Monday, April 24, 2017

"Will I Always Be Born in 2007?"

DID YOU HEAR THE BIG NEWS!?!
We are officially legal guardians of Lifa!
If you don’t know the back story, here’s the extra short version: IT’S A MIRACLE.

For a slightly less short version, you can click here and here.
If you do know the story, THANK YOU. You knowing our story is part of what writes it. We might not ever be able to communicate the impact and power of your participation, prayers and financial/spiritual support, so just hear this: 
Thank you, thank you, thank you.

When I picked Lifa up from school on Friday, I told him it was an extra special day for our family. I re-explained guardianship and let him slowly process it, Lifa-style. I explained that nothing really changes for his daily life and asked if he had questions.

I told him he has always been protected, loved and cared for. Now we have a piece of paper that says it’s our job to make sure he has everything he needs for his mind, body and heart to become the warrior God made him to be. Now we can protect him better than ever. If he breaks a warrior bone, we can even take him to the hospital.

Now there’s a piece of paper that says what we’ve always known: We are family. We belong together. We have rights and responsibilities toward each other.

We went out for a special night and took this first legal family photo together.
These are the best guys on the planet. And handsome!
Silence from the backseat… brain churching…nail gnawing…

 Lifa, stop biting your nails!”
“How do you always know when I’m biting my nails!?!”
“Mom powers. They’re even stronger now that we have guardianship.”

Finally, he says, “Mom, can other people still take care of me now that we have guardianship?” He specifically asks about the pastors that watch over him when he visits his biological father’s house.

I realize that this idea of defined family feels very safe in one culture and very uncertain in another. Drawing boundaries of protection and provision in the Ladd household is very different from drawing them in the township where his father lives.

We have written our identity on the wall, and we discuss it at dinnertime. Over the years, we have begun rewriting the anxiety-fueling chaos from Lifa’s past with clear order and well-defined roles. We teach him regularly about a mom’s job, a dad’s job and a kid’s job.

Our Ladd Family banner that hangs in our dining room.

“The kid’s job is to listen to their parents, play and learn.”
Those lessons have not always come easy, especially when he spent many foundational years forced to survive on his own when he wasn’t in my home. But he’s gotten it.

He thrives in God’s created order for family.

Mastering the kid's life:
Bat ears, blanket, beach picnic
We secretly celebrate the Lego’s in the living room while we lecture him about cleaning up after himself. We see the victory in his regression from a weathered, wounded heart to a goofy, bright-eyed boy who insists on wearing a cape. We put on headphones when he plays the SAME upbeat worship song over and over and over again, spinning like a tornado and shouting about his new dance. (We have our limits. We can’t be perfect.)

The differences between Lifa’s two cultures are vast. One household is written with predictability, routine and a very defined identity. Our name, purpose and values are written clearly on the wall.

Lifa’s father faces a generational disadvantage of not having his name written on anything – until we established co-guardianship with him for Lifa. Lifa’s father’s name has never been written anywhere, not on a birth certificate, bank account or school document. Without a name and a lineage to anchor yourself in, it’s impossible to establish identity or bring chaos into order.

We have provided a home, furniture and connection to a spiritual body for Lifa’s father. We have spared no expense to make sure his name was written down on a family document, and that he would be included in guardianship over Lifa. We provide parameters for order, and pray that he chooses it for himself. We pray he grafts himself into an eternal lineage and looks to the Father who spared no expense for his identity to be redeemed. 

Lifa can’t understand these differences his father’s house and ours, but he did ask if the pastors could take care of him while he was with his dad. He knows what safety feels like, and it comes with stability, foundation in Christ, and the protection of parents. It’s different than cooking your own meals, managing your own 9-year old life, and fending for yourself.

As Lifa and I wrapped up our conversation about guardianship, Lifa asked one more question. “Ok Mom, I think I understand now. But there’s just one more thing… Will I always be born in 2007?

That’s the cutest question I’ve ever heard.
I give him a resounding “YES,” and continue on with the questions that follow. Yes, even in 2018 you will be born in 2007…

His charming little question stirred my heart. He may have been just doing math… He may have been thinking about birthday cake… But I think he was responding to a stirring in his 9-year old heart that knows his life is different now.

His identity changed when the chaos of namelessness and insecurity were overcome. Jesus walked out of a tomb to overcome it the first time, and we signed affidavits as the “Yes and Amen!” We are humbled and thankful to be counted worthy to be a Yes and Amen.

Yes, Lifa, your life will always have started on December 29, 2007.
And, yes, everything about it is different from this point forward.

