A Father's Day Like No Other

It has been several weeks since Father's Day, but one specific incident that day was so special and needs to be shared!

The week before Father's Day, I headed back up to our schoolroom after lunch to continue studying with the older girls. As I walked in the building, I could hear Angie and Diana singing and giggling, but, of course, as soon as I walked into the room they both became very serious and studious! I laughed out loud at their feeble attempts to cover-up their playing around when they should have been studying. It was one of those moments when, as a parent, you think: "Should I make a big deal about this? Is discipline necessary or should I just let it slide?" Well, the girls got back on task real quick so I decided to let it slide. Was I ever glad that I made that decision when I found out a few minutes later what they had been doing!

A few minutes back into the schoolwork, Angie and Diana came up to me with a piece of a notebook paper and said they had been working on a song and wanted to sing it to me.

They both started to sing the worship song: "How Great is our God", but they had changed the lyrics to reflect their feelings for Father's Day! The song spoke about how great is their earthly father's love for them, how he protects them and how they will love him forever!

OK, so that's a normal song to sing on Father's Day, right? Not for us! Victor has been Angie and Diana's father for seven years now, less then half of their lifetimes. The father/daughter relationship has never been easy. The girls have never lived with their biological father and you could count on one hand the number of times they have spoken to him in their lifetime! This has planted seeds of mistrust, bitterness and abandonment in their lives. Victor's biological father abandoned his family when he was 6 years old and so Victor had no father figure while growing up or anybody to model to him what it means to be a father. So, the girls' writing this song was a huge miracle of God's redemptive and restorative power!

Then, they didn't just write it - they asked to perform it at church on Father's Day! Now, that was one parenting decision I didn't have to even think about: "Of course!" So, that began the secret rehearsal sessions as Angie and Diana invited their other siblings to participate. Martita and Lolis both decided to join the choir. So, the miracle continued to grow!

Then, the girls asked the worship team at church to play for them as they sang and several other youth at church asked if they could sing too! The miracle exploded!

So, the final result? Angie, Diana, Martita and Lolis were joined by about 10 other youth and the worship team at church to sing in honor of their Heavenly Father and in gratitude to their earthly father, Victor, the song that the girls had rewritten, rehearsed and orchestrated!

It is amazing to me to see how the girls are growing, maturing and now leading other youth in honoring their fathers when they have had to struggle so much to learn to honor their adoptive father! Wow! Truly, what God can do is beyond what we could ask or imagination!

I will let Angie express it in her own words. I have translated from Spanish what she wrote and shared with the congregation before the group sang at church on this past Father's Day:

Hello, brothers and sisters in Christ, more than anything else I want to thank God for this opportunity to be here with the other youth. Today is a very special day for us. Today is the day on which we celebrate Father's Day. A father for us is a person who loves you, who corrects you, who teaches you about God. I thank God for the lives of all the fathers that are here, but especially for one - our Dad Victor. I thank God for his life, because even though we aren't his biological daughters he loves us and cares for us. But on this special day, we want to sing a song for three special people: first, for God because He is our Heavenly Father who protects us and loves us; secondly, for our Dad Victor; and third, for all the fathers who are here today.

Now, enjoy the video of the girls and the other youth singing their special number on Father's Day!

OK - so I owe you the video! I spent awhile this morning working on it, including a call to my Dad for technical assistance. Then, I left the video uploading and went to school with the kids. I forgot to check the upload at lunch time, so I just came up to check on it, expecting to find the video uploaded and ready to post on the blog and was greeted with the following message:

"Video was unable to be uploaded due to an unknown error." OK, so there has to be some spiritual lesson in that little message, but I will have to think about that one!

Now, Victor and I are on our way out the door for a counseling session (gotta keep growing!) and an overnight date! Yeah! We didn't ever go out for our anniversary, so this is our anniversary celebration!

So.....in other words, I owe you the video of the girls singing! Thanks for your patience!