How My Heart Grew - Part 2
the lesson I thought I had already learned
In Part 1 of this series, I shared how I learned to embrace the uncomfortable through a series of events that occurred a year after Mike and I married—events that set my heart on a path of expansion and caused me to consider how I wanted to “spend myself.”
“How had I, at 35, spent myself? How did I want to spend myself in the next 35 years? On behalf of the hungry? The oppressed? The marginalized? The downtrodden? The weary? The homeless? The scared, pregnant 19-year-old? The answer was YES to all of these.”1
By the time our granddaughter was born, I thought I had learned the important lesson of releasing my expectations and finding treasure in life’s challenges. I thought I had learned how to better “spend” myself by saying yes to people and situations I normally might not.
I am notorious, however, for having to learn many lessons the hard way.
An Empty Room
Our home was modest—1,700 square feet with three bedrooms and two baths. Noah and Jonah shared a room, and Brittney shared a room with Chelsea. We considered several ways to create an extra room to accommodate Chelsea when the baby arrived, and in the end, we went with the storage room attached to our carport. Mike had previously used it as his home office, but it definitely needed an overhaul.
He hung sheetrock, painted the walls, installed an air conditioning unit, and laid vinyl flooring. The space wasn’t ideal because Chelsea first had to walk outside to access the bathroom, kitchen, laundry, etc., but it worked. Chloe had a quiet place to sleep, Chelsea had privacy, and the other kids weren’t disturbed by middle-of-the-night crying.
After Chloe was born, Chelsea lived with us for six months before moving on to the next chapter in her journey, leaving the room vacant. Within days, 12-year-old Noah asked if he could move into it. I haven’t written much about Noah, but this was my push-all-the-boundaries, break-all-the-rules, heed-no-consequences kid.
“Absolutely not,” I said.
“Why not?” he whined.
“Because I said so.”
I’m kidding. I never used that awful response. At least I don't think I did. I explained I didn't feel he was responsible enough to sleep outside of the house. Quite frankly, I didn't trust him. He was, after all, the kid who climbed on the roof and wrote DEEZ NUTZ in “letters large enough to be detected from a Delta airlines flight.”2 He twice climbed out his bedroom window when he was sent to his room for discipline. And there was the time Mike came home to find smoke rising above the privacy fence. His investigation uncovered Noah and a neighborhood friend practicing their pyrotechnics skills. I had plenty to back up my decision. The room remained unoccupied.
An Unanticipated Acquaintance
In August 2013, a year and a half after Chelsea moved out, Noah began his freshman year of high school, Brittney was a senior, and Jonah started middle school (which is a special kind of hell for both students and parents alike). Britt and Noah ended up in the same math class, and soon their stories at the dinner table included accounts of a classmate, a foreign exchange student from Taiwan. Brittney also had an English class with him, and their teacher, Debby, was a friend of ours.
Debby called me one afternoon and told me Chia Xiang—aka Kennedy—was struggling with his spoken English. The school and exchange program told him he would need to hire a tutor in order to stay, a mandate that weighed heavily on him. His parents, middle-class workers who had sacrificed much so he could have this experience, had given him a finite amount of money for expenses during the school year. Paying a tutor was not an option. Britt was helping him as much as she could in class, but Debby thought Kennedy would benefit from hanging out with other kids to practice conversational English. Would we be willing to help? Of course!
We invited Kennedy to our church’s Wednesday night youth gathering, a relaxed environment where the kids lounged on cast-off sofas, ate snacks, chatted, and played pool or ping-pong. The evening included Biblical teaching, of course, but it was more of a discussion than the delivery of a sermon. Kennedy enjoyed the time so much that he continued to join us for similar activities two to three times a week. He became more comfortable around others, and my kids especially loved hanging out with him.
An Obvious Opportunity
A couple of weeks later, Debby reached out again. The exchange program discovered that Kennedy’s host family no longer met the host family requirements of the exchange program.3 If they were unable to find another host home in the next few days, Kennedy would be forced to return to Taiwan.
The mood at our house turned heavy as we all knew Kennedy’s time in America might be cut short. No one wanted to talk about it, but my mind kept going back to what we had learned over a year prior. Share what you have. Expand your heart and home. But oh, the inner struggle!
Despite living with snarky, difficult teenagers, this season of my home life was mostly good, easy, and comfortable. Adding more people to the mix would mean more drama, more sharing, and more demands on my time and attention. Did I really want to complicate things?
