Our house is any thing but quiet most of the time, however for moments during the day and once the sweetnesses are tucked lovingly into bed…..there is this DEAFENING SILENCE.

Thoughts flood me from the day, the week, the last four months…Yes four months since the boys came home and 2 years since S became our daughter!

My jumbled thoughts are something like this….(he and she will be used sporadically to protect our children). My child was found at only two days old or was it 3 or 4 days or is the file right at all? My child remembers his family, remembers the livelihoods of her family, he knows who gave him away. My child was given away when he was 5 or 6 years old and she was so terrified of his family being punished that he forgot her given name. She was abandoned at about 2 months old and given a scary incorrect diagnosis that would make him wait for years for a family. My sons both spent years HUNGRY…the effects have left emotional and physical scars. My daughter rode a scooter part of the way to school then drug herself through the streets to get the rest of the way to school. She then crawled up 4 flights of steps to get to her classroom. She was loved, but this was the only way to prepare her for college in her birth country. MY HEART BREAKS!

He saw babies die and children abused. She in turn abused others and now has deep regrets, he is haunted by nightmares and the screams of children being abused every night. AMIDST ALL THIS HURT GOD HAD A PLAN FOR EACH OF THEM.

She hoped for a family. He said he wanted to be adopted. One was prepared, the other wasn’t. Neither truly knew what it would be like to leave their friends, “family”, food, home, heritage, EVERYTHING and come to a completely different world with strangers. New smells, sounds, there is consistency(something that all 3 of our children had lacked in their lives). He was never loved. He was loved deeply by many. She charmed the caretakers to get his way. He sat silently afraid or went outside and skipped meals just to escape the desolate situation surrounding her. MY HEART BLEEDS!

“It was like jail” she tells me. “I took care of babies and let them sleep with me so they wouldn’t die.” “My mom had curly hair, kids made fun of my sister because she wasn’t very pretty, my little brother was really close to my age.” MY HEARTT CRIES and my knees won’t hold me. How is my heart supposed to hold all of these things.

I sit here in this too pURPle room, cluttered with too many recliners and mountains of unfolded laundry. I MOURN the things that my children have suffered in their short lives. I REJOICE  that 4 of my children don’t know what it is like to endure this trauma and yet they are learning without even realizing it, to have compassion for their siblings pasts.

While I know without a shadow of doubt that all of these children are our gifts from GOD, I can not fathom what He saw in us, the Rohrer Family, to choose us to parent these beautiful beings. I question myself daily, I PRAY, “God, Please give me wisdom, strength and patience to parent these children. Thank you for the village who is helping us raise our children.”

I LAUGH that my talk with the twins about germs was interrupted by ” Mommy, I eat my buggers.” Then I gag….Travis and I attempt to RECONNECT, sometimes it’s a wink, ever so often we will stay up way too late & actually have an adult conversation and many times it is simply the need-to-know everyday sort of things.

I am CONFLICTED about how to write a blog post that is HONEST and yet GLORIFYING to our LORD. The truth is, that I have been FRUSTRATED beyond UGLY with our situation. I will forever be GRATEFUL to my grandma for allowing us to move in on a moments notice, that being said this is not a healthy, safe living arrangement. I have GRIEVED having to move and sell our house. I was ANNOYED by having the hassle of the tree falling through the roof. I have experienced DENIAL and refused to change our address until we closed on our house. I have been ANGRY that our home study agency has such stupid(my kids would tell me that we aren’t allowed to say that word) rules about bedrooms! I feel GUILTY that I have to constantly tell my children not to be children because something of grandmas will most definitely break or be destroyed. Many times I feel HOPELESS that there is no good solution to our housing dilemma. {Build a house with only the equity we have in our ground or stay here}…

The TRUTH is that while we have had trials with all 7 of our children there is one whom I have considered giving up on! I knew that without a MIRACLE that this PRECIOUS child would never work in our family. While my flesh is so weak and my FAITH falters, I serve an AMAZING LORD! We are BLESSED with a community who has supported our family in every way imaginable! Every  PRAYER has been heard! We are all too aware of the long road that lies ahead of us we have seen more change in our son than we dared HOPE for…..ever! GLORY BE TO GOD!!