I got to know this beautiful girl about a year ago. She had been attending our youth group for quite some time, but she became best friends with my niece last year. I didn't know much about her except that she seemed to be a good role model and represented our teenagers well within the youth group. She and my niece went on a weekend youth retreat and became fast friends.
Around about October, she posted on FB that she was having some family troubles and needed a place to stay. Kevin and I talked about it and since we had an extra empty bedroom and full bath, agreed to offer her to come here. I didn't know her much at all, but after praying about it, felt that God was saying we should. She moved in the following day and we didn't see much of her. She was a senior in high school and worked full time. We didn't even really have any rules, except some common courtsey kind of things, be respectful of our family, get along with our 13-yr-old daughter, and the normal "teen" things, like no boys allowed and come in at a decent hour. After all, she was 18 and a senior already. Thankfully, she was and is a great girl!
About a month after she moved in, she was in a pageant. She invited us to come and got a us a front row seat to the show. I felt like a proud "mom" and cheered her on. When asked during the interview portion of the pageant who she looked up to, I beamed with pride when she said our youth minister. She was gorgeous on stage and she won the interview portion- 1st. place!!
Around about January, I asked her to go along on our mission trip to Haiti. She had been telling me that she wanted to going into youth ministry and I thought it would be good for her to go "see the world". She agreed to go and was really excited about it. I had a rather large team going (15 people in all) so I assigned her to do music for our nightly devotion and for our daily bible school with the orphanage kids. She and my niece both have been studying guitar and both sing in our praise band on Sunday mornings so they happily agreed. They worked really hard at preparing music, songs, practicing, and playing guitar for our upcoming trip. And, they did a fabulous job! Every day, they were teaching the kids some new songs and were overjoyed when the kids already knew some of the songs that they had prepared for.
Stephanie hadn't really felt "connected" with my family prior to us leaving. We get along great, she is an awesome role model to my very impressionable teenage daughter, and she is always respectful, but she was distant. She didn't share much with my husband and I although we tried everything to help her find her place in our home. I told her repeatedly that she is just like my daughter and she has the same status in this family as my two birth daughters do, but she just wasn't as connected with us. Everything changed in Haiti! She fell in love with the Haitian children and I believe got to see Kevin and I in a very different light while we were there. She also found her "place" in not only our home, but in her calling on her life (I think anyway). She discovered that she really does want to be in youth ministry (possibly on the foreign mission field) and she has been a different girl since we returned home. I can see her setting some new goals for herself and discovering God on a more intimate level.
She is graduating high school in 2 weeks! I am very proud of her and I just wanted her to know that from day 1, we have loved her as our daughter and we will continue to support her in whatever she decides to do. I am happy that she joined our family back in October, but even happier that she knows now that she "REALLY" joined our family. On May 15th, Stephanie- Kevin, Victoria, and I will be cheering you on and we can't wait to see where God leads you. I am so proud of you!
Mama Wendy
