Christmas/New Year Update

Hello All,

Liam opening gifts on Christmas Morning.

Just wanted to give a year end update about our new family. Since getting back from Ukraine at the beginning of October, we have been well supported by our family and church community and other friends as well as through a state-sponsored post-adoption support group run by Bethany Christian Services. People from church have lavished us with gift cards so we could buy Liam some clothes and other supplies. It also helped with Christmas shopping! The Bethany group meets every other week and adopted kids get to hang out with each other while the parents meet, share struggles, ideas and learn parenting strategies etc. We are also part of another support group through Love Cradle which has been very helpful as well. Liam has started attending our church's youth group and he has been taking Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu classes which he loves.

The last last 3 months have been full of both joy and struggle as Liam learns to fully trust us and we learn  how to parent a 14 year old (which is enough of a challenge) but also a 14 year old who is experiencing a huge change in his life circumstances and adjusting to a new culture. I would say that things are very positive at least 80% of the time. During the other 20% Beth and I take turns talking the other off the ledge as it were. Our biggest challenge is to insist on respectful behavior and cooperation from Liam while remaining calm and patient and also giving a lot of praise when he does well. We've learned that low self-esteem is a big cause of some of these problems even if it seems the opposite is the case.  There are times when he resists, complains and shuts down on us but thankfully we have also seen that he will come back to us and ask forgiveness after he's had a chance to think things over. We feel really blessed that despite the problems, Liam is definitely bonding with us and his spirit is open to us (most of the time.) He has a fun-loving spirit and is very affectionate. He's great with the little kids at our house church. We are learning about many techniques for approaching parenting, some of them contradict each other. But we know the biggest thing is to pray for God's wisdom and stay open to His voice.

Since getting back Beth has been doing some homeschooling with Liam, mostly concentrating on his English. She is supported in this by a weekly ESL class. She's also been doing some math and other things with him. This has been a challenge as Liam is sometimes resistant and gets easily frustrated. So, we've decided that instead of homeschooling we will send him to a private Christian school where he can get the individual support he needs in a healthy atmosphere.  At first we thought public school was our only realistic option but we were encouraged to at least apply at a local Christian school and see if we could find a way to pay for it. Well, we enrolled him figuring we could pay at least 3 months of the next semester and then see what happens after that. But one day, we got a call from the school saying that an anonymous donor had paid Liam's tuition for the semester in full!!! Once again we have been blessed beyond all expectation. It's incredible the way God keeps making a way where there seems to be no way. That's been the story of this adoption from the beginning and it continues to be the case as we raise Liam. Thank you all for being a part of making Liam's life here possible.

Liam's first Christmas with us (he calls it his first real Christmas) was very happy. Looking forward to the joys and challenges of the new year.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you all!

Beth, Bill and Liam