Lice & Vomit

Can I have a better blog title?

I am not gonna lie. Pretty much everything I thought about hosting might've just been thrown out the window. 

Yesterday was our mandatory, four hour training. You know what rhymes with training? Draining. I feel exhausted.

I have a new respect for families who have adopted older children from other countries. I could not imagine going through that. I never thought we would, but this hosting experience is a little window into that possibility. After yesterday's training, I realized that I might be a little scared. I'm sure they had to tell us the worse case situations, so that we'd know what to do. However, I am hoping that 90% of all that was mentioned will not happen. Actually I'd love for 100% to not happen and these children would be absolutely fine once they got here.

I'm going to write a series of blog posts about some things we learned. There was plenty of information. I'll definitely share more later. But... how about I share what might happen within that first hour of meeting our hosted children?

Lice check.

Yes. That's what I wrote. I'm the kid who got lice from her best friend in the third grade. My mom sent me to stay with my 3rd grade teacher for a week so she could deal with it. I'm not lying. There is proof of this and my mom would not deny it either. She shipped me and my lice-filled hair away. I don't know if the apple falls far from the tree on this one, folks. I immediately thought about my house {that's already too big} being infiltrated by tiny insects. My dogs. My cat. My kids. Me.  

This is where I feel completely convicted. Those should NOT be my thoughts. Nothing has ever stopped me from playing with or touching orphans! I even contracted impetigo in Guatemala in January! Thankfully I wasn't told, before hand, "Hey, you'll be playing at orphanages and you're going to contract this bizarre, extremely contagious skin condition on your face. Don't worry. There will just be red, crusty sores around your lips and nose when you return. The sores are hard to get rid of, but you'll survive. Hope your kids don't get them." I might never have flown to Guatemala, due to fear. And, that was one of the best trips I've ever taken in my 40 years. I wouldn't trade that impetigo for anything! {Thank God for essential oils so that I don't have to look at that anymore!}

The truth is I don't know much about lice. {Thankfully} It's probably not all that bad. I will be learning all about lice, though. You want to know why? We were told the FIRST thing we should do when meeting our kids was to perform a lice check "WITHOUT THEM REALIZING"! That's what we were told. What?! 

"Hello, orphan children. Here are your host parents. In America, parents greet you with balloons, signs, a gift, AND rubber gloves. It's a custom to run their fingers over every centimeter of your head before they even say 'hello'." One host mother said that one of her hosted kids actually just offered her head to the mom and told her to check. The training suggested we not be overt, but possibly ask to braid our hosted child's hair. When? In the car on the way home? If I wait until we get home, it might already be too late. Do I rent a car so that Hertz has to deal with lice for the summer?

Speaking of cars... we were told there is a HUGE chance of our hosted kids being so motion sick that they are {pretty much} guaranteed to throw up all over everything and everyone on the car ride home from the airport.The training mentioned even getting a car detailed after the ride. 
 
Vomit and lice are the minor things that were mentioned in the training. I'm not even going to mention the pornography, stealing, bedwetting, risque clothing, or lying right now. Again, I hope they are preparing us for the worst. It sounds like we need to start preparing our boys for the possibilities we might encounter this summer.

I need to pray. These, and many, many more things are swirling around in my brain. Yesterday morning was filled with excitement. I'm praying and hoping for the excitement to return and knock out all these other thoughts!

Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. Philipians 4:8