Purpose in the Valleys
When I decided to move back home at the beginning of the year, I knew it was going to be the last move I would make for a long time. I told all of my girlfriends that the next time I move it would be to move in with my husband. I had moved to 6 different cities in a span of 4 years and I was over it. It was fine when it was just me but now it seemed incredibly selfish to keep moving my son, Jax, into a new school every year. It didn’t help that Jax’s father and I were having a very difficult time coparenting. I had moved to NYC thinking it would make coparenting smoother but somehow it made it worst. He would argue with me about seemingly everything, even really reasonable requests on behalf of our son, like a warm jacket for the winter or a safer car seat. When he refused to buy our son a toddler bed, I had enough. It was obvious his disdain for me was clouding his ability to make good decisions for our son. Since our coparenting relationship seemed irreparable, I decided there was no reason for me to stay in NYC anymore. I began looking for a new place to live in Southern California. My one requirement was that it had to be a 3 bedroom. I rationalized that if I’m going to stay in this one place for awhile I should have a third bedroom for a home office or a small gym. My search initially didn’t come up with very good options. There always seemed to be a trade-off: price or space, location or quality. Then one day I received an alert on Trulia for a 4-level 3-bedroom, 4 bathroom townhome 13 minutes away from my mom’s house. It had everything I wanted on my check list, down to an island in the kitchen and lots of big windows. It seemed like the perfect home for Jax and I, and it was within my budget. I dispatched my mom to visit the home in person since I was still in NYC, and much to our surprise the best of the part of the house wasn’t even the house itself. There was a community park with a kiddie playground right in front of our doorsteps which made it feel like it was in our backyard. I was sold and signed the lease for the house within 24 hours. We wouldn’t move in for several weeks but everyday Jax and I looked at pictures of the home online and planned out what we would buy for the house. I was excited about finally having a 3rd bedroom for a home-office and home gym.
A major setback in our plans
Jax and I eventually moved into the house in August. However, it wouldn’t be a permanent home for Jax. In the months prior to our move, Jax’s father had filed yet another custody case against me to try to keep Jax from leaving the state of New York. I will never understand why he felt the need to do something so stressful and traumatic to me AGAIN. It directly impacted my ability to care for our son during those months. I became obsessed with collecting evidence against him. I spent all my free time calling or emailing my attorney--- sometimes to strategize, often to lament about what would happen if Jax was forced to live in NYC. I didn’t want to live there anymore so would the court force me to choose between my son or my personal happiness? It seemed cruel to force me to live somewhere permanently where I had no family or close friends. The NYC move was always supposed to be temporary for me, and his dad knew that. I felt manipulated. After my attorney won a major motion on my behalf, Jax’s dad reached out to settle the case. The terms of the settlement required Jax to stay in New York for half of the year, which wasn’t great, but I didn’t feel like this was worth fighting him on. I would conserve my energy, resources, and all the evidence I had been collecting against him for the bigger battle, which is full custody of Jax when he is legally required to be in school (i.e. when he turns 5 years old).
Our New Family Member
After we had lived in our new home in Southern California for about a month, I received a text message from my aunt about a global foreign exchange program called AFS. Apparently 67 students from Indonesia had been accepted into the program but 26 of them didn’t have host families yet. If they didn’t have a host family by the end of the month, they wouldn’t be able to participate in the program that year. For some, since they were incoming high school seniors, this means they wouldn’t have the opportunity at all. This program had proven life changing to other students in the past from Indonesia. It helped them get good paying jobs and change the way they were able to take care of their families forever. I scanned the list and noticed that 2 of the students were from Ambon, the island that my family and I are from. One of the two students was a 16 year old girl named Maydee that was a Tae Kwon Do champion. A little voice inside of me immediately said “you should host Maydee.” This seemed unrealistic. I was barely getting the hang of taking care of one child on my own, how was I going to take care of two? The bigger issue though was this new custody order that required Jax to live in NY half of the year. I read through the documents and it said that families only needed to host for 8 weeks. They would be able to find the student another family once they were in the United States. I thought to myself, I could host a student for 8 weeks. That’s not too bad. But then… I thought about my third bedroom and how it was supposed to be a home office and gym for myself. In fact, I had just bought a few pieces of furniture for my home office. I reasoned that I could spare 8 weeks to host a student in need over a selfish desire to have my own office so I began the AFS application process. It was rigorous and required a lot of interviews and references. I had doubts about whether or not I really wanted to do this but then one day I received an email saying I was approved, and Maydee would be arriving on September 15. I excitedly began shopping for teenage girl bedroom furniture instead of office furniture and had the room ready just in time for her arrival.
God’s plan is always better
Maydee arrived on September 15 and immediately changed our lives forever. She had never seen a vacuum, dishwasher or laundry machine and seemed shocked that there were things that helped make household chores so much easier. Every day with Maydee was humbling for me. Seeing things from Maydee’s perspective made me appreciate so much more about my life. She taught me things about my culture that I had no idea about, and helped me better understand what it is like to live in Ambon. I found myself complaining less and less because it seemed so trivial compared to some of the things Maydee experienced in her life. On top of that, Jax loved Maydee and truly believed she was his big sister. He told everyone he now had a sister and followed her around like a puppy. After the initial 8 weeks ended, I told AFS I would host Maydee for the full 10 months of the program. Maydee has 3 weeks left here with me before she goes back to Indonesia.
As I look back on the last 10 months, I think about how amazing God is, and how He truly had a purpose for every part of my life, even the ugly and painful parts. Had I not been feuding so much with Jax’s dad, I probably wouldn’t have moved back to California last year. One of the requirements for hosting a student was that they had to have a bed of their own to sleep in so had I not moved into a 3 bedroom home, I wouldn’t have qualified to host Maydee. However, the biggest miracle here was that God knew before I knew that there would be a giant hole in my heart when Jax moved back to New York to live with his dad for half of the year. He filled that hole with Maydee who became someone I could redirect my nurturing and love towards while Jax was gone. Sometimes I become so busy with attending to Maydee that I would forget that Jax isn’t around. Maydee’s presence distracted me from what otherwise would have been a very painful 6 months. The Bible says God’s ways are not our ways. I like to think that if I can imagine the solution, it’s probably not God’s way of solving my problems. And this was the perfect example of that. God protected my heart, mental health, and emotional well-being in a manner I would never have imagined. In a season that could have been so painful for me, God instead used me to bless someone else in such a profound way. I am so grateful. I am excited to see what other hurts, pains, and trials in my life that God will turn into blessings for myself and others around me. Also, the distance seemed to have repaired my coparenting relationship with Jax’s dad. What used to be a really volatile relationship is now a really peaceful one. God is good!