Tag: Grace Page 2 of 19

Grace Went to Amani and Lily Turned Eight

Last week was pretty exciting around here.

First, our wonderful, long-time friends drove in for the week.  Imani and her mom stayed with us, and Caleb joined Grace’s fifth grade class on their epic 4-day trip to the Amani Rainforest.  This trip is highly anticipated by every HOPAC student, and is often mentioned by seniors as their favorite HOPAC memory.  

I had the privilege of taking the first HOPAC elementary class to Amani way back in 2003.  Gil and I later chaperoned a few other times.  In fact, one year baby Grace went along!  

2007

Gil got to chaperone this year, while I held down the fort at home.  But it was so special to hear Grace’s stories and see the pictures of places I had been with my class so many years before.  

Chameleon hunting at night

Tea plantation

Tea factory

Gil and Grace came home just in time for Lily’s eighth birthday.  My little introvert does better in small groups, so she had just a few friends over.  They made Valentines, played Twister, and had ice cream sundaes.  

I keep telling my children to stop growing, but they just doesn’t listen.  I guess we better work harder on obedience.

Grace is Eleven

Since Grace is my oldest, I always break new parenting ground with her.  So she is my first to start transforming from my child into her own person before my eyes.

I took her errand shopping this weekend, and I was reminding her how much of a trial it was to take her shopping when she was little….how she would constantly push the mini-cart into my heels every five seconds.  I told her that story to contrast how much I genuinely enjoy her company now; how much fun it is to go shopping with her.

Grace is still a girl, of course, and will be for a while, but I am getting more and more glimpses of who she will become.  And it’s pure pleasure, because anyone who has met Grace knows that she is delightful–friendly, happy, always encouraging, always including.  She wants to be a teacher or a social worker when she grows up.  It is such a privilege to be her mom, and to watch her becoming my friend.  She already teaches me so much about what it means to love others well, because I will wholeheartedly admit that she is better at it than me.

Grace wanted a “whole-class” party this year, which meant I insisted it be held at HOPAC after school, since my living room and my nerves cannot handle 24 fifth graders in party mode.

So Dad planned a “nerf gun” party, which was enthusiastically adored by all who attended.  Kids regularly tell us, “That was the most fun birthday party I’ve ever been to!” after one of Gil’s parties. This one might have been the most epic of them all.

My Crazy, Wonderful, Beautiful Family

Medina Family 2016

Grace:  Almost 11

Josiah:  9

Lily:  7

Johnny:  5

(Gil: 39, Amy: 40, Bibi & Babu: 66….but who’s counting?)

(Just so you know, this photoshoot was interrupted by someone getting disciplined, and the best smiles happened because somebody tooted.  Just keepin’ it real.)  

Waiting on the God Who Acts

I was washing dishes, and Grace was practicing her Bible verses for class.

She rattled off Isaiah 64:4:  Since ancient times no one has heard, no ear has perceived, no eye has seen any God besides you, who acts on behalf of those who wait for him.

And tears sprang to my eyes.

Suddenly I was taken back to ten years ago.  Gil and I had been through a miscarriage and two failed adoption attempts.  We were desperate to be parents.  We had been matched with Grace in May of 2006, and we had flown up to Northern Tanzania in June to meet her.  At that point, we thought it would be just a matter of days before we would be able to bring her home.

But the days stretched into weeks which stretched into months.  I flew up to Moshi three more times to try to get things moving.  We believed the problem was with an evil social worker who was preventing the adoption, but now that I understand more about Tanzanian culture and how adoption works here, I know that the delay had just as much to do with the mistakes of the orphanage.

We were asked if we wanted to just give up on this baby and choose another.  But we were committed to the child who would become Grace Medina.  As long as it took.

All of our adoptions have had snags and disappointments, but the months of waiting for Grace were the hardest.  I wasn’t just waiting for another child, I was waiting to become a mother.  I closed the door of her half-decorated nursery and couldn’t bring myself to go in.

One day in late October, I was asked to substitute teach for fifth grade at HOPAC at the last minute.  I quickly scanned over lesson plans as the kids came into the room.  The first lesson of the day was in Bible.  And it was on Isaiah 64:4.

I remember very clearly that as the students and I discussed the implications of God’s sovereignty in waiting patiently for Him to act, that I felt like I was talking to myself as the words came out of my mouth.  I was waiting for Him, and He would act.  I could have that confidence. I left the classroom that day with a new perspective.

Just two days later, we received the letter that allowed us to go pick up Grace.  And that beautiful promise was ingrained on my heart.

In the ten years since then, the Bible curriculum at HOPAC has not changed.  So when Grace–now in fifth grade and almost 11 years old–stood in my kitchen and recited the verse that quite literally is entwined in her story, it was a holy moment.

That night, I told Grace this story of that verse.  I did wait on Him.  And He did act.  And no one has ever seen or heard of a God like Him.

Starting Fifth Grade is a Big Deal for Both Grace and Her Mom

Grace and Miss Finocchi

My girl started fifth grade this week.  Fifth grade isn’t usually one of those landmark years, but for me, it is pretty significant.

Fifteen years ago, I came to Haven of Peace Academy to teach fifth grade.  It was 2001, and I walked into that same classroom.  I was 24 years old.  HOPAC was only six years old, and that classroom had just been built.  Cement dust was still all over the floor and not a single bulletin board was on the newly painted walls.

I was fighting my own internal battles as I prepared for that school year, many days barely coping.  But that class walked in on that first day, and we fell instantly in love.  After teaching in California, I was relieved to have a class that was not jaded by a culture that made them grow up too fast.  That classroom was my haven, and that class fed my soul.

When Narnia was being born, you could stick a hunk of metal in the ground and it would grow a lamppost.  Those days at HOPAC were the same.  The school was young and everything was new and we got the privilege of creating culture and tradition.  Some of the things my class did that year are still happening today, like Roman Day and the annual trip to the Amani rainforest.

I spent two years with that class, teaching them sixth grade as well as fifth, and many of those students have been a part of my life ever since.  Now fifteen years have gone by.

2002
2016

I watched them graduate from high school and I have celebrated their graduation from college.  They are now the age I was when I taught them.  They are my friends, and I think they teach me more than I taught them.  Many of them have returned to Tanzania to change their world.  In fact, Dorothy (center) leaves tomorrow to get her Masters in educational policy at Harvard, and then she’ll come back and transform education in Tanzania.

So yeah.  For my own girl, fifteen years later, to enter that very same fifth grade classroom?  Pretty darn cool.

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