Month: August 2017

Umoja Speech – Given at the Umoja Gala dinner in Schaumberg, IL  on July 1, 2017

August 25, 2017

As usual, I don’t know where to start.  Did I write about graduation?  That seems like ages ago already.

Roshan and Isa graduated from William Allen High School in June.  It was pretty awesome!

Shortly after that Ghani, Hedayat, Nolan and I headed to Chicago area for the big Umoja soccer tournament.  This is an annual soccer tournament that is put on to bring together Shia people from around the US, Canada and Europe.  The trip was quite an adventure for all of us.

We stayed about 15 minutes from where Nolan grew up in Elgin and got to see some old family friends.  (We had amazing deep dish pizza and Nolan’s oldest childhood friend took 16 of us out for a super fantastic Afghan dinner.)

Our boys had three friends from Michigan join us, and then two more joined us (so yes, seven boys in a hotel room!).  they were all so happy to be together and they had a great time playing soccer.  Four of the five boys who joined us in IL were new to Nolan and me – and they were just as delightful as the other boys we have met.
Nolan and I took four of the Michigan boys on a sightseeing trip to Chicago.  We went to Navy Pier and took a boat tour.  One of the boys had never been on a boat, and the others had only been on the very scary boat ride that got them from Malaysia to Indonesia – so this was a really great experience for all of them.  We all had so much fun.

It was a fabulous trip, and we were very sad to say goodbye.  So it was a very happy surprise when, the morning after we got home, four of the five Michigan boys showed up at our house in PA at 7 AM.  They were not quite ready for the visit to be over and had a few days more of vacation time from work, so they came for a visit to PA.

It is funny how when we had two boys, and they asked us to take 2 more, we weren’t sure how we could handle it and now we can have seven or eight, and when we are back down to only four, it feels very quiet and lonely.

The eight boys went to the park and played volleyball and soccer – they had a picnic and wanted to camp out at the mountain – something they did a lot growing up in Afghanistan.  They pitched their tent at my parents’ house but eventually decided to sleep at home.   And on the last day of their visit, I took the four Michigan boys on a day trip to NYC and we had a super time.

The program works differently in Michigan.  These guys all come in and spend a year in a group home and then they either go to a host/foster family or into an apartment.  But they don’t have an experience of being part of a family.  Their host/foster families go on vacations without them, they don’t plan their vacations around them.  The boys are more independent when they get to the foster home, so it is a different and more distant kind of relationship.  They don’t have what we have.

So this experience had me feeling a bit like Wendy Darling from Peter Pan – with all the lost boys.  And it feels to me like such a gift to be able to play that part, even a little bit, with these amazing boys.

We were still riding the high from that amazing adventure when a weird and troubling thing happened with our neighbors.  It is a long and weird story – I will try to make it brief.  We were woken at 3:30 in the morning by a police officer who said that our neighbor was outside in the alley screaming for Nolan to come out.  So our behind the alley neighbor was ranting and raving accusing our boys of having thrown a dead opossum at his head at around 8 pm, the previous evening (none of our boys was home at that time and none of them had ever even seen this neighbor, nor had they seen a dead opossum).  The story just got weirder from there with laser pointers and opossums stuck in blinds and us buying the Hess mansion…  The neighbor was obviously having mental health issues and the xenophobia and anti-immigrant  – I am not sure what to call it –  the ugliness that is passing for politics these days combined with the mental illness led to this bizarre encounter.  The police were very nice and were very clear that the neighbor was having mental health issues.  The whole thing was bizarre and unsettling and since then we have not seen our neighbors at all but it is sad that we have to be afraid for our boys’ safety from our neighbors.

Right after this, we were off to the beach at Ocean City, MD.  This year we went with my mom and the Shackelfords, and the Laudens – so there were the four Lauden children, three of our teens and seven adults.  We had a great time and had a really lovely spacious house.  The kids and our boys had so much fun together and I got to go jet skiing for the first time.  I never thought much about it, but I told the boys we would go, so I went and oh-my-gosh-I-had-so-much-fun!  (They are really fast!!!)   We played Uno and dominoes and tried to keep the kids from zoning out on their phones.  We went mini-golfing and sailing and the boys hung out at the boardwalk and my mom and Margaret went grocery shopping every day.  It went too fast.

We had barely unpacked from the beach when Mom and I were off to Dublin, Ohio for the Irish Festival.  The weather was great and it was a good show.  We came back, exhausted, but with not much time to recover.  Things picked up with four gigs in the seven days we have been back and lots of orders to fill and inventory to make.

In the midst of all that it wasn’t too surprising that Nolan and I both forgot our anniversary… thanks to my mom for remembering or we probably wouldn’t have thought of it until next year!  So it was our 9th anniversary and anyone who has known me for a long time will know how amazing that is.  Next year we are planning a big party to celebrate our 10th anniversary.  And no, I don’t really believe it has been that long because I am definitely not that old!

So this email is a bit newsier because I am trying to cover such a long time and so many different things and I apologize for that.

February 2, 2016

Well, it has been quite a fun and busy few months since I last wrote.  It seems so long ago already – Thanksgiving!  We had a lovely first Thanksgiving with the boys, who got to spend quality time with their foster grandparents from Arizona, who visited with us for about a week.  Christmas was a lot of fun – they got to see all of their immediate cousins and other family too.

