Rich in Love: When God Rescues Messy People (9 page)

chapter 7

Joseph and Alfred

1987

Over the years Esther’s joy and laughter transformed us despite her challenging health issues that demanded constant attention. Honestly, we didn’t mind.

But her presence made us wonder how many other children were out there who needed to be loved and cared for.

When she turned five, we decided that being the center of attention probably wasn’t good for her, so we thought about adopting another child. And then our pastor preached on James 1:27: “Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world” (
NIV
).

Being simple people and believing the Bible literally, we felt that through this verse God was encouraging us to pursue the adoption of more children. However, we believed that something this big needed to be a united family decision. Not only were Domingo and I growing spiritually, but our sons were as well, so we knew we could trust their input.

We asked our sons what they thought about us adopting a little boy. They were concerned that we had our hands full with Esther’s health issues and mental challenges and wouldn’t be able to give another child enough attention. But they agreed we all needed to pray about it.

Within the week, both boys came to us separately and said we should pursue adopting another child. Soon our kitchen table was again covered with papers as we filled out the lengthy applications. Since God had shown us over and over that he would hold our hands and guide us through the difficulties of a special-needs child, this time we stated on our application that we would take the child with the most needs. With excitement and anticipation, the four of us began to pray for our son who we hadn’t yet met.

A few months later we got a call from our social worker. She told us she had a six-year-old boy—but there was a catch. She invited us to come to her office where she could discuss the situation more easily.

I was both excited and scared. I kept reminding myself that whatever the problem, this child was God’s gift and he was going to be our son.

When we arrived at the social worker’s office, she seated us, then took her own seat behind her desk. She seemed a little nervous, hesitant to tell us the issue. She placed her hands on top of a file. “Well. There are
two
boys. Brothers who are currently in separate foster homes.”

My breath caught.
Two!
Lord
, I said silently,
we said we’d take any child, but we never said two!

The social worker went on to tell us that the older boy, Joseph, was nine and had often been in charge of his six younger siblings because their mother would disappear for days at a time. He’d go out at night, searching for food he could steal or scrounge for his siblings.

Eventually the mother rounded up all the children and took them to the county office, where they were put in a room and given something to eat. The mother said she couldn’t take care of them anymore and did not want them to go to any family members. Then she left the children without saying good-bye.

The children were split up and put into separate foster homes. Joseph went into a rage—not because his mother had left, but because he was torn from his brothers and sisters. He screamed and cried and begged. And he vowed he would find them.

As the social worker spoke, my heart broke for this little boy. His fierce spirit reminded me of the young boy who had been so determined to care for those he loved that he married his pregnant girlfriend.

Joseph hadn’t found most of his siblings. But he had discovered that his six-year-old brother, Alfred, lived a couple of miles away. So at night Joseph would walk the two miles through an old farming community—which was dark and quite dangerous—to read a book to Alfred so he could go to sleep.

“You can see why we’d really like to keep these boys together.” The social worker sat back in her chair and looked at us, waiting. I was so fearful that I wanted to bolt. Thoughts swirled through my mind, making it hard for me to think. As afraid as I was, how could we say no? How could we separate them? I knew what God wanted from us—obedience. And I needed to trust him. To take his hand for the difficult journey ahead.

Joseph had dark black hair and cheeks like a chipmunk; he looked a bit like Mowgli from
The Jungle Book
. He had a sly, smug smile that made me wonder what he was thinking. He held his head high and exuded so much confidence, behaving much like a grown man in a short body.

He had been staying with a wonderful foster family. They had gone out of their way to get him and his little brother together when they could. And when Domingo went to collect Joseph, he filled the truck bed with Joseph’s belongings.

When we got to Alfred’s foster home to pick him up, the family was eating a nice, big dinner that smelled delicious. But Alfred sat at a small table by himself, eating beans. As we left, the foster mother handed me a paper sack with Alfred’s clothes—one old shirt and a pair of torn shorts. Yet I saw closets full of clothes for the other kids in the house.

Our older boys, now eighteen and sixteen, warmly welcomed their little brothers, were kind to them, and loved on them. Everything went reasonably well the first night until we put Alfred in the tub to bathe him. He began screaming and couldn’t be calmed. Later we found out that his foster family had put him in a tub of hot water to punish him.

