Wednesday, July 21, 2010

Marissa graduates from Grade 9


























































On 28 June 2010, Marissa completed her 9th year of school. She has done fairly well but struggles with keeping up. She will be attending a Learning Strategies program next year.

Tuesday, March 16, 2010

first picture


here is the first picture we saw when we were told they had a match for us. Allie says she does not like it and looks like a dork, so please don't hold it against her. Marissa could have passed for Lorna's grade one picture!

Sunday, March 7, 2010

the story

Here is our adoption story.


Doug grew up as a missionary child in Indonesia. Being the youngest of 5 siblings, he often wanted a younger one. All through the years, he thought about adoption. He determined that someday he would adopt. Lorna grew up, the 5th of 6 kids, on a farm near Saskatoon, SK. Though her family was fairly well off, sometimes, there was a lot of emotional trauma and pain. Her parents believed in spanking but because of their own pain, they did not understand that you don't need to spank that hard, that often or for such petty reasons. Lorna, thankfully, worked through some of her pain with the help of counsellors between ages 18 and 23.


Doug & Lorna met in Bible College and started courting. Lorna went on to become an RN in Saskatoon and Doug studied electronics technology in Calgary. We grew up with the belief that one stayed virgin until the day of marriage and commitment. So when we had both graduated from our programs, we married. Lorna had a job in Edmonton at the time so that is where we made our home. Children came along fairly quickly. Three in 4 years. Boy, girl, boy.


While Lorna was pregnant with their third child the family moved to a West African country for the purpose of sharing their love and the love of Jesus with a small tribe (30,000 people) way back in the bush. It wasn't always easy getting to know these troubled and hard working people. They were poor, uneducated and constantly fighting with each other. Polygamy had taken its toll on the people and their culture. Women have no status and are simply farms for men to plant and harvest children from. They struggle every day just to survive and stay alive. But God's love was starting to make its way into their lives and that was wonderful to see. Women would bring their 3 month old babies to Lorna because they were sick. Turned out the moms simply didn't know how to look after their babies and were starving them because they were not drinking enough water to keep their own milk supply up.


In the course of their work, Doug & Lorna started attending funerals of babies whose mothers had died. These children are unwanted and usually follow their mothers within weeks. One such child was brought to a colleague's home while Lorna was visiting there. The little girl, Mispeh, came into Lorna's arms so willingly, so bright and cheery. She was 4 months old. She reached up her chubby little hands and patted Lorna's cheeks. Lorna knew immediately that this child was hers and she would do anything to help this little girl grow up and become a part of the Warkentin family. There was some difficulty with the process of claiming her so that by the time she was placed in Lorna's arms two weeks later, Mispeh was dying. Lorna carried her next to her heart for 36 hours. She was such a sick baby. Just prior to her death, Mispeh looked directly into Lorna's eyes and she saw just a little of the child she had seen two weeks before. It didn't take long for the women of the village to show up and start the mourning process. When they saw Lorna's genuine tears over a child that wasn't her own, they were moved and gained a new respect and understanding of this “outsider”. Mispeh is buried under their home wrapped in Lorna's favorite piece of cloth. She was 4 ½ months old. Her birthdate was 04 December 1990. How Lorna's arms and heart ached for the child she lost. It was far worse than the miscarriage she had a few years before.


In 1997, Lorna developed a life threatening illness and the family moved back to Edmonton. Over the years that followed, Doug and Lorna revisited the idea of adoption. As Lorna regained her health, she returned to the nursing profession. The children were growing up and the topic of adoption came up occasionally.


One evening in January 2003 Doug was watching television when the segment Wednesday's Child aired. Doug dashed into the office where Lorna was doing something on her computer. Doug pulled up the website and found the same story he had just seen. “Look, Lorna,” he said. “Look at our daughters!” They put printed pictures on the refrigerator and the family began serious discussions. One evening in March of that year their children said, “Mom & Dad, if we are going to do this, it's time. We are starting to see them around our table with us.” That evening the online application for adoption was completed and Doug and Lorna had signed up for the required “Parenting” classes. These were extremely helpful as they learned the types of trauma that lands children in foster care and the types of difficulties these children face in trying to grow up. The world of “wounded” children was very different from what Doug & Lorna had experience with and how they raised their first three children.


