Seven Observations from Seven Days (this one's from Clint)

Family and Friends - 

I really appreciate the prayers, emails and texts over these last weeks .  I have needed them.  It has helped me tremendously as I hopefully face the end of the overseas adoption process and the start of a new chapter in my family's life.  

Short summary of trip status and then 7 observations from my first 7 days with Sergey  

We are still in Kiev (day 11 of 12 days, and heading home tomorrow!!!). The city is calm as far as violence and demonstrations.  People think things will heat up as the general election (May 25^th) gets closer.  Life is not calm in other parts of the country.  I read kyivpost.com for more in-depth updates and it is rocky and seems like it will be for awhile.   It is not going to be easily solved here.  Please pray for this land and its unification.  God has gently reminded me over the last days that while my issues are real (and have brought some anxious moments for sure), the friends I have made and the people I have met have faced this for months and stare down a very uncertain future. Lord willing, I will be back in the USA in a few days with a new, more appreciative view of my government.  I could literally sense a deeper physiological experience during my 30 minute meeting in the US embassy today.  God has used all of this to help me to get me over my own issues and has led me to greater prayer for others.

Seven Observations from my first Seven days with Sergey

First-- I am very glad that I am the one that is on this trip.  Independent of the security issues which would have led me to come last minute, Jen and I decided it would be better for me to spend this concerted time alone with Sergey at the beginning.  I am extremely grateful to my church for allowing me the time to go here and be with Sergey as he became my son.  Without going into his story (I am learning that I should not be oversharing what is his story), it is really important that Sergey and I connect as men.  While he is only a young man (though 16 in two months), he and I need this time.    I see him looking to me to lead and direct him (even though this is his country and he speaks the language). I am trying to embrace that role for him.  There is definitely a dance that is clumsy at times in beginning a new parental relationship with a 15 year-old.    And I am not the most forceful of guys.  Pray for me for this in raising all my sons and my daughter but especially this new one.

Second-- "Clint."   Usually when Sergey sees something he likes (a motorcycle,  a cool car, something unusual he spots on the street, a silly video (the kid is the target audience for AFV),  he calls my name out "Clint' in that cool Eastern European accent.   I imagine for a long time and maybe forever he will call me  “Clint”.   I am alright with that.  It fits our present relationship.  Would I be honored if he feels one day he can call me "Dad"?  Absolutely.  But I have open hands here.  Some kids who are adopted say ‘dad’ and ‘mom’ almost immediately.  Sergey is not that kind of person.  And it makes sense to me. Maybe I am not that kind of person.  I have not always been his father, and Jen has not always been his mother.  I have a decree from Ukraine that I am praying is ratified by the US government that says that I am NOW his father, and I will always view him and treat him as my son.  But I have BECOME his father.  Jen has BECOME his mother.    Adoption is a beautiful thing (see our relationship with our heavenly Father not by birth but by action of a loving God).  He has become our son.  He knows this.  He agreed to it. But man it is kind of weird especially when you are walking around with a nearly 16 year old young man who you really don't know.  So yeah it is fine that he calls me Clint.

Third--Elevator Races. Sergey loves games.  More than that, he loves being silly and goofy.  I am not a goofy person or a silly person.  I wish (and so does my family) sometimes I was more-- especially these days.  So, I have tried a few things to embrace this in order to connect with Sergey.  The best one by far since I have been in Kiev is the elevator race.  We are on the 4th floor.  There is an elevator that I am sure hasn't been inspected since the Cold War.  It barely fits two people so I don't want to ride it at all and especially not both of us together.  So, instead of making us walk the stairs and make a big deal of it.   God gave me a silly idea.  I race the elevator up and down via the stairs while he rides in it.  If it is a fair race I can win easily going up and it's a draw coming down.  He almost always cheats by running up to the elevator now because he knows he can't beat me.  And don't think for a minute I am going to let him win on purpose.  I am Clint Dowda-- I don't do that.  I lose but I don't let you win.

Fourth--English is a very hard language to learn.  Since we got to Kiev on Friday, we have started learning English through a Russian textbook that teaches you the language.  Now, Russian is hard, no doubt.   I have about 10 words down.  But English is really hard too.  It is hard to teach especially when your mastery ain't so great.  Today, he laughed his great long laugh when I told him he was wrong about the plural of meat being meat only to find out that I was the one who was wrong.   There is no "s" there.  Well, I checked again tonight (I just felt right--another Clint Dowda character issue-- having to be right) It turns out we are both right. "Give me a plate of those meats and cheeses fine sir."   I won't let him know.   

We are tackling 10 pages a day in two chunks.  It takes 2 hours a day. Believe me when you can't speak the same language and have wide open days it is a good thing to do.  Did I mention that I wasn't silly?   Today we only did 8 pages and I could tell Sergey thought he had won a victory. I will get him with 12 tomorrow.  I actually won't because now he counts the pages.    