In a short time I became aware that I was in over my head. Alfred and Joseph were a handful—wild, out-of-control, rambunctious, bratty little boys.

Joseph was especially difficult for me to even consider loving. He had every bad habit I could imagine. He was so strong willed. He could—and did—stuff a double cheeseburger into his mouth in one shove. He decided he was in charge of our household and tried to run it, no matter how many times we told him we were the parents and we were in charge. At the time I didn’t consider that this behavior was a sign of a lack of trust. He didn’t trust that we would take care of him and his brother. After all, aside from his short time with the temporary foster family, neglect was all he’d ever known.

One day he got into trouble at school. I told him that when his dad came home he would have to tell him what he had done. It was the first time I saw Joseph struggle. The rest of the day he didn’t smile, and he picked fights with the other kids. He even got mad at his brother, who he usually guarded and protected.

When Domingo got home and I called the kids to dinner, Joseph didn’t come. We looked all over for him, and when we couldn’t find him, we realized he had run away. I felt sick and scared. He hadn’t eaten dinner, and it was so cold out. I breathed a quick prayer: “Dear God, he’s just a little boy.”

The police came to our home. I was scared, and my words seemed stuck in my mouth. Domingo gave the police a picture of Joseph and told them a little about him. I had expected them to judge us, but they surprised me with how kind they were.

It was dark out by the time they left. We couldn’t sit still or think about anything but Joseph. Then the call finally came—they had found Joseph asleep in the neighbor’s trash can.

What? I couldn’t believe it. Asleep in the neighbor’s trash can? What child would do that? I guess he’d had to take care of himself and survive on his own for so long that he was only doing what he’d probably done many times before.

The officer sat down with Joseph and told him he was a lucky boy to have parents who chose to adopt him. He told him there were many kids who weren’t so lucky. He also told him he’d seen his room. “Why would you choose a trash can over that?” the officer asked.

Joseph’s reply chiseled away a piece of the hard shell covering my heart: “I didn’t want my dad to be mad at me.”

After the police left, I felt like such a failure. There was so much work to do, in Joseph as well as in me. I didn’t know how to handle this boy. The shame I felt was unbearable. The incident also brought to light the truth that I didn’t really love him. But how could that be? Wasn’t I his mom? Why didn’t I have emotions for him?

When you raise a child from infancy, you have a variety of good memories from which you develop a deep emotional bond with your child. So when that child reaches a difficult life stage, you sort of have a credit in your emotional bank to draw from, enabling you to get through it. But when you adopt older children, you don’t have those sweet memories that have built up a savings account of overflowing, unconditional love. You have only negative behavior that needs constant attention and correction.

I got so discouraged by the way I felt toward Joseph that I often got on my knees and cried to God to help me love this child. I even called my husband at work, crying and in deep despair—“I’m such a failure as a mom to Joseph. I feel terrible.”

Domingo said, “Irene, you
are
loving him. You are serving him, meeting his needs, and most of all you are sacrificially doing all you can to teach and train him. That is agape love, the love God requires of you. After a while the emotion will come.”

I knew this was true because God had showed me this in my marriage to Domingo. I had gone from hate to love and respect. The only way I could see to get through this was to love Joseph with Christ’s love. To persevere.

I hung up, taking Domingo’s words to heart, and decided to wait on God. Even so, it was no easy task. I had to frequently remind myself that Joseph was the boy who had run away because he had gotten into trouble at school. He was the crazy kid who had slept in a trash can. That Alfred was the little boy abandoned by his mother, separated from his siblings, and scalded as a form of punishment.

The boys adjusted to our home and schedule quickly. I give a lot of credit to our sons Vincent and Anthony for that. They loved their little brothers and showed them the ropes, encouraging them and guiding them to the right thing when they did something wrong.

Alfred had a smile that stretched from ear to ear. He was like a Mexican jumping bean. Always moving, jumping, and running—most of the time away from me. He would steal, then look at me with bright eyes and say, “Never saw it, never touched it.” Then later we’d find the object in his pocket. He was like one of the Little Rascals—filled with so much mischief. When thinking about him, I could only use the word
híjole
to describe him. It’s a Spanish word loosely translated, “Is this for real? Holy guacamole!”