We had an amazing day in NYC and got to visit with both of our McDermott cousins and our Roper family.  We enjoyed a fantastic Afghani meal, saw Times Square, Rockefeller Center, Grand Central, and quite a few other things that I can’t recall at the moment.  The boys loved it and we are looking forward to going back – preferably on a clearer day.  It was so foggy when we were there that we couldn’t see the Empire State Building, even when we were quite near to it.

Over the holidays we also managed to get to Philadelphia for a day at the Franklin Institute, where we saw the Genghis Kahn exhibit and the Planetarium.  Rounding up our flurry of field trips was a three-day jaunt to DC in January, where we trekked around the city with other cousins, had another amazing Afghani meal, and pretty well museum-ed ourselves out.

We are staying put now for a bit.  The boys have soccer on Friday and Saturday evenings through March and Hedayat (James) is in track, with meets every other weekend and practice pretty much every day after school.  Ghani (Sam) is working on getting his driving permit.  We have had lots of doctor and dentist visits – catching up on things that were let go for quite a long time.

We have had some challenges, as you might imagine.  For Nolan and me, it has been a bit difficult figuring out our responsibilities in relation to LCFS.  We seem to be through the worst of that now; and though we certainly still don’t have all the answers we would like, we are a little bit clearer about which things require permission.  We are also at a point where we need to have regular household chore schedules and rules like curfews and such.  Not that the boys are just out on their own yet, but that will come and it would be better if we had clear expectations before we get there I think.

The boys are doing well in school.  Their English is improving all the time and they are getting more comfortable here.  Slowly they are doing things by themselves, like ordering food or checking out at a store.   There are so many things that we take for granted…  it is humbling.

Recently they got to see democracy in action…  the school board was considering shutting down their school to convert it to an all-day kindergarten.  Nolan and the boys went to a school board meeting and Nolan talked about how valuable the school has been for our boys.  The teachers were all there as well, and ultimately the board decided to find another place for the all day kindergarten, and to leave the Newcomer Academy intact.  It was pretty neat that the boys got to participate in that process.

The boys loved the snow.  They had been asking for quite a while – “when will the snow come?”  So they were quite enthusiastic when it finally got here, and they spent many hours shoveling and snow-blowing.

I am hoping for a few months of relative calm so that I can catch up on some things (accounting, pottery orders, etc.) and maybe even get my office a little bit organized.  Many things are still in a state of at least partial discombobulation after the move.  The projects are endless and it can be overwhelming.  My studio is getting whipped into shape, though.  I will start having a few students and folks who will use the studio to work independently.  Between the pottery and the dip business, I could use an extra 40 hours a week!  I really can’t do it all, and I am not willing to give any of it up, so I am just going to continue to muddle through, dropping balls when I have to and picking them up when I can.

I will update the photo album soon…

https://picasaweb.google.com/111868296699991388114/TheBoys?authuser=0&authkey=Gv1sRgCOuXwZnD2pyC-AE&feat=directlink

March 22, 2016

Things here have been great.  The boys are doing well in school, taking swimming lessons and doing track and soccer.  Ghani started piano lessons.  The boys each won a scholarship to a summer program – Ghani will play tennis and Hedayat will get some dance lessons.  We managed to get them signed up for soccer in the Parkland Soccer Club and the boys met the Allen HS soccer coach, who is keen to have them on the team.  My mother has started tutoring the boys in English.

We are looking forward to a great summer, with a trip to AZ, a week at the beach, and lots of soccer.

I still have too many things to do and not nearly enough time, but that is normal.  We have a bazillion house projects, of course, and all in all, we are all doing pretty fantastic.

So, Wednesday morning I got a call from LCFS – our original caseworker.  She said that they had 2 Hazara boys who had been living in a group home and needed to be placed elsewhere.  Something had happened with some of the other boys and I don’t quite get the story but the Hazara boys were upset by what had transpired and needed a  place to go.  Could we take them?

“Ummmm.  Well….  We do have two extra beds in the guest room… we might have to re-arrange things a bit…  “

“Great, one of us will bring them by this afternoon.”

Uh oh.

Of course, that is a slightly abbreviated version, but pretty much how it went.  We agreed to keep the boys through the end of the school year so as not to disrupt their schooling again.

Oh geez, what did we just do?  The first afternoon/evening was a bit tense.  I was definitely feeling anxious about it and kicking myself for agreeing to this.

The new boys do not care for dogs and while they like soccer, they love volleyball.  They only eat halal, which is extremely inconvenient.  Both Ghani and Hedayat asked me a lot of questions about why Esa and Rashon were here and how long they would stay.  They seemed relieved to hear that the boys were only staying until the end of school.  I assured each of them that we were very happy with the 4 of us as a family and did not want to do anything that would put that happiness at risk.

But yesterday afternoon was better.  The 4 boys seemed more at ease with one another, and I had a nice conversation with the new boys.   Nolan hung out with them for a while before dinner.  We had a very nice St Patrick’s Day dinner at the cabin (with my mother and Bob and Charlie and Margaret).

I have no idea how this is going to work, but these boys have been bounced around quite a bit, so I hope that we can make it work for the next three months without too much trauma (to any of us!).  We are also trying to get some other local families to take on fostering, so these boys will have a good place to go from here.

