This is us. The Harris Family.

 

Cliff and I were married in July of 2011 and Campbell came along soon after in June 2012.

 

For a moment in time we felt that life was complete and we were happy.

 

But soon we began to feel that familiar tug on the heart strings that perhaps the Lord had more in store for us as family. We prayed and decided that we wanted to have another child of our own and then we wanted to try to adopt one, maybe two children, as well. Cliff is adopted and he understands the beautiful gift that adoption can be and so this was something we felt was right for our family in the future. We began to tell the Lord that when He was ready to bless us with another child we were ready, but it seemed that for that time, the answer was...

 

..not yet.

 

And so we worked, me from home caring for Campbell (aka Bug) and a few other of our friend's children, and Cliff as a barista at Starbucks while he went to school. Money was tight to say the least and there were some days we almost doubted if God still had a plan for our family at all.

 

We made the decision last summer to move from our home in the Jackson, MS area to New Orleans where Cliff's family has a house that was not being used and we thought maybe we could put down roots in the Big Easy and grow our family there. But just like in Jackson, our journey in Nola seemed hard. Jobs that we thought were going to work out, failed. Plans that we made, fell through. And though we loved our house and neighborhood and the time we spent there in many ways was therapeutic, we soon realized that God was calling us to a much different life all together.

 

 

But wait a minute, because here is where we need to back up a bit since I realize that this journey we are now on is something that God has been preparing me to do for a long time.

 

 

When I was about ten years old my mother's best friend, Rhona, had a vision for children she called Shepherd's Ranch. She wanted to create a camp for at risk youth where they could come together in the summers for tutoring, ministry, fun and love so that they could be given a chance when they went back to their homes in the fall. She wanted to offer children who had not been given a fair shake in life, an ally who would be there for them, not just for the summer, but who would follow beside them on into the rest of their lives. And so she began to pray and plan and save and finally the first summer camp schedule was set. Twenty-five at risk youth had been chosen and all the details were falling into place. My parents were going to be a part of the camp as well, my mom as a counselor and my dad as camp pastor.

 

But in the last hours there was a cancelation. One of the girls who was slated to come, could not. Everything was paid for, everything was scheduled and everything revolved around this plan to have five groups of five children at camp that summer.

 

And so I was posed a question that at the time seemed trivial, but that I now know would shape my life forever.

 

Would I  possibly want to fill in for the girl who could not attend camp at Shepherd's Ranch?

 

Sure, why not? A summer to get to ride horses, go swimming, ride in canoes, roast marshmallows, and all for free? I'd be crazy not to attend! But what I didn't realize at the time was that this was no ordinary camp and this would be no ordinary summer. Sure, I'd have all those camp experiences, but also so much more.

 

By design the camp structure was such that all the kids coming into camp were given new clothes to wear. A camp shirt, new jeans, new tennis shoes, every kid came into camp on the first day looking the same. I didn't know as a naïve ten year old kid what I would later learn, that some of my peers at camp came from abusive homes where they trembled when men at the camp spoke to them. I didn't know that there was such a place in my hometown of Little Rock, AR as Granite Mountain, the government project where even the cops didn't go, much less that some of my new friends lived there.

 

I was living, as most of my other friends at the time did in a bubble, where our childhoods were pretty much perfect. My parents were still together and loved each other. I may have had to eat PB&J sands from time to time at the end of the month, but I never had to worry if I would eat at all. The thought of abuse at the hand of a parent was such a foreign concept to me I could really not even fathom it. I had no clue that some kids lived life any different than me, especially not in my city. It really was a Wonder Years, Cosby Show kind of childhood where I can look back on it now with nothing but good memories.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And in some ways that was good, I think. I was sheltered from all that hurt and pain as a young child and so my developing psyche only knew love and acceptance. But at that pivotal age, a tween as it has since come to be called, not really a child anymore but still not quite a teen, I was shown a world where the bubble I had been living in collapsed.

 

My structure of home and faith and family was still intact, but I no longer knew the world around me to be a mirror image of all I had known to be true in my home.

 

The kids all looked like me in their new clothes on the outside, but on the inside they were hiding a world of hurt I could not imagine.

 

I will never forget on the first morning of camp I awoke to find my roommate asleep on the floor. I thought perhaps she had fallen out of bed, but on the second morning she was there again. By the third morning in a row that I awoke to find her on the floor and not in her bed, I asked her if she was falling out. Her reply has stuck with me all of these years because it was probably the first piece of the perfect world constructed in my head that began to crumble. She said that she was used to sleeping on the floor because in her house if you slept in the beds you were high enough up that the stray bullets from the drive by shootings would hit you as you slept and so she had grown used to sleeping on the floor instead. It was not until the very end of camp that she grew accustomed to being able to sleep once again in a warm bed.

 

I remember one night in particular that we hiked out to where the lights of the city could not reach us and we watched a meteor shower. It was the first time I ever remember seeing the sky lit up like that with falling stars. I and my fellow campers were amazed. All of us equals in that moment, gazing in child-like wonder, at the marvel of the heavens!

 

That was it. That was the moment that the Lord began to prepare my heart for the work that we are about to do.

 

Except, maybe not exactly that moment..

 

Because as I reflect I realize that all my life if you asked me what I wanted to be, I would have said,

 

 "A mommy".

 

It is all I ever wanted to be.