Alfred and Esther were the same age and got along really well. They got into a lot of mischief together, and as most siblings do, they’d get into scuffles as well. As tiny as Esther was, she stood her ground. Soon Alfred knew how far he could push her, and he’d go right to the edge of that line.

It was great to see Esther’s social skills progressing now that she had a sibling her age. Even if fighting was a part of that progress.

Alfred followed Joseph everywhere and did whatever Joseph asked him to do. He was like Joseph’s personal slave, and Joseph loved it. He liked to parent Alfred. After all, he was used to being “dad” to all his siblings.

Eventually Alfred started to make up his own mind about things and started telling his brother no. This infuriated Joseph. He didn’t want to release Alfred to us and let us parent him. He wanted all the control over his brother. Yet as hard as he was on Alfred, it warmed my heart to see how soft he was with Esther. He protected her like a guard dog and even rebuked Alfred if he so much as looked at her cross-eyed.

chapter 8

Marie, Felix, and Doreen

For twenty-four years Domingo had worked for his brother-in-law in the automotive shop and was the corporate vice president. But ever since he quit drinking and going to the races, things had changed. He was no longer part of the inside jokes, the socializing after work. After his alcoholic sister’s death from cirrhosis of the liver, things were different between him and his brother-in-law. Domingo was seeing more situations where he was being asked to do things against his convictions. He had made a promise to obey God and not man, so he knew he couldn’t stay. He had been promised many benefits as a long-term employee, but he walked away from it all to stand by his convictions.

A few months later he started his own automotive and machine shop. It was small, but it was ours. The good news was that it was doing well. The bad news was that Domingo was working day and night again, leaving me to care for the five children by myself. These two young boys especially needed to spend time with their dad, but it wasn’t possible.

A year passed, and the boys were settling in a little more all the time. They certainly were not easy, but God was faithful to give us the strength and endurance we needed. They had so many bad habits but were making forward progress in small steps. Both boys loved sports, and each had one in which he excelled. For Joseph, it was soccer. He was like a prima ballerina on the soccer field, able to manipulate the ball from foot to foot and kick it precisely where he wanted it to go. I’d never seen such a young boy control a ball with so much grace and finesse. It was so beautiful to watch, it took my breath away. He was a natural, and many coaches in the community wanted him on their teams. He eventually made the elite club soccer team—the one he’d hoped to join. We were all so excited for him and proud of him.

Alfred, on the other hand, excelled at gymnastics, especially the floor exercise. This was no surprise, considering he was my little Mexican jumping bean. Now instead of jumping up and down, he was doing backflips everywhere. He was this goofy little kid who loved to be in the air instead of on the ground.

Life was busy, but I didn’t mind. I knew we were doing God’s work, and that’s all that mattered to me.

Then I received a call at work from Joseph’s former social worker. “Irene,” he said, “I have an emergency. We have a twelve-year-old girl who was molested in her foster home and needs to leave right away. She has a fourteen-year-old brother who also needs to be placed.”

I couldn’t believe he was dumping this on me while I was at work. What I wanted to say was “Are you kidding me? Why don’t you call someone else?” Instead, I said with a calmness I didn’t feel, “I’ll talk it over with Domingo and get back to you.”

“I need to know right away. So if you can call me before nighttime, I’d appreciate it.”

I hung up, already knowing what my answer was going to be. Who would take a twelve-year-old girl and a fourteen-year-old boy? Only crazy people. And we weren’t
that
crazy.

I asked my assistant to rinse my client’s hair while I called Domingo. My knees shook, and my stomach went sour. I didn’t want any more kids. “Why us, Mingo? Our hands are full. Can’t they call someone else?”

Domingo answered in his calm, confident way with a question of his own. “What do you think God wants us to do?”

So many times we are at a crossroads in life. We can choose the easy path and miss out on God’s blessings. Or we can take the hard path, knowing that Jesus is leading the way. My first thought, my strongest desire, was to choose the easy path. I had three adopted kids. I was doing enough—more than most people I knew. I wanted to argue with Domingo. To remind him how difficult our life already was. How adding two more kids with great needs would pull us under.

“Irene, these kids need a family.”