Unfortunately, LCFS is getting bought out, and we don’t know by whom yet.  They just found out on Wednesday.  So they are not processing new applications for foster parents.  Could this week get any weirder?  The program that we are in will continue under the new ownership/management, and we may very well keep our caseworker, if he gets hired on by the new organization.

Please wish us luck.  I think we need some.

May 2, 2016

It has been a pretty crazy month or so since I last wrote. 

One of the biggest things that happened is that Hedayat(James) talked with his mother.  It had been two years – he hadn’t heard from her since he left Afghanistan, in rather a hurry.  We had been in touch with the Red Cross to try  to locate her, but there had not been any progress that we know of.  It was Facebook that did it.  She found him on Facebook, somehow.

It is a bit of a long story, but here it goes.  Someone made contact with Hedayat/James several months ago via FB message, but it seemed a bit fishy.  A man said that he knew Hedayat’s mom and was a neighbor of hers.  He left a phone number.  We tried calling the number the person gave, but couldn’t get through.  Eventually, Hedayat’s caseworker got a friend in Kabul to call the number, and it turned out to be legit.  The person who answered said the man had moved away, but the person knew Hedayat’s mother.  We tried calling the number again but couldn’t get through.  Then one night, Hedayat got a call from the number and answered the phone, and it was his mom.  It was a pretty intense reunion.  She told him that after he left, their house had been bombed, and she had been injured, but was okay now.  All his siblings are fine.  No word about his father.

I can’t quite imagine what a tremendous relief it must have been for both Hedayat and his mother.  I think the whole world is a good bit brighter for Hedayat now.  He is talking to his mom at least once a week. 

The second big thing is that we expect to be a family of 6 for a while, as in an indefinite period of time.  LCFS is “selling” the foster program to Bethany Ministries.  They don’t know if any of the current staff will be hired on, or if we will have all new people.  It is a very difficult time for the staff at LCFS.  As far as Isa and Roshan go, there are no other homes available, so the only alternative they would have would be to live together in an apartment.  Obviously, that isn’t an acceptable option, so they are staying with us. 

 We got ourselves a proper minivan, so we can all go (with dogs) together.  We also got a hitch (which Ghani/Sam installed, of course) and we got a 4 bike rack for the hitch.  I took the boys to get bicycles at a rather cool used bike shop in a hubcap warehouse in Easton.  So, they each have a bike with lock, helmet, water bottle and now lights. 

On their first bike ride back from soccer practice, Isa fell.  He was wearing his cleats and the shoe slipped off the pedal and down he went.  He rode the rest of the way home, but by the time he walked in the door, his right arm was swollen and it hurt to move it.  So, Nolan dashed off to the ER with Isa.   Our first ER visit – kind of a milestone or something.  Isa was such a trouper!  He was pretty dismayed to hear that it was broken.  Further scans showed that it didn’t need surgery, but he did need to keep it in a cast for about 6 weeks.  No volleyball.  L

Isa and Roshan both seem to be adjusting well at school.  They are anxious to find part-time jobs, so we are working on job applications.  Roshan is a great story-teller and Isa has a wonderful sense of humor and a laugh that is contagious. 

We are dealing with the Halal thing okay.  There is a restaurant supply place that sells quite a bit of Halal meat, so we have a good supply of hotdogs, chicken breast, meatballs and chip steak.  It does make meal planning a bit more challenging for me though.  And I could really go for a pork tenderloin!  J  Going out to eat is rather tricky as well, but we aren’t doing much of that these days anyway.

Ghani/Sam, our straight-A, honor roll, super kid – has gotten into some trouble at school.  It started when his science teacher asked him to bring in a project he had been working on at home.  Ghani brought the project in his little tool bag.  The tool bag contained a utility knife.  The teacher said that knives were not allowed at school and had the office take the knife.  The office kind of flipped out.  Bringing a “weapon” to school is a serious offence, so Ghani was removed from class, searched, and suspended from school.  It was all extremely traumatic.  They were threatening police intervention, permanent expulsion, etc., all the while they were saying that they knew it was just a misunderstanding over what the teacher asked Ghani to bring to school.  We were all (Nolan, Ghani’s caseworker and I) pretty appalled by the way it was handled.  And they went by the book, so there wasn’t a heck of a lot we could do. 

To add insult to injury, Ghani had been having trouble with a new boy at the school, who was bullying and threatening him.  He reported this to the teacher and the school did an intervention kind of thing.  But the bullying didn’t stop.  Finally on Monday last week, Ghani had enough and let the kid know it.  Ghani got suspended again.  Ghani was not too keen to go back to the school, but he did, and he is doing his best to keep up the straight As and make it through the last few weeks of the school year.

The lemonade bit of this story is that during his second suspension, Ghani studied and passed his driver’s permit test.  So now I have a designated driver!  He can go for his driving test on his birthday, August 1st.  In the meantime, I am enjoying being chauffeured around town.

I think that we have made the adjustment to our new family composition pretty well.  All the boys are getting along well.  I am more frazzled than ever, but that isn’t too surprising.  My super cleaning-lady, Sherry, had open heart surgery a couple weeks ago.  She is doing pretty well,  but it is a difficult recovery and she will be out of commission for quite a while.  In the meantime, we are all pitching in a bit to try to keep things going – and I miss her a lot. 