Doug & Lorna were asking for older children so that they would fit in with the rest of the children. During the application process, they did not hide the fact that they had experienced family pain of their own nor did they hide their strong faith. God had asked them to do this and they were walking in obedience to that call. Their own children were challenging with ADHD and plenty of rage generated from their own lack of parenting skills while the children were young. Doug & Lorna had accessed family counsellors and had learned new skills. They received their approval for adoption in June 2003. Then came the waiting. They started rearranging the house for their new family members. They collected furniture for their bedrooms. The girls they first saw on Wednesday's Child had been adopted by another family and were not considered the right ages.


In the meantime, Allie and Marissa had just moved out of their first adoptive home into another rather crowded foster home. The rages that these girls went into when things did not go their way or when they simply couldn't handle life anymore, were phenomenal. The foster parents did not handle this very well and what they did do caused even more trauma.


The social workers were studying and looking for just the right fit for the Warkentin family. It was early October 2003 when the call came. “We have a match!” They were told to look at the picture on the website. “Alex and Marissa”. Who would name their daughter Alex? Must be short for Alexandria or Alexandra. They had started the journey.


On 02 December 2003, Alexandria (12) and Marissa (8) moved into the Warkentin household. Shy, scared but with nothing to lose! Was this going to be one of those, “here we go again.” times? Marissa got busy being stubborn and belligerent. Allie, very soon, got into her ragings. She would throw things – glasses, chairs, toys – anything to try to lash out and hurt someone. She destroyed her bed, her furniture and one wall of her bedroom. Doug and Lorna engaged immediately. They got to the point where they could get Allie on the floor and restrained in less than 5 seconds. The stuff Allie screamed out during those times! The pain of her early childhood experiences. The pain of feeling like the apartment fire was her fault. She screamed for hours, clawed and scratched and kicked and spit and punched. She tried to hurt herself. Finally she would calm down, and Lorna would take her in her arms and hold her and rock her back and forth and the two of them would cry together and Lorna would tell her of her love. All the while Allie would apologize and Lorna would tell her that one apology is all that is necessary. Lorna spent a lot of time tucking Allie into bed at night because she needed the hugging and cuddling. She just wanted to be loved and valued. When Allie wasn't keeping us busy, Marissa was. Strong-willed doesn't cover it. She was over sexualized, revealing that someone had sexually assaulted her as a very young child. She pushed the family away emotionally. She was hard-hearted and worked hard to hurt her new parents with words that cut. There were the rages there too and she had such a piercing scream. More holding and cuddling though that took a while to start feeling like it was genuine.


There were the good times, too. Like the time Doug figured out how to get into Allie's personal space. A connection point was needed. She needed a safe “daddy” touch. So very early on, he was inspired to play tag with her. Tapping her on the arm, he would say, “you're IT!” and run away. That was all that was needed. Doug would let her chase him for a bit and then stop suddenly so she would run straight into his arms and get a hug to boot. She has an infectious laugh and a stunning smile. When she is happy, she is absolutely beautiful. Marissa loves to sit close and just be together. Her smile has a mischievous character to it. She tries the “puppy dog” eyes to get her way but has learned it doesn't work very well. Lorna says “yes!” a lot. When the girls had been with us for three years, she wrote a poem for them entitled, The Answer is “Yes!”. So when times are rough, this phrase is spoken again. No matter what, the answer is yes. These girls are stuck with and on us and we will always say “yes” to keeping them as our own.


Back in 1998, Doug and Lorna and family had become involved with a group of business people whose focus was Personal Development. They had many books and seminars under their belts before the girls arrived in their home. The business community they are a part of encourages people to grow personally in all ways: to learn to get along with people; choosing a better lifestyle; moving from just living to being blessed and then on to significance. Doug and Lorna always wanted to do something of significance. They believe with all their hearts that this is what has happened for Allie and Marissa. They believe these girls were planned by God, protected by God, rescued by God and given to just the family that would be the right people in their lives.


The girls had been with the family for 6 months when Allie decided she no longer wanted to be Alexandria. That name belonged to a different girl, a different life and a life she wanted to leave behind. She chose to be Allie, a name some positive friends and teachers were already calling her.


