Emergency Room

We've been home in America one month and we've made our first trip to the E.R. I hope we won't be making any more anytime soon.

Last night, after church, Zhanna and Ella got on their bicycles and began riding around the parking lot, as they have enjoyed doing for several weeks now. For not having much experience with bicycles before, they have become very daring in the past week or so. They are riding faster and faster and attempting tricks, such as "no hands," etc. On Saturday night, Zhanna had a fall and came in with skinned knees and elbows. We doctored her up and patched her adequately, and she was fine. But last night, Ella took a nose dive and landed squarely on her knees. Her left knee took the brunt of it and she received a deep gash directly over the joint. Mark and I both looked at it, after cleaning it up, and decided we'd better take her to the E.R. for stitches. Ella did not like that idea. "No! I no wanna! Mom, it's fine! In Ukrainia I have many. Kids have many!" We finally got her to consent by telling her that if we didn't take her to the doctor, Mark would have to carry her around until her knee healed. She said, "Okay, I go to doctor!"

We arrived in the emergency room at 9:00pm to find a large crowd of people with various ailments who were there before us. It was busy in the E.R. last night. It was midnight before we were called back to a room, and after x-rays and cleaning and numbing and poking and stitching, it was almost 3:00am when we arrived home. They put Ella in a knee immobilizer so the stitches won't pop out if she bends her knee. They also gave her crutches. She felt sufficiently doctored, and was exhausted and ready to sleep. Both girls went to bed immediately and slept until 1:30 this afternoon. Ella said she woke up in the night with pain and she cried and couldn't sleep. I told her I wish she had called for me or come to get me, but she's so used to taking care of herself, I'm sure she didn't even think about it. After they woke up and ate, they spent time rebandaging all their wounds. No bicycles for awhile! They decided watching a DVD would be a safer option today!

We had another form of emergency a week ago. It was not a physical emergency, but an emotional one. Last Monday we had had a good day as a family, but Nathan had left to go back to Texas that morning. We were all missing him. Maybe Ella picked up on that, and it brought back feelings of abandonment or loss. I don't know what set it off, but it was a difficult time. In the evening we watched a movie together, and when it was over I asked Ella to go take her shower and Zhanna to go clean their closet. Zhanna went right in to do as I asked, but Ella had a meltdown. She plopped down on the floor and shook her hair over her face and refused to budge. I tried to lightly say, "Come on, Ella, time to take your shower! Go and get it done, please!" No cooperation. Annie came in and gently picked her up by the arms and said, "Ella, come on, go take your shower!" Ella finally went to the bedroom and into the closet where Zhanna was cleaning. Pretty soon I heard them arguing in Russian. I went in and asked, "Girls! What's the matter? Tell me what's going on!" Zhanna said, "It's Ella." I looked at Ella and she had fire in her eyes! She was behind her hanging clothes and said, "It's Zhanna!" Then she shouted in Russian and yanked her hanging clothes off the rod and threw them to the ground. I went to her and held her by the arms and said, "No, Ella. This is not the way to deal with this. Tell me what you are feeling. Why are you doing this?" She said, "I no wanna talk to you!!!!" We had been this route before where both girls shut down and crawled inside of themselves to deal with their feelings. That happened once, and it turned out okay, but I knew I didn't want that behavior to become habitual. I held to her arms and said, "Ella, we need to talk about what you are feeling. I'm not going to let you act this way! Come sit on the bed and talk to me!" That brought out a raging animal within her that I had not seen before. She was flailing her arms and shouting, "NO!" Finally, I gave her one swap on the bottom and told her I wasn't going to let her act this way. She turned and looked at me like I had severely beaten her. She was mad! But she did go sit on her bed, although she went back into the hair over the face, arms crossed, leave me alone mode.

By that time Mark had come in. I talked to Ella and told her I was sorry I had spanked her, but I wanted to get her attention. I want her to know that she can talk to us and we will listen. I kept talking, but Ella began to angrily respond, "No, you not my mother. This not my family. I don't want live here. I don't like it here. I want go back to Ukrainia," etc., etc., etc. I know I began praying about that time, and Mark said he did, too. The Holy Spirit gave us the words to say to Ella. When she said she wanted to go back to her other family, I told her as gently as I could that her birth mom and dad had made some bad choices. Those choices were choices that caused Ella and Zhanna to have to live at the orphanage (Internat). I told Ella I was sorry that had happened to her and that her parents had made those choices. It would have been the best thing if her parents had loved them and cared for them and made choices to be good parents, but they didn't. But I told her we were her parents now and we loved her and we always would. We would never leave her or hurt her. Mark told her that we are her "real" family now. He told her that we love her and we will never send her back. We might go back for a visit, but we won't send her back to live, because this is her home and family now. We both told her that we didn't like how she was acting just then, but we would always love her, no matter what. Then Mark said, "So now, Ella, you have a choice. We want you to take your shower. If you do, everything will be fine. But if you don't, then you'll go to bed and tomorrow you will have a punishment because you've acted this way and you didn't obey your mom when she asked you to do something." We both told her we loved her once again, and then we left the room. Pretty soon, we heard her go into the bathroom and heard the shower running. Later she found me in the office working on the computer, and with tears streaming down her face, she said, "I'm sorry, Mom." I said, "I'm sorry, too, Ella." Then with wet hair and in her pajamas, she sat on my lap, and we both rocked back and forth and cried together for a long time. It was a breakthrough moment that only God could provide, I was sure of it. Thank you, Jesus, for hearing our prayers and working your way into a little child's grief-stricken and hardened heart until you found the soft spot.

We may have more such occasions. The girls continue to share more and more bits and pieces with us about their early upbringing, if you can call it that. It is horrendous and unimaginable that little children would have to experience as much as they had to experience. We will continue to tell them we will always love them and that they are our daughters and we will never leave them or hurt them. We won't send them back.

God does the same for us. Our broken hearts cry out much too often, "No! I want to go back to the way I was! I don't want your love, it requires too much of me!" But our Heavenly Father simply says, "Be still, my child. I love you enough to keep loving you - more and more and more and more. I will never leave you or forsake you. I love you enough to want you to grow, until you can rest in my love for you and see the goodness of it. I will love you until you know without a doubt that I am your real Father, and I have your best interest at heart. I am the only One who can take away your hurts and your pain. Trust me."

On a day to day basis, Mark and I are feeling pretty tired much of the time now. We are being stretched, physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, financially, in time and in energy. But we have chosen to trust God in this journey. We know, without a doubt, that He has a plan for Zhanna and Ella, and He has a plan for us. We will rely on Him.

May your days be free of emergencies, and may you grow in your relationship with your Father.
Love,
Dawn and Mark