I haven’t spent any quality time in my studio for a while.  The weather started to get a bit warmer, so we are working on the yard.  We got the pond going again – not quite finished, but at least going.  We pulled a pick-up truck load of weeds, dead bushes and such and have hired an old family friend (Casey Wagner) to draw up some landscaping plans for us. 

So there will be 6 of us going to AZ in June.  I think it will be quite an adventure.  Nolan’s folks have risen to the challenge, as usual.  They seem to be taking it in stride.  After the shock of being 6 instead of 4 wears off, the new normal becomes just normal.  J

I have added a bunch more pictures to our online album here:  https://goo.gl/photos/hj5nxUpzB8WjBHhG8

I could not figure out how to sort them so that the new ones are first. 

And our first two boys, Simba and Zorro, seem quite happy to have a few more brothers.  Simba is suffering from a really bad hot spot that was so uncomfortable, he didn’t eat for a day.  (If you know Simba, you know that is a sign that things are really terrible).  He is on 3 medicines now and wearing that awful collar.  He is on the mend, and it will be a few more days till he is feeling himself, I think.  He is definitely less uncomfortable today than he was yesterday.

We are hoping to get in a day trip to NYC before the end of school, but between shows and soccer and birthdays, our weekends are pretty well packed.  The boys did get to see a hockey game (compliments of my brother and his family) which they enjoyed, and we saw a wonderful live show at the 19^th street theater.   

Ghani is taking piano lessons and Hedayat is going to start voice lessons.  All the boys are taking swim lessons – so they will be ready for the pool and the beach this summer.

I am sure there is more but this email is quite long enough already and I have to get to work, so I will sign off. 

August 3, 2016

I don’t know how long it has been since I have written.  The end of school was a whirlwind and then we were off to Arizona and then back, getting summer jobs, and then off for a week at the beach – which was absolutely lovely.  Now we are more or less back into the swing of things at home.

The trip to Arizona was quite an adventure!  It was the week of record-breaking heat – over 120 degrees!  None of us enjoyed that very much, but we did enjoy the swimming pool and great food and company at the LeBlancs’.  We did an overnight in Sedona and an afternoon at the Grand Canyon – both of which were fantastic.  We have a bazillion pictures!  The thing that the boys liked most about that trip, however, was the go cart racing.  J

Back at home, Ghani and Isa went to a tennis camp a few blocks from the house – they both loved it.  Isa’s skill at volleyball translated handily to tennis, so he is evidently a natural with a mean serve.  The Allen High School tennis coach was a teacher at the camp and wanted both Ghani and Isa to join the team – but it is the same season as volleyball, and Isa’s true love is volleyball, so I think the tennis team will only get one of our boys.

After a difficult start with missing paperwork and such, Isa finally started working at Dorney Park.  He is enjoying it very much and has met kids from all over the world who come for the summer to work there.  Isa has been studying for his driving permit test and is ready to go – we have been waiting on the physical form, which is ready, so I will be back at the DMV with Isa for the test.  He is doing great and seems to be enjoying life – he has such a good attitude.

Ghani, Hedayat and Nolan were in NYC for a big soccer tournament from Thursday to Sunday.  It was an adventure – and you can ask Nolan about it when you talk to him.  I have to say, that for a guy who was  about as uninterested in anything related to sports as a person can be, Nolan has turned into a really fabulous soccer dad!  It is fun watching the boys play.

Hedayat is having a bit of a boring summer here at home as the dance camp he won hasn’t materialized.  He is doing okay though – catching up on sleep.  J  We had a bit of a rough time between the Arizona trip and the Beach trip, but things turned around at the beach and since then he has been great.

Ghani has been practicing driving since he got his permit, and is anxious to get his license.  We made the appointment in the beginning of July, and the earliest we could get was August 10^th.  In the meantime, he has started a car detailing business and is looking for customers.  It was an interesting process, helping him get past the initial not knowing how to make it happen.

We run into things like that regularly – behaviors that seem out of place.  There are some aspects that are cultural – having to do with the pressure these boys feel to succeed, since they were the ones who escaped.  They have an obligation to do well for their families. Evidently it is also not common in Hazara culture to view failures as opportunities for learning.  Failures are seen as an end and are avoided whenever possible.  I am finding it deeply rewarding to help these boys learn to take failure in stride, to learn new ways of dealing with challenges.

Since he started working at a warehouse in Breinigsville, Roshan has been a lot happier.  He tends to keep to himself and we have altered our expectations about how much he participates in family activities.  That seems to have made our relationship with him a lot easier.  He is happy to help make dinner and wash dishes, but beyond that, he generally prefers to stay in his room.

These boys were on their own for a while and aren’t used to having to answer to parents, so that can be onerous for them.  We understand that, AND…  the boys also are understanding that living in a family comes with both benefits and obligations.  It’s a work in progress…  I started listening to a book about the teenage brain which has been quite helpful.

