Welcome, Alejandro!

Yesterday morning I got up at my usual 5:30 a.m. and went into our home office for my devotional time with the Lord (the only way to keep it all together!). The first thing I do each morning, as the water for my coffee heats up, is read a daily calendar I received years ago from my Uncle Tom and Aunt Joan with sayings from Chuck Swindoll and Bible verses. Yesterday’s entry read:

“I know of no realm of life that can provide more companionship in a lonely world or greater feelings of security and purpose in chaotic times than the close ties of a family.”

“Your wife shall be like a fruitful vine in the very heart of your house, your children like olive plants all around your table.” Psalm 128:3

Well, you can’t even see the table at Refuge Ranch anymore due to all of those olive plants!

The above saying provided the perfect opening line for the scenes played out throughout yesterday on the stage of our lives. You see, Victor and I went to a neighborhood just outside Mexico City to pick up our 18^th son, a little boy oh so anxious for those “close ties of a family”, 11 year old Alejandro!

Alejandro playing at Burger King

Several of Alejandro’s comments and conversations yesterday reveal his deep hunger and desire to belong to a forever family:

• · Our first conversation went something like this: “How old are you, Alejandro?” “Twelve and nobody has ever celebrated my birthday.” Well, I had his birth certificate in front of me, so I knew that he will actually turn twelve in February. This conversation also provided our first experience with Alejandro’s tendency to exaggerateJ!

• · Our second conversation, after having been with him for just a few minutes: “So, how do you feel about coming to live with us, Alejandro?” “Happy!”

• · After trying to get a grip on the timeline of Alejandro’s life, we asked why he wanted to come live with us now: “I just decided to.”

• · While waiting for our hamburgers at Burger King, I pulled Alejandro into our first hug, a side hug, and he spoke up by saying: “Well, another member for the family!”

• · During lunch we did our best to explain that no matter what he does we will love him and never leave him. I offered the explanation: “You will grow up, finish school, go to college, get married, have kids…” when Alejandro interrupted by saying: “And I will live with you and live with you and live with you.” Ok, so as the years go by we will need to encourage him to someday move back out of the house and follow the steps that the Lord has set for him. But, for now, we will just live together, live together and live together.

• · Last night, I read the Bible to Alejandro, Miguel and Caleb and then sang them each their own special song and prayed for them individually, as I do with all of the kids. As I sat next to Alejandro and stroked his head, he didn’t really say anything, but it was more like purring sounds coming from him at the joy of actually being put to bed.

Alejandro’s birth mother was, and is, a street prostitute and drug addict. There is no father named on his birth certificate. Alejandro claims that he last lived with his mother when he was 7 years old. However, I have discovered, after some experience, that when children tell you their own story, the timeline part is not accurate, as they don’t have the same sense of passage of time as an adult and, most of our kids had such unstable lives that there were not events like birthdays, school or Christmas to help them measure time. After his birth mother abandoned him, he lived with his grandmother who then passed away. After that, he was shuffled between two different uncles, one of whom we met yesterday. Then Alejandro was sent to live at a men’s shelter for men/boys of all ages. He ran away from there. He then bunked up with some lady who purchases scrap metal. After that he found his way back to one of his uncles who then sent him on to live with a “Christian” lady that we know. She would yell at him a lot, so another “Christian” lady took Alejandro to live with her. However, she began to hit him and would punish him by not feeding him, so the first “Christian” lady took him back. She was getting tired of him and tried to give him back to his uncle. However, the uncle lives with his wife and three children in one bedroom of his mother-in-law’s house. He has no job and a child with juvenile diabetes, an extra financial and emotional burden on his own family. So, the uncle’s plan was to take Alejandro to a main bus terminal in Mexico City and abandon him there. That is when we got involved, about a week ago, when the first “Christian” lady asked us if we were willing to accept Alejandro into our family.

So, in his first 11 years of life, Alejandro has lived in at least 8 different “family” situations, not including ours, and has bounced among those 8 different options repeatedly. Everything about Alejandro yells: “I want stability!”

Alejandro and I (Julie): first picture as Mother and Son

One of my favorite hymns from my growing up years says:

On Christ the solid Rock, I stand;

All other ground is sinking sand,

All other ground is sinking sand.

We thank the Lord that He is our Rock and that He gives us the stability and strength we need so that we can give that stability and strength to children whose lives have been nothing but sinking sand!