Tag: Grace Page 1 of 19

My Grace is now 18, has started college, and is studying to become a middle-school history teacher. I think she’s pretty fascinating, and want more people to get to know her. So she agreed to let me interview her for my blog. Just remember that she represents only herself, not all adopted kids, or even her siblings. And as she continues to process her childhood, her answers to these questions will continue to evolve. But she gives a great snapshot of her unique life, and I know you’ll enjoy it!

What was it like to grow up Tanzanian in Tanzania by American parents?

I’m sure that when I was younger, it didn’t feel as weird as it does looking back on it now. I knew other kids that were being raised like that, so I was like, “That’s normal.” Uh, no. No, it’s not!

As I grew up, like the last few years we were in Tanzania, I started realizing that I was treated differently by my Tanzanian classmates because I was from Tanzania, but that was the only thing that we had in common. I wasn’t fluent in Swahili; I had an accent from 10,000 miles away; I knew a lot about American culture and not Tanzanian culture. Sometimes I was subject to minor bullying. It wasn’t like I felt attacked; it was more like insults….. but that’s also because middle schoolers are awful. [And yet she wants to teach middle school!]

But also, being at Haven of Peace Academy really helped. Just because, even if they weren’t adopted, there were so many other kids like me there. There were kids who were from a different culture coming to live in Tanzania, which is kind of like my experience since I grew up in a culturally American home. Of course, I had great Tanzanian food and we listened to Tanzanian music but other than that, it was very American. So having missionary and international kids at the school made me feel that there were way many other people like me around me.

In moving to the U.S. I realized, Whoa, there are more Black people here than I realized. So many ethnicities are counted as “Black” but there are so many different experiences represented. A Nigerian who moved to America as a college student will be living a crazy life of cultural shock. But other kids who are Nigerian and grew up here are completely different. It helped me to realize that there are so many different Black experiences in the U.S. Yes, my story is weird but that’s true of so many people in America.

To My Sunshine

By Amy Medina

On May 24, 2024

In Adoption, Parenting

My dear Grace,

Raising you has been one of the greatest privileges of my life.

From the first day I laid eyes on you and you gave me your radiant smile, you have been sunshine in my life. Happy and fearless—that’s the way I would describe you from the time you were a baby. You sang “Amazing Grace” to an entire school full of kids when you were just two years old. Dad taught you to do backflips into the pool when you were three. You are always ready to jump into the next adventure with both feet.

But one of the most special things about you is your love for people. I don’t think I’ve ever met someone more people-oriented than you. When you were a toddler, I remember showing you the HOPAC school yearbook and being flabbergasted by how many names you knew of students and staff. As you grew up, whenever you met a new friend, you would always run into the kitchen and grandly announce, “I love [this person!] and I love her mom too!” I don’t know if you’ve ever met a person you didn’t like. God gave you the gift of loving others enthusiastically. 😊

Parenting Tips (Or Not)

By Amy Medina

On December 8, 2019

In Parenting

Anyone who has tried to teach an unmotivated middle school boy deserves, like, 50 million gold stars. Especially when sitting next to this boy at 9:00 at night, trying to stuff math concepts into his brain for a test the next day. This exercise is like stuffing a frozen turkey. Or tunneling through the Alps with a pickaxe.

And the boy is like, “Why do I have to do it this way? Why can’t I just do it the way I want to do it?”

And you’re like, “Because you will get the ANSWER WRONG.” And your voice raises in pitch and volume with each word.

And the boy just sits and stares at the gecko on the wall.

So then you (very calmly) set the timer on your phone and tell him, “Well, for as long as you sit here doing nothing, that’s how much time you’ll lose on the Xbox this weekend.”

And then he sighs and says, “Fine. I’ll sit here all night.”

And then you become a raving lunatic who storms to the bedroom to demand that the boy’s father remove the Xbox from the premises immediately. So the boy’s father dutifully storms out and makes a big show of yanking out wires and heaving the Xbox onto his shoulder and taking it….I don’t know…somewhere else.

And then you win the Parent of the Year Award.

(This is all a hypothetical scenario, of course.)

After spending over a decade controlling everything about your child’s eating and sleeping and playing and learning, there’s this difficult transition in parenting when one day you are startled to discover that your child is becoming an actual person. This often means a whole lot of wonderful, as you see this child become someone who cares and cooks and sings and unexpectedly surprises you with what he is capable of. And suddenly you realize that you are talking to her in an adult sort of way about adult sort of things. This child is actually becoming your friend. This is delightful.

But along with the wonderful, you realize that this child who is becoming a person is capable of forming his own thinking and choosing what you value…or not. This person might holler, “Why do I have to study? It’s my life, why can’t I choose to fail?” And you can holler back at this person, “As long as you are under my roof, you don’t get the option of failing. Too bad for you!” But inside you start getting the sneaking suspicion that there’s only so much you can do. Because even though for a lot of years you’ve been the controlling presence in that person’s life, you don’t get to be in control forever. Or even much longer. This is terrifying.