It was not an easy adjustment, adding two new kids to our pretty new family of 4.  I did finally get to the point of feeling completely overwhelmed and unprepared and wondering what kind of crazy I am thinking that we could handle taking on 4 teenagers when we had zero parenting experience!  It is regular teenager stuff, I keep reminding myself – staying up late, sleeping all day, not wanting to do chores…  I just wasn’t quite prepared for dealing with that in a situation where we have 4 of them.   Neither of us was.

And somehow we all made it through that rather challenging time and things seem to be on a more even and pleasant course now.  Our schedules are pretty full – that helps.  Keeping them busy is not an easy thing, but it sure makes a difference in the atmosphere and attitudes!  I am excited to have found a summer dance camp for teens for Aug 8-12.  Roshan works during the day, but the other three boys are excited about going.  I am sure it will be fun and interesting.

We are hoping to fit in a lot of fun into the last few weeks of summer.  The boys have a friend coming to visit for 5 days and we will pick him up in NYC and do lots of fun things while he is here – a visit to Dorney, some go cart racing and we’ll see what other fun things we can come up with.

Ghani had a fun 1^st birthday Monday – he wanted to go ice skating, so that is what we did.  Even I put skates on and had a good time!  Then we had a lovely picnic/party at home.  We had nieces and nephews and having the younger kids around really made it feel like a party.  We grew up with these kinds of parties and it is a wonderful feeling for me to be able to create those kinds of warm and fuzzy memories for our boys.  OF course, I forgot all about decorations – but Sherry came to the rescue, as always!

I started writing this on Friday and it is now Wednesday and I have had to change and add things each time I have come back to it.  So today I am going to send it – incomplete as it is.  There is something more I want to say but I am not sure what it is, so it will have to wait until next time.  Our year anniversary is coming up in a month – so I will write again then.

Mom and I are off for a big show in Dublin, OH.  We leave Thursday and return Monday.  We are hoping to bring back lots of “empty boxes of happiness”.  J  (That is what Ghani wishes us for every show.)

Thank you to every one of you for your love and encouragement.  When we start to feel out of our depth and ill equipped for the challenges, the supportive words of our friends and family really do help us get through!

Oh – one more thing…  We have made the switch from LCFS to Bethany.  It has been a bit of a pain as we had to do the whole application process over – background checks, physicals, home inspection, even fingerprints!  We are keeping the same caseworker and so far the only difference we have noticed is that we are no longer allowed to post names of pictures of the boys on social media.  So we can’t tag them or post photos with them, which I find a big bummer.  I have been adding pictures to google photos, so if you have the link, you can see them there.  There are some really good pictures of them in AZ and at the beach.

I will look into finding another way of sharing pictures with friends and family who want to see them, without using social media.  I am also going to figure out how to post these emails on a private blog so that I have them all together in one place.  It will be interesting to see how they evolve over time.

November 2017

It has been such a long time since I last wrote one of these!  I am not sure where to start. 

 I guess I will start with the latest…

 Three of our four boys now have driver’s licenses (yes, our insurance bill has gone up by a heck of a lot)!  Isa just got braces and has recently joined Roshan working at the Kuhnsville Carwash.  Ghani is working for Artists At Heart and still doing the occasional car detailing as well as some odd jobs for friends and family.  Hedayat has not yet expressed an interest in a job, (he has been keeping busy without one!) and isn’t eligible yet as his official age is still 12, though that’s likely to change soon.

 Hedayat participated in winter track; the season just finished last week.  He did very well, earning numerous medals at regional track meets.  He is also attending a hip hop dance class once a week.  All the boys have been going to weekly volleyball practices at the school, waiting for the official volleyball season to start.  Hedayat joined Isa and Ghani at tennis on Sunday afternoons, and all of the boys play indoor soccer on Saturday nights and whenever the weather is nice they get together with team members and practice at the stadium.

 Our big to-do was Christmas.  We had three of the boys’ friends with us for 10 days and it was just one long party!  Talib from Virginia and Rohullah A from Michigan are Isa’s best friends.  They are also Roshan’s friends as they all were in the same shelters in Indonesia.  Rohullah G from Rochester NY is Ghani’s friend, and had already come down to visit us for a few days in the summer.

 As we approached the boys’ arrival, I started to have second thoughts – it’s not that I need anything else to do, you know!  And I was worried about managing everything (this seemed like such a great idea in October!) but as with our plunge into parenthood, this experience was so wonderful and special, and we were so very happy that we had done it.  The boys that came to visit are like brothers, as the experiences they shared in Indonesia are probably similar in their bonding effects to what soldiers feel when they have served together through some of the most difficult times of their lives.

 As you might imagine, having seven teenage boys in the house was wild!  Everyone was so happy and joyful to be together again.  We went all-out for the Christmas celebration, too, so in addition to family gatherings and parties, the boys opened a lot of presents.  Two of them had to buy bigger suitcases to take home!  We took the kids to New York City and Philadelphia, then to finish off the visit, we had a big birthday party on Jan 1st for three of the boys.  January 1 is the default birthday for many people in Afghanistan, as many simply do not record their exact birth date.

 All the boys got along great and they were delightful.  They would stay up “all the night” talking and playing cards and drinking tea.  The night before we were going to NYC I asked the boys to try to get to sleep early as we would be leaving early and I wanted them to enjoy the day.  I woke up in the middle of the night and heard voices from upstairs.  I was feeling pretty angry and went upstairs to give them the “what for”.  When I knocked on the door, they got very quiet first, then apologized.  Isa said that they knew they should go to sleep, and they were trying to go to sleep, but they just couldn’t stop talking.  Needless to say, I couldn’t be angry with them after that.