It was as though someone had thrown ice water on me, and I came to my senses. I knew the right thing to do. I knew without a doubt what God was asking. I called the social worker and told him our decision.

As I cut my client’s hair, her voice faded to the background as I became absorbed in my own conflicting thoughts. Many Christians, rather than spurring us on to care for the orphans, had told us not to take in any more children. I was amazed and saddened that I was more concerned about what people would think of me than about the task God had given me to do.

But how could we say no to God? We didn’t need a divine revelation about whether to take in these siblings; we already knew God’s will through James 1:27. The verse didn’t tell us to take in only a certain number of orphans. Or to pray about whether we had enough resources. The verse said to care for them. Period. Our prayers were for God to give us the courage to obey his word. We asked him to hold our hands and take us through this journey ahead.

When the kids arrived later that day, my heart broke. The girl, Marie, seemed to shrink into herself. She was dressed sloppily and all in black, keeping her head so low her hair hid her face. When I got her to look me in the eyes, I could see how pretty she was. I wanted to hold her and love on her, but there was a coolness about her that made me keep my distance. She seemed so compliant and beaten down. I knew this young girl had suffered her share of hardships, but she obviously had such a sweet spirit that I knew I could eventually win her over. She needed to be loved with a real love. All she’d known was a “love” from her birth mom who preferred drugs to her daughter.

Her brother, Felix, on the other hand, strutted up to the front door as though he was somebody important with his own entourage trailing along behind. He looked through the door, checking everything out, as though deciding whether this house was good enough for him to set foot in. Then he walked right past me as though I was invisible and said to no one in particular, “Where’s my room?”

I moved to stand in front of him. “In my home you will need to acknowledge me.”

His chin tipped up and he said, “I don’t have to do anything I don’t want to. I have a lawyer, and I have rights.”

My blood curdled. I wanted to get in his face and scream at him, “Get out now!” Thankfully, the Spirit controlled my anger. Instead, I said, “That’s fine. You can take your rights, your lawyer, and yourself right out of our home. In this house I have the right to ask you to leave.”

He backed down, defiance still written all over his face.

Joseph and the other kids watched from a distance. Alfred and Esther were excited and anxious to meet them. Joseph, watching every move the older boy made, became very protective of me.

Once I showed Felix to the room he would share with Joseph, I retreated to my room and closed the door behind me, fearful, trembling, and crying.

Within a few days of dealing with the new kids, I became aware of how far Joseph and Alfred had come. Joseph was learning to trust us and relinquish his role as the one in charge. He was enjoying being a normal kid.

A few months later, Marie and I were in the car together, listening to Christian talk radio. The topic? “Staying Pure for Your Mate.”

Marie began to squirm, her brows drawing together. “Do you think God loves girls who aren’t pure?”

Her point-blank question surprised me. She had been so closed that I didn’t expect such an open question. I wanted to cry. This girl had been sexually assaulted and used, feeling guilt that didn’t belong to her but to those who had stolen her innocence and purity.

I pulled the car over, then said a quick prayer in my head as I turned off the engine. I began to gently share with her that God loves us even when we aren’t pure. I explained that with the gift of salvation, Jesus makes us all pure again.

Together we prayed, and she asked him to forgive her of all she had done and to be the one who guided her life.

After the amen, she began to share her past with me. I’d known very little, but now I knew the larger story. No child should have to endure all she did—and all because her birth mom was an addict who used her children to help her get drugs.

Marie and Felix had been with us about a year when the social worker contacted us to say that their nine-year-old sister, Doreen, needed a home. The social worker was unusually honest and straightforward about Doreen’s issues. Since most social workers downplayed the issues of the children they were trying to place, when she told us Doreen was wild, rebellious, and mean, we knew she was really, really bad.

There were so many reasons to say no. We were knee-deep in muck already. Domingo was still working long hours. I was doing most of the childcare for six children alone. And yet my heart reached out to this little girl.

What was I thinking? Did I think we could save the world one child at a time?

When we brought it up to the family, Felix and Marie begged us to take in their little sister. Felix tried to convince us to take her by offering to help us in any way he could to teach her the rules of our home. He seemed confident that she would listen to him and that he would be able to influence her. Now this was a boy who was very self-centered, so this really touched my heart. Sadly, we would soon learn that this little wild child listened to no one—not even Felix!