Fifth-- Spiritual needs part 1.  I will start with myself.  Our church motto is:  Drawn together by grace for delightful, dependent and dangerous living.  I know it well.  I helped write it, I've taught on it, and led on it.  But I have experienced it in new ways these 8 days especially the dependent and dangerous part.  Friends, it took a work of the Spirit of God for me to get on that plane in Dulles last Monday night.  I knew I had to do it (wanted to do it for Sergey and our family) but there was a part of me (and not a small part) that almost couldn't do it.  It was and is dangerous here.  I knew that going into it.  I weighed delaying going until it was less dangerous.  I received a moment of clarity before I left for Ukraine on the church’s  men's retreat as we sang this new song to our church:

I Will Follow  (Jon Guerra, Jacob Sooter)

When the sea is calm and all is right
When I feel Your favor flood my life
Even in the good, I'll follow You
Even in the good, I'll follow You

When the boat is tossed upon the waves
When I wonder if You'll keep me safe
Even in the storms, I'll follow You
Even in the storms, I'll follow You

I believe everything that You say You are
I believe that I have seen Your unchanging heart
In the good things and in the hardest part
I believe and I will follow You
I believe and I will follow You

When I see the wicked prospering
When I feel I have no voice to sing
Even in the want, I'll follow You
Even in the want, I'll follow You

When I find myself so far from home
And You lead me somewhere I don't wanna go
Even in my death, I'll follow You
Even in my death, I'll follow You

When I come to end this race I've run
And I receive the prize that Christ has won
I will be with You in Paradise

I will be with You in Paradise

I was saying:  "I don't wanna go" (at least not right then--- “Can't I wait God? It makes good sense to wait!” and it some ways it did).  I knew God was saying-- "just go… whatever may come...follow me to what I have called you to." And so I followed Him to Ukraine.

But friends I have still struggled.  Our decisions to follow Jesus where He calls us do not take us away from danger or make everything easy (often, far from it).  I have rarely been this despondent and desperate in my life.  I am sure my wife and others who saw and heard me could tell especially those first few days. I cried out to the Lord for everything.  I mean everything:  to take the steps to get on that first plane ride, for every person I saw and interacted with on the plane and in the airport, for my family at home, for the car rides, for the judge to show up, for the air in the tires to withstand 25 km of potholes, for the ability to sleep, for the people I passed on the street, for the plans that were being made for me to come to pass.  Not everything "worked out" the smoothest way possible.   But in the good and in the bad, I have learned in greater measure what dependency looks like, what it means to truly believe and live as if all of life is dependent on God, and to face danger in its various forms when called by God.  I can feel that slipping away already in Kiev.  Look, I wish no danger or ill will to befall me or you, but I do long for that union with God.   I long to sing this with clarity of faith:

"I believe everything that You say You are

I believe that I have seen Your unchanging heart

In the good things and in the hardest part."

Sixth--Spiritual needs part 2.  When I told Sergey that we would be going to church on Sunday—he was not super happy.  I said to him even though I knew he would not understand it all “you do know that I am a minister.”  He went along with me (he goes along with most things pretty easily) but showed no sign of interest in the service.  It turns out a church that my denomination had a huge part in starting 15 years ago was less than a mile away. Our denomination has helped start 8 churches in 4 cities over the last 20 years which was great to connect to as well.  I'm sure Sergey would be very impressed :-).

Anyway, most of the service was in English which made it harder for Sergey to follow of course.  But the sermon, unusually so for this church, was in Russian and translated into English.  I prayed a lot for Sergey during that time to be able to understand and connect.  He seemed pretty out of it honestly—disinterested even.

 Like many things in his life, I simply do not know what he has experienced and what he thinks to know how to help or guide him.  And so I am right in the place I need to be dependent on God and in prayer.   It reminded me that Sergey has his own spiritual journey that he has been on (not one connected to the church much) and one that we join him on as a family.  Just like in life, we are not meant to journey alone to and with God.  He will be going to church in Virginia (perhaps with those faces again) but I trust him to our gracious God and a wonderful community at our church (and in Hanover).  Literally hundreds of people in our county pray faithfully for Sergey and have for a long time.  What a blessing for him to enter into such care.

Seventh-- praying for a lot more than 7.  It feels a lot longer than a week ago that I picked up Sergey.  We have been through a lot together in some pretty tumultuous times already.  I pray for many more times and days together as a family (maybe not under the threat of Russian invasion though J). 

It won’t always been easy.  It hasn’t already and I am not just talking about life in Ukraine.  While there is a moment of exaltation when you receive the court decree and you start life together as a family (and it is a moment that transcends that initial moment like the way  a birth of child does). It is life we have to live.

He and I have both gotten on each other’s nerves already.  I have been frustrated with him at some moment almost every day this week.  I know just like my other children I have exasperated him.  I have pressed too much, too far, too early.  I couldn’t take his bad table manners the other day (he fits right into our current crew at home—it would make my grandmother cringe), and just had to correct him—but really, did I need to?  Well, I am his father and I need to show him how to eat (and I do. But seriously.  Then today, he was picking at some scabs (he might truly be my son that’s a common bad habit we share).  I google translated that if you keep doing that it will lead to scars and showed him one of mine.  He looked at my scar, looked at the google translate message and gave the thumbs up!  He wants the scars.  I just had to laugh. 

Seven more days and I will know more and he will as well.  I pray there are 17,000 more and then an eternity together as a whole family growing in knowledge of love of each other and Christ.  I am not under any delusion this will be easy.  It will be rocky.  It is dangerous for all of us.  I was reminded of that as I left Jen and the kids nine days ago.  It was cemented to me even further as Sergey said goodbye to his friends (some decade old friendships) with great hugs and affection.  Sergey has truly risked in leaving his life here and his country for our family and our land. We are on this adventure together.  And I in truth am like Bilbo Baggins and the Hobbits who  “…never had any adventures or did anything unexpected: you could tell what a Baggins would say on any question without the bother of asking him. This is a story of how a Baggins had an adventure, and found himself doing and saying things altogether unexpected. He may have lost the neighbours' respect, but he gained--well, you will see whether he gained anything in the end.” 

We have gained a son and Sergey has gained a family.  And we will see in time all that all of us have gained together.