 When it was over, we were all exhausted and a little sad.  It actually seemed empty in the house with only the 6 of us.  I think it was hardest on Isa and his friends.  We are planning to see them in the summer – but that feels like a distant future. 

 It took quite a while to get back into the swing of things, but we got there.  Isa and Roshan are thinking and worrying about what to do after graduation.  They are both interested in training as residential electricians.  The IBEW has a great apprenticeship program that pays them and provides training so that they get associate’s degrees and become licensed.  But the program is very competitive, so we are looking at options.  The local vo-tech, LCTI, offers programs for adults and it is across the street from the community college, which also offers job training, ESL courses as well as other options.  So, we are heading in that direction.  I suspect that the best course of action would be to do one or two semesters focusing on English language skills, then focus on the job skills training.

 We are feeling sad that Isa doesn’t want to go to a four year college.  He loves sports so much – and he is good at every sport he tries.  Attending a four year school could give him an opportunity to pursue coaching and perhaps even play professional sports.   But he finds school difficult and is not motivated to do a lot of studying.  His experiences of school in Afghanistan were pretty awful, so we understand why he feels less than motivated.  If he understood the language better, it would probably help, but there is only so much we can do to influence him or to affect his situation.  He wants to go to trade school to get a good job that will allow him to have a good life and that is a good thing, too.

 We got good news this week regarding Hedayat!  The powers that be have accepted all the evidence provided and agree that his birthday should be changed to September 1, 2000.  So, soon he will officially be 16! 

 All the boys are getting pretty good grades at school – mostly As and Bs!  We have a math tutor and an English tutor and mostly Isa and Ghani take advantage of this opportunity.  Roshan generally only wants to do what he must do.  Hedayat really doesn’t like school work at all – if he could do gym class and art all day, that would be perfect.  He has no idea how intelligent he really is. 

 Ghani remains committed to going to college for engineering.  He started doing an online class in addition to his regular classes as he is trying to earn enough credits to graduate next year.  I know he will do great in college, and he has also been doing really good work for me in the studio.

 Nolan and I are both doing groovy.  Nolan’s job at PPL is going well and, while it stresses him out some, it is also very rewarding and they regularly express appreciation, keep investing in training, and reward him with new projects when the old projects come to an end.

 I think I am doing okay.  I get overwhelmed and wish I were more organized, more productive…  and lately sometimes I think maybe I just need a break.  One of the challenges of working from home is that you never get away from it.  I miss our February trips to AZ to visit Nolan’s parents.  It was wonderful to visit with them, and a good time-out for me.

 With the kids, it is more challenging to take a winter break (And our budget is taking a bit longer to bounce back from the holidays – as you might imagine!)  As it is now, we are planning a trip to Chicago for the first week in July for the big soccer tournament for the boys.  We will do some visiting there and then stop in Michigan to visit quite a few of the boys’ friends.  Since this will be probably an 8-10 day trip, we are looking at getting a pop-up camper.   That could come in handy for other trips, too. 

 I am hoping that we will also figure out some way to manage a week at the beach in the summer…  I really love that week at the beach… 

 As you might imagine, the political situation has caused a good bit of consternation in our household.  The morning after the election, Ghani asked if we could move to Canada.  I assured him that we would do whatever we needed to do to keep our family together and take care of him. Fortunately, at least for the time being, our family is safe. 

 But we have been getting more politically involved and that sucks up a lot of time and energy.   It is important, and kind of heavy, so we try to balance that out with fun things and just enjoying the boys.  One thing we are starting are fundraising parties for refugees.  Our first one was Friday, February 24, and our next one will be in April so please let me know if you would like more information!

 The boys love to go bowling.  Over the holiday we went three times!  And here is the sweetest thing – they always invite us to go.  I thought it was mostly so that we could pay J but even when we offered to give them the money they still asked us to go along.  They don’t mind if we leave early – but they do like us to come along, which I think is amazing.  Even when I am tired or have work to do, I will go.  We try to enjoy them as much as we can as the time we have is going so fast. 

 We have some pictures from Christmas posted here:  https://goo.gl/photos/Rioyt7KxxjUrU5QU8

May 5, 2017

I wrote this over a week ago and forgot to send it…  Just a few too many things going on, as usual.  Here it is…

The spring is going way too fast!

We spent a good bit of April looking for Ghani’s 350z.  He was totally hooked on that particular car.  I tried my best to talk him out of it – it is so impractical, and definitely a target for police and speeding tickets.  But he really, really wanted that car.  And I thought about it for a while and realized, “What the hell?  He is 18 years old, and why shouldn’t he have a 350z if that is what he really wants?  He will have plenty of time for practical cars.”  And so, I suggested that a convertible would be nice.  J  It took a while, but we finally found the right car at the right price and it is a beautiful burgundy convertible!  The amazingly sweet thing is that Ghani lets me borrow it whenever.  How did we get so lucky?

