Rich in Love: When God Rescues Messy People (17 page)

Kurt court

Kurt’s visits with his parents didn’t get any better. We saw the pain in his life and the disconnection from his parents. Every part of me wanted to bring this boy in and wrap him in the safety of a home with two parents who cared about him. Domingo had talked with George, and George certainly wanted Kurt to stay.

I must admit I had the attitude that I could do a better job with these kids than their parents. How arrogant is that? I had to continue to remind myself that I was a caretaker, not a parent. I was only a stand-in until the parents could get back on their feet. But what about when the parents didn’t see they’d done anything wrong or harmful to their children? Should we hand the kids back over as though nothing had happened?

“Oh, Lord,” I prayed, “show us what we need to do.”

Adopting Kurt was a battle. It seemed like everywhere I turned, there was something I had to deal with. I tried to work with his social worker, but she was never around. She’d promise to come, then not show up. There was some glitch in the process, and his mom was given another six months to comply with the court order. I finally spoke to our social worker and asked her to help, and she got us a hearing before the judge.

The judge was not impressed with the mom. When he found out she had let Kurt’s teeth rot, he lit into her. “Why did you not take him to the dentist?”

“Well,” she started to explain, “I hate dentists and have a real fear of them. I didn’t want him to go through the pain I did.”

The judge fumed and rebuked her. “But you let him suffer the pain of rotten teeth? How is that better than going to a dentist?” It also came out that although Kurt had been enrolled in speech therapy, his mom never took him.

When the social worker asked Kurt what he wanted, he said he didn’t want to go home with his parents. He told everyone who would listen that he hated them and wanted to be with us. One evening when it was Kurt’s turn to pray before dinner, he prayed in his struggling but determined voice, “Please keep my dad in jail, and send my mom there too!” We about choked but then gently explained that some prayers need to be prayed in private.

Domingo and I try to teach these kids to honor their parents. It’s tough, considering who the parents are and what they’ve done, but God doesn’t make a distinction about which parents to honor. He just says, “Honor your father and mother.” Period. One way we do that is to encourage the children to forgive their parents and pray for their salvation.

After a long fight, Kurt became ours in January 2007. He seemed to grow fearless overnight. He shone with an aura of self-assurance. He could pucker his lips at the slow drop of a hat. The diagnosis of intellectually disabled turned out to be wrong. He
is
autistic and has physical disabilities, but he’s also intellectually smart—in fact, he’s brilliant. This twelve-year-old boy reads at a high school level, writes well, and has a photographic memory. He is a walking encyclopedia.

As I watch Kurt play basketball, his feet and arms all going in different directions as he runs, I am reminded of the beauty of innocence. He has the biggest smile on his face and has no idea that he’s different from the rest of the kids. But that’s what makes him special.

There was a time when my heart would ache as I watched my disabled children trying to fit in with the kids around them. But now I praise God for my special blessings. Many might say a disabled child is God’s mistake. But being a mother of many disabled kids, I can share that they are truly God’s blessings, not his mistakes. I know that my children were perfectly created, because I know the hands of their Creator. Psalm 139:14–15 says, “I will give thanks to You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; wonderful are Your works, and my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from You, when I was made in secret, and skillfully wrought in the depths of the earth” (
NASB
).

Each one of my children, no matter how different, was created for a purpose, and that purpose is to glorify our King.

chapter 17

Mac and Tony

Just a few months after Raymond’s and Samantha’s adoptions, and at the tail end of our fight for Kurt, Domingo called me at work to tell me that the agency had a short-term placement of a two-year-old boy who had overdosed on his mom’s drugs. Well, we had our fifteen-passenger van and were just finishing the addition. Excitement filled my heart. God was filling our home.

When I got home, the kids raced up to me and spilled the information about this boy. They told me that the boy’s name was Mac and that Domingo was giving him a bath. The girls chattered on about how cute he was, and the boys reported that he didn’t sit up and play.

When I walked into the room, all I could think was,
That’s a
very
big boy
. This boy was a chubba-wubba, weighing over forty pounds. I said hello to him, and he looked into my eyes with no expression—not even fear. This boy didn’t know me, he had never been in our home, yet he sat in the tub expressionless. He reminded me of Rose when she had arrived with meth in her system.

A normal two-year-old in a strange environment will scream and cry for his mommy. Not only did this boy not make a sound, but when I reached out to take him from the bath, he didn’t resist. I put my hands under his arms to pick him up and almost fell into the tub with him! He was so stinking heavy—he didn’t put his legs around me or help in any way like a toddler usually does. He just hung there. The moment I had him in my arms, he dropped his gigantic head against my chest, knocking the air out of me. It felt as if someone had punched me as hard as they could.

Mac was a pretty easy child because he couldn’t walk or even sit very well, so we didn’t worry about him getting into trouble. We thought his poor motor skills were because of the drugs he had taken. We later found out that Mac’s mom confined him in a really small space so he wouldn’t move. Her reasoning was that she moved around a lot, so he needed to be caged in. This little baby had not experienced the freedom of walking and running.