The solution seemed crystal clear to me, but no one else mentioned it. Were they thinking it too and just afraid to say it? I decided to keep my mouth shut and go the safe route. I pulled a total Gideon and asked God for a sign.4
God, if Mike brings it up, then I’ll take that as a sign we’re supposed to offer to host Kennedy.
Done!—I could wash my hands of it. If we were supposed to be Kennedy’s host family, then Mike would suggest it first.
Except he didn’t.
The nagging thought that we should offer to be Kennedy’s host family plagued me. I thought about it first thing in the morning and again throughout the day. It was with me as we enjoyed family time in the evenings. It was a shadow I couldn’t outrun. Finally, after a week and a half, I could ignore it no longer.
Okay, God. Okay. Okay. Okay!5
I already knew what God said about loving others and helping those in need and sharing our resources. I really didn’t need a sign to understand what He wanted us to do. I just needed to get over myself and make a move.
Mike and I were in bed reading one night, when I finally worked up the courage and blurted, “I have something I’ve been thinking about. It’s been on my mind and won’t go away, so I need you to hear me out. I really think maybe we’re supposed to be Kennedy’s family. I mean, I’m not saying I definitely want to do it. Just spend some time praying about it and let me know what you think.”
Silence.
Whew! It was finally off my chest and out of my hands. I’d made the suggestion, and now he would shoot down my crazy idea.
Except he didn’t.
“I don’t have to pray about that. Of course, we’ll do it.”
No! No! No! No! I was counting on him to tell me we didn’t have the room or time or energy or proper qualifications. He wasn’t supposed to just agree with me.
“Okay, but we’re going to have to talk to the kids about this,” I debated, “and everyone has to be on board with this, or we’re not doing it.”
The next day we called a family meeting. Having Kennedy come live with us would mean Noah would relocate to the outside room and Jonah would get a new roommate. I was 70% certain that Jonah would not be cool with that. His opposition would be my way out of this madness. I secretly hoped he would balk at the idea.
Except he didn’t.
Before we could fully lay out the proposal, the kids—all three of them—were off the sofa cheering with delight that Kennedy would likely become part of our family (okay, maybe Noah was mostly cheering because he would finally get to live in that empty room outside). No turning back now—it was practically a done deal.
A Heart-Expanding Experience
We called Kennedy and asked if he wanted to be a part of our family. For some wild reason, he agreed.6
He moved in on a Saturday in September and became part of our household for nine months—and a member of our family forever.
Was it fun? Yes!
Was it hard? Also yes!
Awkward? Rewarding? Wonderful? Yes to all the things!
Our table was full again, and boy did we learn a lot at that table! Kennedy was a very loud eater—a slurper, a smacker. This 15-year-old boy scarfed down his meal and went back for seconds. And thirds. And fourths. My other kids were notorious for their appetites, but this exceeded anything I had ever witnessed. So I consulted with Yangbin, our friend from China who joked, “Ah, Ms. Holly—I see you’ve been introduced to the Asian appetite!”
“That’s a thing?!”
I still have no idea if Yangbin was joking with me, but I had to put meal production into overdrive to keep up with his appetite. Kennedy wasn’t accustomed to our type of fare, but he ate my cooking with gusto—which is more than I can say for my American kids.
There were a number of challenges we had to overcome during his time with us—he was, after all, a teenager—but in the end, the experience enriched our lives and gave us another son to love. Nine years later, Kennedy still calls us “Mom” and “Dad.”
Saying yes to Kennedy taught me to be more flexible and to expand my home and heart to include those who are culturally very different from me. Little did I know how God was using this experience to prepare me for my future.
Sometimes God sends us the children we never knew we wanted, and then He uses them to teach us the lessons we thought we had already learned.
The situation sounded a bit fishy to me, and I always wondered if the program representative had done her due diligence in finding a good home for him.
Judges 6:33-40, The Holy Bible.
Fact: God can handle my tantrums.
We had to complete the necessary paperwork, undergo a home study, and be approved by the exchange program, but it was a really quick process.
Thanks for sharing, Holly. The decisions we make can often seem to be a battle between closeness and freedom. When to give, when to take care of ourselves. How wonderful it turned out to be a great growth experience for you and your family.
Holly, this is so beautiful. The writing itself is captivating, and the story equally so. What a study in "opening". Thank you for the gift of this story.