And you look down the road and see that it won’t be long until this person will be independent of you and she will decide who to marry and who to worship and what to love. And there’s not much you will be able to do about it.

Suddenly you find yourself grabbing hold of every minute. You panic one day when you realize, “I haven’t taught her about eating disorders yet!” so you casually bring up the topic on the way to the grocery store and she looks at you like you might have lost your mind (which is possible). And you decide that maybe you’re not actually as tired as you thought you were when his bedtime conversation turns to why God doesn’t always answer our prayers. Because when will you get another chance to talk about it?

So you eventually bring back the Xbox. But you find a way to teach (again) about the importance of math homework, about the value of hard work, about what is worth treasuring in this universe, and about grace. Always about grace. Even for parents.

(That’s the most important part.)

She got picked for the varsity team as an 8th grader, played as a starter for every game, and they won the international school tournament!

She is a TCK.

By Amy Medina

On July 20, 2019

In Third Culture Kids

Johnny, at the park: MONGOOSE!
Me: Nope, that’s a squirrel. Wrong country, Buddy.

Josiah, staring with interest at the stove: What kind of stove is that?
Me: It’s electric. It runs on electricity.
Josiah: Oh, so if the power goes out, it stops working?
Me: Yep.
Josiah: That doesn’t sound very good. You could be in the middle of cooking and then have to stop.
Me: Yeah, but the power doesn’t go off in America.
Josiah: Not EVER?
Me: Well, sometimes in big storms, but yeah, not really ever.
Josiah (very impressed): Whoa.

Amusing quotes aside, the truth is that my kids are somewhat of an enigma. They don’t fit into any particular category. They are Tanzanian by blood, but their parents are American. They are similar to other internationally adopted kids, except that they aren’t being raised in their adoptive parents’ home country, but their own birth country.

A Tanzanian friend once asked me if my kids identified more with being American or Tanzanian. I told him that I’m not really sure (and I don’t think they are really sure), but that I would guess that they feel more American when they are in Tanzania, and more Tanzanian when they are America. Because they don’t fit in perfectly in either place.

They can greet their elders with Shikamoo without an accent, but they would never yell Wazungu! when they see a white person walking on the road, like other Tanzanian kids their age. They love chips mayai and macaroni and cheese and wali na maharage and Pizza Hut. They have been taught to eat with a knife and fork but know not to use their left hand if there aren’t any utensils available.

This would be true of any missionary kid who had lived in Tanzania, but my kids are different from even them. They know all about hair salon culture, but, of course, they go there with their white mom so they always get odd looks. They can go to the market and not stand out–that is, until someone assumes their Swahili is better than it actually is.

Haven of Peace Academy is a perfect place for my children, and so they’ve stayed insulated from a great deal of this struggle. Josiah has one friend who is ethnically Indian but has a passport and culture from Australia. Another friend is half Tanzanian and half Zimbabwean, but was born in South Africa. Another is half African-American and half Kiwi, but born in America. All are being raised in Tanzania. Josiah, with his complex identity, fits right in.

HOPAC is a middle life, a life in between worlds. Yet the life that HOPAC gives them is not sustainable.

It’s like an airplane: Passengers from all over the world, all walks of life, a hundred different backgrounds–all crammed into a tiny tube hovering over the earth. Not belonging to any one place; suspended, for a short period of time, above all the world’s nations. My kids live there, in that plane, at HOPAC. Yet at some point, that airplane has to land. And the older my kids get, the more I wonder and worry about how that landing will go for them.

I grew up in Liberia, so to some degree, I understand what it’s like to grow up between worlds. But I was not adopted, I was not Liberian, and my parents always had a house in California for us to come back to. Yes, losing Liberia was traumatic for me. But it also was not my country. How do I help my children to navigate an identity that I can never fully understand?

My eldest daughter is a sketcher, and as we have been traveling in California these last three weeks (six cities so far), I’ve caught her sketching in fancy lettering–on Best Western Hotel notepads, in the sketchbook she bought in Istanbul, on any scrap of paper–I am a TCK. I am a Third Culture Kid. She is processing that identity–that life hovering above the nations, that life in between worlds.

I see this, and my eyes mist over. I am so proud to be her mom. It takes courage to be her. There is much she will teach me.

Grace is 12 and Lily is 9

By Amy Medina

On March 3, 2018

In Other

I am waaay behind on these pictures, but considering both girls’ parties were late, and we managed to celebrate four birthdays for four kids in four months, I’m still pretty proud of us.

Grace had her party at the HOPAC pool with her class, and since her Daddy is the game-planner-extraordinaire, it was fabulous fun. Belly flop contests, floating watermelon races, and Shital’s red chicken for everyone.