You belong to a family that loves you and will sacrifice everything for you.
You have a place and a purpose in the order of our family, and we won’t compromise that for anything.

You listen. You play. You learn. We will love each other and love you.  
You set the table each night. We will provide the meal.

We love you. We believe in you.

We will guard you, protect you and provide for you with all that we have and all that we are.




Friday, April 21, 2017

This Was Not Written To You

Today we became legal guardians of Lifa Luphondo.
On this history-changing day, a 9-year old boy went from being invisible to having his name written down in South Africa’s High Court. He went from being uncountable to having three guardians. (Myself, Chris and his biological father.)


 
The rest of this post is not written to you. It’s a raw response that shot out of my highly-caffeinated fingers and overcome heart. I think you should read it because one day you might need some hope to hold on to.
 
We’re walking in another miracle today, and we want to share it with you.
Miracles multiply when you share them with others.
-----------------------------------------------

I couldn’t see where the road was going, but You were there to be the compass, the driver, the deliverer.
You always met me on that road. Even all those times I had to pull over and cry in a dirty bathroom stall. I drove him back to that dangerous home over and over again. He was too young to defend himself. As soon as he could understand English, I taught him to go to the outdoor toilet and whisper the name of Jesus.
 
But You pay back what the locusts have eaten away. Even now.
You saved up every tear and fear. Not even one was uncounted.
You turned them into something, and You kept us afloat.
 
When I asked You if I could stop, if I was making his life worse like people said I was, You told me to keep getting back on that road until You said stop.
 
You told me I only saw a tiny, skewed picture. I only heard what his night terrors sounded like. Your joy comes in the morning.
 
You made me strong.
Stronger than I could’ve or would’ve been without invisible faith - the inglorious, unglamorous kind required in the moments nobody saw, smell, heard or knew about.
 
You were there during those nights when I had to physically restrain his body for hours while terrors overtook him. And when I had to drop him off, unprotected, back to the house they originated in.
 
You were there during his body’s relentless rejection of nutrients and during the endless hours of learning how to communicate with each other. 
 
Nobody else saw it. It was invisible, unacknowledged, and frowned upon. I asked You if I was a fool, if I’d gotten it all wrong.
Nobody else knew what I knew. They hadn’t seen what I had seen. You saw me even when I couldn’t see You.
 
You were there when I couldn’t find him for four months.
You were there when my mouth told you I trusted you, but my subconscious kept me awake and in panic, night after night after night. You’ve been there in the countless wakeful nights since then, always remembering what that first fear felt like and knowing I couldn’t prevent it from happening again.
 
You asked me to build an ark when the world had never seen rain.
You invited me to be family for an invisible child.
You received my “yes” joyfully while I carried my dreams to their crucifixion.
 
And then You rewrote my dreams.
You turned my mourning into dancing.
You set the lonely in families.
 
You brought someone to stand with me and see what no one had seen.
You said I didn’t have to drive anymore.
You said Your invisible, perfect design for family was going to become visible.
 
You painted a rainbow in the sky.
The Light of the World reached out in the middle of the life’s most devastating downpour and made something beautiful. Today, one little boy born invisible and unprotected became visible, validated, guarded.
 
One family that’s never had a night’s sleep with the next day’s promise of protection, is going to rest and rest deeply tonight.
He won’t be taken. He’s not at risk of disappearing. He can be cared for medically, legally, financially.
He can exist, and we can be a family. A visible family.
 
We’ve always been a family. But it’s different now.
 
A generational curse has been finished.
Chains have broken off.
 
There are chains, invisible burdens, curses and brokenness all over this world. We will keep driving down the hard roads of invisible faith and sacrifice until they all break off.
 
We wake up every morning with a promise that polishes his shoes for school.
We won’t forget. We will thank you and praise you in all things, day and night. You are worthy.
 
-------------------------------------------
 
This letter was not for you. Lifa is safe and accounted for finally. This is the mundane variety of miracle that happens in expensive lawyers’ offices. I shared it with you to paint a promise over your darkest night and your soul’s downpour. If you can’t see the morning yet, hold on to our rainbow with us.
 
It took 7 years for us, and this is only the beginning of the journey.
Thank you to those of you who have prayed with us and financially supported us. Your finances have contributed toward our family’s living expenses, the startup of a church for Cape Town, and most recently, some very substantial lawyer fees. If you would like more information, feel free to email me at kacyladd@gmail.comkacyladd@gmail.com.
 

To join our family’s monthly support team or give a one-time donation toward Lifa’s guardianship miracle, click here.