I was happy to think I was finished with car shopping, when Isa decided he had better get a car.  Summer is coming and he is planning to go to Lehigh Carbon Community College (LCCC) and will need wheels to get there.  Isa was a lot less picky than Ghani; he wanted a 4-door hatch back and while he prefers Mazda, Hyundai, Toyota and Honda, he would consider pretty much any brand.  We looked a just a few cars before he found the one – right in Allentown.  We both played hooky and now Isa is the proud owner of a white Mazda3 hatchback.

At this moment, Ghani and Isa are outside, washing and cleaning their cars together.

Roshan is driving the Volvo and Hedayat isn’t driving yet, so I am hoping we won’t be adding any more cars or drivers to our insurance (or our driveway) at least for a little while!  So far, no one has gotten any speeding tickets, though all three have gotten parking tickets.  The boys really hate wasting money, so I don’t think they will be getting any more tickets any time soon.  But the teenage brain is a strange thing.

Isa, Roshan and Hedayat all started on the Allen volleyball team.  Isa is really passionate about volleyball, Roshan enjoys it a lot, and Hedayat just did it for something to do, but as with all the other athletic things he has tried, he is good at it and enjoys it.  But the coach is a mean son of a gun and a bully.  Last week, Roshan had enough, and quit.  He wasn’t having fun, so he figured there wasn’t any reason why he should make himself unhappy.  Isa and Hedayat stuck it out, as there was just a week more of the season.  Isa has received a lot of mentions in the school announcements as he always has the most “kills” per game (averaging 15 per game) and I think he might break a record.  The coach’s lousy attitude soured the whole situation for the kids, so they are looking forward to joining a summer league and enjoying the game without being yelled at.  One of Nolan’s coworkers at PPL keeps asking him to join his Volleyball club where he coaches.

One beautiful warm evening two weeks ago, after a game, Isa and Roshan were sitting out in the yard drinking tea and eating nuts.  Hedayat was still out with his friends and Ghani was in a tutoring session with Angie.  I was enjoying watching the boys from the kitchen window, and Isa caught me watching and motioned for me to come out.  I joined them on the grass and ate nuts and drank tea with them.  Eventually, Ghani and Hedayat and Nolan joined us.  As the light faded, the boys explained that after work, this is what people do, they share tea and nuts or fruit and chat about the day.  What a lovely tradition.  It was hard for me to sit still, with so much on my to-do list, but I forced myself to relax, and am glad I did.  It is really quite something to be invited in to share these experiences with them.

Later in the week we were talking about culture, and about how different things are here, and Hedayat was expressing his dismay at how women are treated in Afghanistan.  Roshan was saying (again) that he wants to marry and Afghan girl and that he will work and she will stay at home.  And I said, “not if you plan to live here – that isn’t going to work”.  And as we talked about how being here makes things different, they said that they worry that they will lose their culture.  And I told them that they won’t lose it – they will hold on to the wonderful things about their culture, the food, the dancing, the drinking tea, the warm and lasting friendships they have with other boys – those things they should cherish.  The things they don’t like so much, they don’t have to hold on to.  They seemed quite satisfied with that answer, though I am sure it isn’t the last conversation we will have on the subject.

Graduation is coming soon, and then Hedayat and Ghani are spending a week at a local college through the DREAMS program.  Time is going too fast.  I want to hold onto these moments a bit longer.

I will post more photos soon!

September 7, 2016

I don’t remember where I left off, so I will just start in.

The summer went as fast as I was afraid it would.  While I was a bit relieved to have the boys all going back to school this week, I also really didn’t want summer to end.  And though it has only been two days of school so far, between school and soccer, it seems like I hardly see the boys at all now, and it is really too quiet here during the day.  We had a pretty wonderful last few weeks of summer.  We had a visit from one of Ghani and Hedayat’s good friends from the shelter who lives in a foster home in Rochester NY.  He is a sweet guy, and he and Ghani are great friends.  We picked him up in NYC and walked and walked all over.  We went to Dorney together and to a drive in movie and he and Ghani got to go go-cart racing.   This friend is quite lonely in his foster home and missed the camaraderie of the shelter boys.  He enjoyed being here and we enjoyed having him and we invited him back for Christmas.  I think he helped the other guys appreciate a bit more how good they have it here.  J

We had several fantastic parties – Ghani’s ice-skating and picnic birthday, our annual big McCready family shindig at the cabin, and a wild and crazy party for Hedayat’s birthday.  The boys got to meet cousin Joy’s (and Dave’s) two teenage boys from Ukraine, and of course, they hit it off.  And to end the summer vacation, the Great Allentown Fair – it really is fantastic to live so close to it.  Hedayat went several days and ran into our Ukrainian cousins, and they hung out together and had a great time.

Ghani passed his driving test and bought a car.  That is turning into a bit of a long story, so I will save it for another time.  Isa has his driving permit and Roshan is ready to take the test for his permit.  Yikes!  Fortunately, the organization pays for some professional driving lessons for the kids as long as they are 18, and we found a great small company that actually has a special policy for foster children.  Now that Hedayat is 16, he is asking about getting his license – we are doing our best to encourage him to wait until he is 18.  Three teenage drivers in the house is way more than enough!