His mom made sure Mac had plenty to eat. But it was usually Trix cereal or an extralarge pizza to share with his sister. It didn’t take an intellect to figure out that this kind of food and no exercise makes for a big, big boy!

It was no easy task to get Mac walking. With all the girls oohing and gooing at him, he eventually got to his feet—but he wasn’t very steady. Mac was wobbly on his feet for a really long time and needed to hold someone’s hand.

When I picked him up, he still hung as though he had no muscle tone. We couldn’t get him to talk, and he never cried. He could fall hard and we wouldn’t hear a peep out of him. We’d find bruises and cuts on his body like you’d find on any normal toddler, but we had no idea when or how he got them since he didn’t make a sound.

When I think of babies, I think,
Cry, eat, cry, change, cry
. The only time we saw any emotion from Mac was when I changed his diaper. He kicked, fought, hit, and let out skin-tingling wails. I am not a wimp and am very strong willed. But changing Mac’s diaper was like wrestling an alligator. I’m no fool. I asked Domingo for help. Surprisingly, Mac let Domingo change him without a fight. It only made sense for Domingo to take over diapering Mac.

As time went on, it became obvious that Mac was mentally delayed as well as physically delayed. His mom had reported that he was a normal two-year-old who began walking at one. That didn’t make sense based on what we saw. One afternoon I took him to his evaluation with his birth mom and a psychologist. His mom told us that Mac had climbed onto the counter, gotten her bag of drugs from a cabinet, and ate them. She said she called the paramedics right away. When the paramedics arrived, Mac wasn’t breathing.

Something about the story didn’t ring true to me.

After she told us her version of what happened, the psychologist gave the mom and me the same questionnaire to fill out separately. When we finished, she compared our answers. They were so different that it looked like we couldn’t possibly be assessing the same child.

The mom sat there and looked at the psychologist and said emphatically, “Mac is a normal little boy. He did everything on schedule that he’s supposed to.” The psychologist nodded.

It was hard enough sitting in this room with a woman who had picked up her baby’s arm while he was unconscious, let it drop like dead weight onto the table, and laughed in front of the paramedics. But watching the psychologist agree with her that her kid was normal just about did me in. I was getting angrier by the minute. I wanted to shake them both and shout, “Wake up, you idiots! This boy is
not
normal. He can’t talk, I have never heard him cry, and he still walks with sea legs.” People say I’m such a patient woman. It’s not true. I’m not patient; it’s just that the Holy Spirit has taught me to keep my mouth shut! So instead of saying all the things I really wanted to, I settled for a controlled but firm “No way!”

The psychologist asked more questions and finally conceded that there was a strong possibility of brain damage because of the overdose.

Then it hit me—
bam!
Maybe he
had
been normal before this incident. And he’d still be normal if he’d not eaten his mother’s drugs. This mother had abused her baby and felt no remorse over what she had caused. Instead, she was trying to make me look crazy and overzealous about this boy. The same emotions I’d had when I was told George had cancer swept through me, and my biggest enemy—fear—took command of every part of my being. The reality was that this boy could never be normal, and he was going to be our responsibility. Such information would put a normal person in shock, but I went into overload because of my fear. It was too much. Then I heard someone say, “Mrs. Garcia,” and my mind returned to the room.

After much testing, Mac was diagnosed as intellectually disabled. This didn’t surprise us at all. Another mystery was solved when the doctors told us he had a disease called pica. This meant he’d eat anything and everything. He ate Legos, cars, blocks, balls, and dirt. Once he could get around better he ate anything he could reach in the cupboards. We had to watch this boy like a hawk. It got to the point where we had to lock our pantry. It didn’t matter to us that he
ate
food; the problem was that he
ate it all
. Whole loaves of bread, blocks of cheese, bags of chips. If someone had a snack hidden anywhere, believe me, he would find it and eat it.

We bought some open panels that could be turned into an extralarge playpen. We put his toys in it, and he would stay in there and play happily. When he started getting better at walking, Domingo took him wherever he went; all this boy wanted was to be with Domingo. He stuck like glue to Domingo’s side and became very possessive, not wanting to share him with the other kids.

We were told that Mac was probably going back to his mom. I knew that Domingo, in his heart, wanted to adopt Mac. I wasn’t so sure about adopting him. I kept thinking we might have only twenty years left if God was gracious. This boy needed young parents who would be around for a long time, which was something Domingo and I couldn’t give.

March 2007

One night I was lying in bed, thinking. Even though Domingo really enjoyed Mac and Mac was attached to Domingo and learning so much from him, the little boy would be leaving soon. Without him, our family would feel incomplete. I woke Domingo and asked him how he’d feel about taking in a hard-to-place little boy, one no one else wanted. After all our years of marriage, he knew that when I felt something unusual and unexpected, something that made no sense, it had to be the Spirit. When the Spirit prompts, no matter how radical it seems, Domingo and I have learned to respond with
yes
. There are times things don’t turn out the way we think they should. But even then we learn a valuable lesson that helps us later on in life. So when I woke him with this odd thought, his response was quick: “Let’s do it.” From that point on we began praying specifically for a hard-to-place little boy.