One evening after the girls had been in the home for about a year, their older sister came to Doug and Lorna with her piece of the story. She was a little girl of 5, lying in her bed at night staring out at the full African moon. She was crying and praying that God would give her a little sister. The time was towards the end of May 1991, just shortly after the death of Mispeh. This little girl in Africa was praying and a baby girl was born in Barrhead, AB on 21 May 1991, starting her journey to her true family. Four years later, the girl in Africa was again lying awake staring at the moon outside her window. She was still praying for a sister. The time was two weeks before her 10th birthday at the end of October. A baby girl was born in Edmonton on 13 October 1995, having begun her difficult journey to her forever family. These girls were prayed for and loved and protected by God long before anyone knew where they would end up. There isn't a moment of their lives that isn't known and directed by God. Their birth family may have wounded them but they had a Champion looking out for them and keeping them safe.


We took the girls to church every Sunday and sometimes not without difficulty. We started looking for a suitable church family that would welcome the girls without judging them for their disabilities. Even though Allie talked negatively sometimes about our faith during her rages, God's love for her started shining through the love of her new parents. We could see the peace developing in her life by the school pictures that came home every year. At one of the seminars we attended we brought the girls to the Sunday service. A very intellectual man explained the story of Salvation in such a simple way that Allie got it. She prayed the prayer to ask God into her life that day. She told her oldest brother what she had done and came away positively glowing. In 2008 she was water baptized, making her decision to follow God complete.


Marissa would get herself into such a corner with her stubbornness that she could not gracefully back down. Her weapon was her piercing scream. She would close her eyes and scream until she was hoarse. Doug was away the day when one of these matches started. Lorna and Marissa (11) were on the couch and Lorna's birth daughter was nearby supporting her with prayer and songs of praise to God. The anguish that rose from that child's heart was enough to break any mother's heart. It really had nothing to do with the reason for the “stubborn” but just such pain! Suddenly a very different voice was speaking. “Mommy?” came this small, quiet, sad, trembling sound. “I can't do this anymore. I need God in my life.” Lorna happily lead Marissa in a prayer to accept Jesus into her heart and asked him to help her and heal her. She immediately called her Daddy on the phone and nearly caused him to have an accident because he could not see for the tears! She has grown a lot and made some very good choices at school this year that are a direct result of her faith. She likes to be in charge and if her naughtiness is losing that control for her, she will change so that she can be in control. It is so good to see her doing this.


The family was complete and they would all be in heaven together. Allie & Lorna spent more than one evening tuck-in time praying and crying for mom Sheri and her family that they would come to know the love and freedom in Jesus.


This did not mean that the trouble was over. There is a lot of growing and a lot of forgiveness to do. Their birth family hurt them in so many ways. That leaves residual stuff to deal with. Thankfully this usually comes up only when they are ready to deal with it and move on. Allie was seen about every six months by a psychiatrist who prescribed a good drug to help her with her mental disabilities. This has contributed to her academic success so far. It helps her to be able to think more clearly and plan and also understand the consequences of decisions she makes. It isn't a perfect system because of the underlying damage done by other's lifestyle choices.


Allie attended L.Y.Cairns, a school for disabled children. Many of the kids are there because they will never be able to function in the real world and are just putting in time. Allie started to excel. Her grades went up and she started aiming for her high school diploma. While there she got in with a less than ideal group of friends. She experimented with smoking in Grades 10 & 11 but quit because she didn't like it and it just got to be too much to hide, even though Lorna had anticipated this and told her many times that if she was going to do smoke, she was to do it in front of them. She had an incredible, insatiable need to be connected with boys. She was constantly fantasizing about relationships with boys. Her parents were constantly telling her that this was not the time for those kinds of relationships. She needed to grow up first and learn to be content with herself before she would be able to handle any boy relationship with any maturity. She was also taught that dating has only one purpose: eventual marriage. So dating in the traditional sense was not condoned or encouraged. Grow up first and then decide if you want to marry. The school was full of kids constantly trading boyfriends. Allie's parents know that not much of this sank into her brain and by the end of grade 12 she was frequently saying, “I might as well be just like Mom Sheri and just live on the streets!” This worried her parents immensely but they felt a little out of their league with this behaviour because their birth children had never behaved like this. The reason for this would surface later.