 

 Some women, thankfully, have driven the world forward pioneering the rights of women everywhere to enter the work place and become doctors, lawyers, scientists, anything that they feel called to be.

 

But I now realize, after years of doubting it, that my desire to be a mother does not diminish the accomplishments of those women and their calling, nor does it make my calling to be a mother any less noble.

 

I remember visiting the Round Rock Children's Home as a teen as we brought the kids gifts at Christmas. That was the first time I witnessed a house parent setting. I remember feeling that tug, and almost, as I reflect back on it now, it being an uncomfortable feeling. Sort of like that feeling when you know that God is telling you something, but you are scared to answer Him. But at the same time I could not escape the strange feeling of home I felt there. 

 

I wanted to be a wife and mother so badly, and could see myself doing this kind of ministry, but I also knew I wanted to have my own family first, and truth be told I was scared that might not ever happen.

 

I was 30 before I met my husband. An age that in the South seems like an old maid and I must admit that I truly was beginning to consider if I was ever going to marry, even contemplating becoming a nun, but that feeling of being called to be a mother was still strong within me.

 

I was 31 when we were finally wed and I was 32 when we had our first child. I was so happy as I have said, but slowly I was beginning to feel that my dreams of a house full of kids might not happen.

 

But why do I ever doubt God?

Why do I always try to fit Him into the box of my narrow dreams? 

 

I remember in college after a heart ache that was great I received a card in the mail from my mother. It was a picture of mason jar filled with fireflies and on it there was written Ephesians 3:20-21

 

"Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us,  to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever!"

 

 

 

These last few months that same verse has been a favorite of mine.

 

I have dreamed since childhood of being a wife and a mother. I have felt since adolescence a desire to give back to at risk youth. And yet, somehow, I never could have imagined that all of it could be brought together and come to fruition in the way that it has.

 

Because what I have not yet shared is the other side of this coin.

 

...Cliff's journey.

 

As I mentioned he was adopted. The biological son of a sixteen year old white girl and a 27 year black man he was given a chance at life, and he was adopted by his parents who, like mine, gave him a childhood full of love and sheltering from the pain he would have inevitably suffered had he not been adopted.

 

But the pressures of reconciling who he was were great and he struggled to become the man he is today.

 

While I was spending a summer as a ten year old at Shepherd's Ranch, he was finding out for the first time at 11 that he was of a mixed race heritage and trying to reconcile that in his young heart.

 

During my teens and twenties when I felt so badly that I wanted to be a mother, he wasn't sure if he wanted to have children at all.

 

But the Lord was working in his life, too.

 

It was him, in fact, who came to me last fall saying that he thought he wanted to consider being house parents. What a difference to go from being a man who didn't want children at all, to then wanting a small family, to now feeling a call to minister in our home to up to eight youth.

 

I can look back at my life now and see that God's timing, as always, was perfect.

 

Had I met Cliff in my teens or twenties, we would not have been as compatible as we are now. All that time that I was longing for him and for our family, God was preparing his heart as He had mine. And so when he came to me, asking me if I would consider this kind of work, after some prayer on the subject I quickly realized that my answer was a resounding yes! This is the journey that the Lord has been preparing each of us for!

 

And so God is giving me the desires of my heart and also so much more than I could have ever imagined. Not only did I get my wonderful husband and my beautiful family I had been dreaming of,

 

but the Lord put within my husband's heart the same desire to minister to at risk youth that He had put within mine all those years ago.

 

As we began searching where we could serve, we suffered a heart ache again when the first place where we thought it was going to work out fell through. But again, this verse, Eph. 3:20-21, kept coming to my mind. Perhaps, again, our plan was narrow as the Lord was preparing  to give us more than we could ever imagine.

 

While researching again a second time for a place to serve I came across a place called

 

Boys and Girls Country of Houston.

 

http://www.boysandgirlscountry.org/ 

 

 

Among other things that jumped out to us that made us feel that this was the right fit for us we came across a section that listed the accomplishments of the home. Things like graduation statistics of youth in the home, financial and fundraising goals met, facilities that had been built were all listed. But at the bottom it said,

 

"In addition to the accomplishments listed here, many more amazing things happened for our kids...things that can't be measured.  "Karly" saw her first shooting star at 11 years old..."Grant" slept in a warm bed every night, rather than on the floor."

 

And that was it, that was the moment that I knew this was the place God had been preparing me to serve. 

 

And so, finally, after this long post explaining to you the why, I am pleased to announce that our family will begin our Journey to become house parents at Boys and Girls Country of Houston.

 

Yes, this Houston:

 

 

So you can pray for us as we learn to navigate traffic in the fourth largest city in the U.S. but don't feel too sorry for us because this is Boys and Girls Country:

 

 

Its actually a little outside Houston on 250 acre ranch near the town on Hockley on the western side of Houston. It makes my Texas heart smile to think about living there again!

 

"More than you can ask or imagine.."

 

God is Good.

 

And so are His plans for our life.

 

On this little blog I will try as best as I can to keep those interested updated on our journey as we minister in the lives of these kids. I will keep you posted on prayer requests as they come along, but for now I thank you to those of you who have prayed for us our entire lives. Thank you for your prayers that have helped lead us to this threshold of opportunity where the Lord has led us.

Please continue to pray as we begin our training and start our lives as a family on a mission!