By now Felix was doing pretty well—better than we had expected. He still had a mouth on him, but at least he was trying, and I didn’t want to mess that up by bringing in his difficult sister.

But once again, how could we say no to God? The house we lived in was God’s home. Shouldn’t it be filled with orphans?

Before climbing into bed that night, Domingo and I prayed, but this time my prayers were different—“Lord, please take away my fear. Forgive me for the doubts in my heart. Show me your way, O Lord.”

And then Domingo prayed. “Thank you, Lord, for the opportunity to serve you. Spend us until we are totally dependent on you. Bring us the trials that perfect us and draw us nearer to you.” (Oh, how my husband had been transformed, becoming my spiritual leader and an example not only to me but to many.)

As I waited for sleep to come, I thought about the apostles. What had they thought when Jesus said, “Follow me,” asking them to leave everything they’d known? Later, when they really understood what they’d said yes to, had they felt it was unfair that their lives had changed so dramatically in one day? Had they ever resented that no one else was asked to give up all they had?

For Domingo and me, ever since we had become Christians—truly wanting to make Jesus the Lord of our lives—our lives were continually changing. At times the pace was so fast it was hard to keep up. During those seasons I would get on my knees and plead with God, “Fill me up, Lord, so that I have the ability to do your will.”

The words in Isaiah 40:30–31 came to me, bringing comfort and hope: “Even youths will become weak and tired, and young men will fall in exhaustion. But those who trust in the L
ORD
will find new strength. They will soar high on wings like eagles. They will run and not grow weary. They will walk and not faint.”

Doreen

The day came for Doreen to arrive. My stomach churned as I waited. I knew this would be tough for our family. It seemed that just as we were settling in with one set of kids, more would come and upset the relative calm place we’d reached.

Despite what the social worker had told us, I wondered if Doreen would have a sweet spirit like her sister. Her foster mother had told me she liked to dress and act like a boy, and so she treated Doreen like one.

Marie shared with me that Doreen had lived in a bad environment with her birth dad, who was a heroin addict. I knew that out of such an environment there were sure to be many disturbing stories, but I believed that with God’s wisdom and help we would get through the obstacles that we’d encounter.

Doreen was a beautiful girl. Her eyes sparkled with an amazing green and yellow color. When the social worker introduced us, Doreen looked me straight in the eyes, clearly displaying not a confident respect, but rather defiance and a very strong will. I was taken aback somewhat and felt a shudder run through me.

As her foster mother had warned, Doreen was dressed like a boy. When she came in the house, she could see through the back window that the other kids were swimming. In a flash she stripped off her top, kicked off her high-tops, ran outside, and jumped into the pool.

Time stopped. Everyone was in shock, including the kids in the pool. I was not only stunned but mortified as well. I unfroze myself and dashed out the door. I couldn’t catch my breath quickly enough to tell her to get some clothes on.

It was then I understood that this beautiful, wild creature really thought she was a boy.

For school I bought her clothes more suitable for a girl. She left the house looking cute, got to school, and immediately slipped into the bathroom to change into the boy clothes she had brought with her to our home—Levi’s, Nike high-tops, and T-shirts.

One day the principal called and asked me to come to the school right away. When I got there, Doreen was sitting in his office, the defiant look confidently on her face, her arms crossed against her T-shirt-clad chest. Her teacher sat in another chair, looking beat.

The principal pointed to the only vacant chair in the small room. “Please have a seat, Mrs. Garcia.”

I knew by the look on the principal’s face that this was not going to be a pleasant meeting. He leaned forward, took a deep breath, and said, “Doreen is going to be expelled for her actions, so we need to discuss which school you would like her transferred to. She is nothing but trouble, and I don’t want her in my school anymore.”

I knew this girl was no angel, but I had no idea what she’d done to deserve expulsion and told the principal so.

He proceeded to give me a list of offenses, ticking them off on his fingers. “She mouths off to her teacher and leaves the classroom without permission. The teacher cannot handle her. This isn’t the first time. It happens frequently. Today she beat up a boy for calling her a girl. That’s the last straw. The other kids are afraid of her.”

I stared at him, astounded and angry. “How long has this been going on? Why wasn’t I told any of this before?”