When Allie turned 18, she seemed to think that she could do whatever she wanted to and live however she wanted to. Doug and Lorna applied for and were awarded Guardianship of Allie as a disabled adult. This produced a fair bit of anger even though she signed the papers. Her parents explained that the guardianship was to make sure no one took advantage of her in the future and she would always be protected and watched over. The summer of 2009 was very stressful. She spent a lot of time with poor choice friends and almost always angry with the world. What Allie was hiding was that she had got herself engaged to a 17 year old drug addict who had attended her school. The mother is drunk 24/7 and their home is a known drug house. Allie was put on AISH and was given a bus pass to return each day from Centre High. This went along fine until one of her old fashioned rages showed up. The police came and put her in handcuffs. Marissa told her parents that Allie had bragged to her that she had lost her virginity the week before. Doug and Lorna learned just how much was going on behind their backs. The following week she went missing. She skipped classes, and took off to her “fiance's” house. She had her cell phone, an extra pair of underwear and her make-up bag in her purse. She had intended to stay with her boyfriend but had no idea what that meant. That was the picture in her mind of what she thought Mom Sheri lived like. Allie had been raped the week before and was fully intending to stay loyal to the boy. Lorna had pressured Allie to reveal the phone number of the boy's home. It turns out that Allie was not the first girl he raped. She is being monitored for STIs. So far nothing has shown up. Doug and Lorna sent the police after her. They brought her home drunk and high on drugs. That changed the picture a great deal. Allie almost lost the privilege of finishing her diploma. Her friendships were all ended, she returned the engagement ring, (she had seen this boy push his mother around – and somehow thought this would not happen to her. ), she agreed to attend classes and she is chauffeured everywhere.


The curiosity about her family of origin obviously got too much. Her parents had asked Allie and Marissa to be open about their Facebook accounts and were allowing this access to their friends. Allie broke that trust when she contacted her birth family using a different name. She assumed they would know that she had been adopted by the new last name. She forced Marissa into doing the same. When it looked like Nana Pat would actually come to her school, Marissa panicked and told her school principal. Even though Allie arranged to meet both Ronnie and Jessica several times, she always chickened out and lied about her phone to get out of actually carrying this out. All of her conversations with Jessica were lies simply because she was starting to panic. Allie's mental capabilities cause her to copy whatever is around her which includes language and behaviours. Thank God the girls had enough respect for their now family! Both girls saw just how much they hurt Doug & Lorna by their foolish actions. Allie sticks close to friends and will not walk alone when downtown at school. She is afraid of meeting her other family. She knows her education is at stake should this happen. She carries her cell phone very close so she can make any necessary call that will keep her safe.


Right now, the girls wish to return to their mostly happy life with God and their forever family. Neither was ready for any of this and their wish will be granted. Their question about their family's continued existence has been answered. They have heard the words that affirm that they are loved and have been missed. They have also seen the fighting that still exists within the family: the lies, the pain and trouble and lifestyle the family continues to live. They do not wish to be a part of that. Nor would Doug and Lorna and any guardians to follow ever allow such a thing to happen. If, in the future, the girls choose to have contact with any of their birth family it would be under the strictest supervision. For now the birth family deserves an apology for the grave error in Allie's judgement. Understand that she had no concept of the consequences of her actions and clearly shows that she will always require someone to make sure she remains safe. The further conversations progressed, the more frightened she became! Her parents are taking responsibility for any future communications with birth family. The relief that Allie and Marissa show now that it is out in the open is amazing. The family has chosen their living location very carefully to ensure their safety.


That is the story so far. Doug and Lorna are committed to helping Allie and Marissa succeed at whatever they choose to do. They are building a team around them that will be in place for them long after they are gone. They are setting things up financially so the girls will never lack what they need. Doug and Lorna will be their legal guardians even when adults so that no one will ever be able to take wrongful advantage of them. Their older sister will be their guardian when Doug and Lorna pass on or are too elderly to do the job. Their older brother is their listed emergency contact and their future trustee. The girls have extremely loyal and protective siblings and parents. Anyone who tries to mess with the girls will have a lot to answer for!


Doug & Lorna will post periodic updates on this blog and request that no further effort be made to contact the family at this time.

some pictures

the original Warkentin 5 - Aug 2003




First family pic of Warkentin 7 - December 2003



Jesse, Marissa, Lorna, Allie, Doug, Micah & Lisa





August 2004





Family day 2009















Allie Grade 12 Grad 2009