have done the same thing.

Someone in the church was struggling too big for their kiddos to be in a decent space. She asked if they could stay with us for the weekend, just a fun sleepover weekend, way back in April.

It had been a hard many days for them, so we made the weekend extra simple and sweet and safe and quiet. Popcorn and movie night. Baking. Playing baseball in the yard. Getting to know them. Spaghetti and meatballs, like they wanted. Braiding hair. Painting nails. 

Maybe a few more days?

Carpool lines added to the homeschool schedule, uniforms. Homework added to the evenings, two who wouldn't hardly speak to Matt or I finally began to open up a bit with the girls. 

Told Lily things they needed. Shared with Sofie a few tears. 

End of the year awards ceremonies.  Summer bucket lists. Learning to swim for the first time. A first ever trip to a lake. Never left the state. Lots of new foods and new experiences and  little bits of a long-long hard-hard story coming out. Little seeds planted. Little transformations.

A really big and heart-wrenching day in court, day after Emma was due.  A lot of history we sure didn't know when we said "yes" to sleepover weekend.  Just like you would've. 

Do they have a place and a family with you? judge asked, or do they have nowhere and no one?

It wasn't a question to pray about.

They are Lily and Sofie...yes, with a very different story...but I can't ever seem to see them as otherwise. What I want and pray for for them, I want and pray for for them. 

What feels like a thousand hoops later, some of them lovely and many of them painful...some of them sweet and some of them sacrificial...we are still still working on foster licensure, all backwards.  This IS the expedited version, they assure us, due to already having had the girls since April. But it's still not complete, which means that any support or help we've needed has come only from His church being the church...some we've asked for and some He's sent.  

Some days have been so incredibly sweet. Some days just gut-wrenchingly hard.  Some ways 7 is not that much different than 5, and other ways two come with stories and traumas I've never experienced or walked, and we're coming in late in the complicated game, trying to catch up, trying to reach in a hand, trying to play a small part in small healing without ANY say or control for the future. 

So many fears and insecurities.  Bunk beds because it reminds of homeless shelters. Storms because it reminds of gun shots. Wandering away without telling anyone. Hair quirks. Food quirks. Weird things. Hard things. Always, always with a reason.  I tell them always, "Go on...go and be a kid!" and in so many ways, they're trying to learn what that means.

So much progress has been made with six kiddos who light up when Matt walks in the door, and follow him around from room to room, talking...talking.  Six kiddos who find moments when mom is cooking or folding clothes or bouncing the baby or driving to lessons or school or playdates or church and talk and share and listen, too. Laughing any chance we can. 

It's been stretching for every single one of us, an unplanned-for mission field everyone has been participating in with our very lives and rooms and stuff and time and energy. Overall a journey we never would have said yes to, especially not right now...and yet one day at a time, faced with walking in what has felt like "His way", here we are, and as Ben says to everyone with his telltale grin, "I've got a LOTTA sisters!"

So if you're one of the many saying, "wait a minute...seven?" or one of the strangers stopping to ask, "are they all yours?"

The answer today, all the hoops and hards aside as we work to be just-today faithful, is yes.

The answer for the tomorrows is all His....just like, I guess, it has ALWAYS been.