When I shared our desire with others, I knew they thought I was off my rocker. At times I felt that way too, but I also knew I had to trust the prompting of the Spirit no matter how kooky it seemed.

A few days after we told our social worker, we got a call about a little boy who had been in
seven
placements! He was ready and available now, which was not the norm. She said he had been in adoption placements twice, but both families backed out.

This was curious. When a child reaches a potential home, it’s because the parents really want the child as their own, so they work hard to resolve issues. If
two
families had him in their homes with the commitment to adopt, and
both
backed out—I thought,
Whoa, we are on our way to a new and wild adventure
. What I didn’t know was that the adventure would soon turn into a nightmare.

The social worker brought the boy over to meet us. Tony was pretty cute and had a great personality, dark skin, and big brown eyes. The thing that captured us from the first moment was his smile—it spread from ear to ear and lit up the room. To this day we refer to him as Smiley. No matter how bad things got, he would always smile. He would get in trouble and lie … but still have this gigantic smile on his face.

Almost five-year-old Tony played with some toys in another room as the social worker proceeded to share his story. His birth mom drank and took drugs during her pregnancy. He was first taken away from her when he was about two. Then he was given back to his mom before being given to his grandma. Apparently his mom wanted him to grow up and be in a gang, so she beat him to make him tough.

The next six placements all gave their seven-day notices, which means, “I want this kid out of my house now!” The last family had him for a year. I wondered how someone could have a child for that long and not want to adopt him. I figured he was so out of control that no one wanted him. But maybe, I thought, no one wanted him because he really belonged to us. Somehow, in my crazy thinking, this helped soften the thought of such a cantankerous and defiant boy.

Smiley was a product of the system. He had a social worker who made excuses for him and blamed others for his bad behavior. He came to us a month shy of turning five. This boy thought that he could tell us all what to do and we would listen. He was mean, foulmouthed, destructive, combative, quarrelsome, hot tempered, and sneaky; he kicked, hit, bit, stole, was abusive to animals, and was a skilled liar. The bottom line was, Smiley was angry. Not only had his mom rejected him, but so had seven other families. He was so angry he just wanted to hurt someone. He thought we wouldn’t keep him either. So this boy did everything he could to sabotage his life with us. And even though all his bad behaviors were documented, nothing helped us when he lied about us.

Well, I had to admit, God had answered our prayers. He brought us a boy who was hard to place, a boy no one else wanted.

On Tony’s fifth birthday he was officially placed in our home. We had presents waiting for him to celebrate his birthday. After he had been in our home for two weeks, he had already caused much chaos, division, and hurt to our family. We knew he was a gift from God, so we would not give up—though many times I admit the thought occurred to me that I should return this gift because it didn’t fit and I really didn’t like it at all!

“What were you thinking?” I said, upset. “Why did you hit your brother?”

He looked me square in the eyes and said in the sweetest voice, “I didn’t hit him. What are you talking about?”

“I saw you hit him.”

“No, I didn’t,” he said with a huge smile on his face.

A combination of disbelief, fury, and exasperation over not knowing what to do flooded me. So I did what most irrational people do—I started shouting at him.

The other kids all shouted at the same time: “Yes, you did.” “He hit him, Mom.”

Tony’s smile stayed on his face as he said, as sweet as can be, “I didn’t hit him. They’re all lying.”

I picked him up, carried him into the house, and sat him on a chair.

He glared at me and said, “I’m going to call my social worker.”

“You’re going to sit there and tell me the truth.”

He refused to budge. There wasn’t a whole lot I could do. The system really ties our hands as foster parents. As a consequence, we’re allowed to give children one minute of time-out per year of age. Five minutes of time-out was nothing for this kid. He continued to lie and hit the other kids, so we had to separate him from them by keeping him by our sides. However, every time we gave him grace or trusted him, he would hurt one of the kids again. Man, this little boy was tough. As you can imagine, we were continually on our knees, asking for wisdom.

We really didn’t want to say this, but we finally told our kids they could defend themselves if we weren’t there. But they still needed to come and get us right away if there was a problem.

Shortly afterward the kids were outside playing, and Tony kicked Rose in the face. George immediately pushed him away from her. From then on, my kids stuck together and protected one another from him, defending themselves until we got there.

I knew God wouldn’t give us more than we could handle, but it seemed like he was taking us to the point where we might break. We had to trust God for wisdom because we knew he wanted us to keep this boy.

One particularly tough time was when his social worker dropped in for a visit. All the social workers we had worked with before would call ahead of time to schedule their visits. So I was taken by surprise when this woman showed up. It was incredibly inconvenient because I had three appointments that day, including another worker coming over.

She shrugged. “I don’t have to schedule an appointment to come visit my cases,” she said in a tone that irritated me.

“That’s fine, but I need to be leaving shortly,” I told her. My tone wasn’t much better than hers.

“I would like to meet with Tony alone, please.”

I thought this was strange, but I showed her his room. They were inside for a long while. When she came out, she told me she knew this boy’s family, that they were doing well and he should be with them. That didn’t make sense because he’d been in adoptions for a long time, but I said nothing. I was glad when she left.