And as stressful as that sounds, all that stressed out stuff that I was feeling for a while (thinking that maybe I actually had taken on too much and that we really couldn’t handle it) has gone away ( I am sure it will come and visit me again on occasion, but I am happy that it is just an occasional guest and not a permanent fixture.  Whether that makes me insane or not, I don’t really care!).  Not that I don’t still feel overwhelmed, (my to-do list is ridiculous and I am so far behind on pottery production!)  it is just that I feel also overwhelmingly grateful for being here in this time and place.  This Friday it will be one year since the boys arrived.  And the following week it will be 6 months since the next two arrived, and all in all, it’s pretty wonderful.

My friend Jessie asked me what it is that I get out of this, why do I find it rewarding.  That is a good question and a hard one to answer.  My answer was something like – it gives us great joy and pleasure to be able to share all the things that we have learned with these boys…  We have both been so amazingly fortunate to have wonderful families and so many advantages…  and we both have also learned a few really hard lessons.  Because he works there, Isa can go to Dorney Park any time he wants when he isn’t working.  So one afternoon, he went by himself.  When he came back, I asked him, how was it and he said that it wasn’t much fun by himself.  I smiled and agreed that most things are so much better when shared.  And that is pretty much the thing for us about having these kids…  sharing with them makes the experiences more vivid, more fun, more important.  It challenges us to be better people.  The first time the four of us walked into Giant together I almost lost it.  I was thinking – we are a family.  We are grocery shopping as a family.  People look at us and they see a family.  Thinking about it now makes it hard not to cry.  It’s a big deal.  And Nolan and I are so incredibly fortunate.  It’s hard, don’t get me wrong.  The hardest part is discipline.  That just sucks.  I know it’s important – and it still sucks.

I am probably a bit more sentimental at the moment because we are coming up on our anniversary and I can’t help thinking about how different things are now and I am so glad that we did this crazy thing.  Both our families have been amazing, and our friends and we have met lots of wonderful new people too.  We are so lucky.  Thank you!

In case anyone is wondering, I do miss fostering dogs and will get back to that sometime.  In the meantime, I have 4 health forms to fill out for the school and a ton of pottery to make for the Celtic Classic and the Apple Harvest Festival and I promised the dogs a walk tonight and want to get to see at least a few minutes of the boys’ soccer game.  J

More again soon!

Nolan and I completed all the training and paperwork last month to become foster parents for refugee children.

A bit of background:  We are working with Lutheran Child and Family Services out of Philadelphia.  They provide our case management and in addition to handling the placements, they help us with things like enrolling the kids in school, working through legal matters, providing physical resources, support and services.  (Our caseworkers are super.)  The children who come are generally 15-17 years old.  They come via the UN Refugee Resettlement program.  So they have been interviewed and vetted by someone from the UN.  Most of these children have been living in refugee camps for years before they get an opportunity to get into the program.  Countries around the world take in small numbers of these Unaccompanied Refugee Minors (URMs) each year.  There are so many of these children, around the world.  They have lost their homes and families, mostly due to wars and other kinds of violence.  There is a wonderful movie called “The Good Lie” that will give you a good idea of how it works.

Last Friday afternoon we got the call from Lutheran Children and Family Services with a referral.  So we might be getting our first fosters soon!  They are two boys of Hazari ethnicity from Afghanistan.  They are not related but from the same area.  One is 11 and the other is 16.  Evidently the Hazari are marginalized by the majority Sunnis and persecuted by the Taliban.  They are believed to be descendants of the guards left by that famous Mongolian conqueror.  I can’t think of his name just at this moment.  Evidently the boys speak English – though how much is anyone’s guess.  They are living at a Christian World Services shelter in Jakarta, Indonesia (where they like to play fusball and take English classes).  The little guy has been there since May of last year, the older boy since February of 2013.

The children may be with us until they are 21.  The idea is for us to help them to learn how to function in our society, get an education and learn the skills necessary to be successful adults in the US.  They remain legal wards of the state, I think, until they turn 21.

We have no idea when they will come.  And of course there is no guarantee that they will come.  They could arrive next week, next month, or in 2-3 months, or something could come up and they won’t come at all.  So that puts a whole new spin on things for us.  We need a bigger car.  And a soccer ball.

They are Shia Muslims, and fortunately there is a big mosque/community center near my mom’s house and they seem quite welcoming and open.  Our friend Fran has an Afghani friend so she has reached out to see if the friend will meet with us.  Fran seems to think she will be a great resource.

Nolan and I are excited and scared.  I think we have two main fears – What if they don’t like us?  And how do we keep them safe?  How do we prepare them to face the kids (and adults) who will inevitably say mean things because they are Afghani?  That is the biggie.  Nolan and I both feel a tremendous amount of fear about that.

And we’ll just have to take it one step at a time.  J

We’ll let you know when we hear something about the timeline.  I suspect we may not hear anything until the folks in Indonesia have the travel arrangements made.  In the meantime, we shop for cars and make mental notes and lists…  things they will need, places to go… swimming lessons, backpacks, ice cream sundaes…  toothbrushes, sneakers, desks…  the art museum, the zoo…  happy thoughts!

(In case any of you are wondering about our housing situation… we tried listing our house with a realtor, and nothing happened.  The market here is not – there is just nothing happening.  So we are resigned to spending another winter in beautiful Mahoning Valley – though we are certainly open to a miracle happening.)

If you have any questions, we will do our best to answer them.