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Wishes of the Heart

My thoughts on Debbie Macomber's inspiring new book, Twenty Wishes. A must-have on your list of books to read this summer.

For the last several weeks I've talked about Debbie Macomber's new book, Twenty Wishes on my radio show. I actually invited Debbie to come on the show and talk a bit about the book, and together we were able to grant three wishes for our listeners. We had originally decided on granting one wish, but after the dozens of amazing letters we received, we selected three and made some special wishes come true.

The book isn't a how-to book; it's a sweet story about a group of friends, all widows, who jointly decide to make a list of 20 wishes that were deep in their hearts. Similar to the list of things Jamie Sullivan in the movie, "A Walk to Remember" wanted to accomplish before she passed on. Jamie declared she wanted to be in two places at one time, so her thoughtful boyfriend took her to a state line and had her stand with her feet on both sides of the line. Also similar to the goals determined by the elderly men in the more recent movie "The Bucket List."

I've never been a list maker. Debbie Macomber not only writes about the list with 20 wishes, she has one. She has lists of things to accomplish, tasks to attend to and more. She is a consummate list maker; I am a consummate list loser. Even when I bother to make a list, I lose it shortly thereafter. I can't hold onto a grocery list between my house and the store and often return home with pickled beets when I went for milk and bread and eggs!

But the sweet thing about this book that spoke to my heart, is how easy it is to put aside our wishes, our secret dreams and desires, while we are busy making other plans. I have been blessed in that most of the things I have dreamed or endeavored to do in my life, I have been able to do. Unlike many others I know, I have never let someone else's opinion of what I should be doing or how I should be living, get in my way of having fun! I took my uncomfortable shoes off when I was touring the White House many years ago, and walked around the great halls, barefoot. Later the same day I sat my weary bum down on a padded bench in front of a copy of the Declaration of Independence and nursed my infant daughter. Barefoot.

I've gone horseback riding in the rain, and skinny dipping more than once. I've slid down banisters and climbed up stairs that were marked "Closed to the Public" just to see where they led. I've eaten rodents sold on the roadside in Africa, and grown my own vegetables and fruit for years. I've met Bette Midler and interviewed Elton John, Barbra Streisand, Billy Joel, Paul McCartney and Sting. I've had dinner at my farm with Wynonna Judd and woken up to find Danny Bedingfield stepping out of my shower in a towel.

When I've had wishes in my heart I never considered them something I should push aside or forget about, rather quite the opposite. I have always raised my kids to believe in making wishes and then trying to make them come true. I love it when they want to catch a turtle or build a fort or camp under the stars. My friends and the babysitters I have hired over the years probably think I'm crazy when I rush outside to find a coffee can to hold the latest garden snake the kids caught, or to punch holes in a lid for the jar that holds a slew of frog eggs. My daughter, Angel, who joined our family just two months ago from a refugee camp in West Africa, has a deep wish to hold a wild squirrel. (She is fascinated that we don't hunt and roast wild creatures at my farm; in her village a squirrel would have been a lovely meal for a family.) She wants to care for wild creatures who are ill or harmed, and I know her wish will come true and God will allow her to nurture some wild creature back to health so it can return to the woods some day.

Daughter Shaylah has a wish to see the Broadway musical "Wicked." She knows the entire soundtrack by heart, not just the lyrics, but each note of each song. Zacky wants to dance on TV; TK's secret wish is to reconnect with his birthmother some day. Blessing's is to be a real princess!

I have been thinking a great deal about what I would put on a list of my heart's wishes; as I said, most of my life's wishes have already come true. Definitely a trip to the Grand Canyon-not to stand on the edge and look down-but an actual trip down into the Grand Canyon, to meet the native people that still live there and to see the beauty and the majesty of God's handiwork. To take a cruise thru the waters of Alaska and see the whales and porpoise frolicking in the icy waters, and to paint the pictures I have in my head of flowers and roosters and children playing on the farm.

Take out a piece of paper. Write down your heart's wishes. Not goals or desires, not something you just achieve, but a wish your heart makes. Then ask God to help them to come true! If you want to share your list with me or Debbie, send them to us and we will find a forum in which to post your list of 20 wishes! Delilah

At Home in Nature

I am on a plane, returning home from a speaking engagement. I've been fortunate that I have not had to travel much the past few months since I brought my newly adopted daughters, Angel and Blessing, home from Africa. I have only been gone two nights, but I am anxious to get home to them and my other three young children who still live at home. I miss them all. As exciting and glamorous as it is for me to stay in an elegant hotel such as the Four Seasons and have people treat me like a rock star, I'd rather be at home listening to my two boys fight over who gets to be the hero in their make-believe quest to defend the universe… and hearing my daughter Shaylah fuss at her younger sister for ruining her lipstick.

In a heartbeat they will be grown and making their own way in the world, as their older siblings are. But while they are young and in my home, I do my best to sew costumes, build tree houses, tell stories under the stars and give them the freedom to explore the woods and streams, while giving them strong enough parameters to keep them safe. At least that is my hope.

I grew up loving the dirt, the trees, the creeks and the ponds. With salamanders and frogs and fresh eggs each day, with tree forts and trails and secrets clubs…. I would rather spend three hours in the woods, teaching my kids which berries are edible and which ones are poisonous, which trees are sturdy enough to climb and how to lash together limbs to build a makeshift shelter, than spend a day in a four-star resort drinking virgin daiquiris by a pool.

My folks taught me the ways of the beavers in a pond and how to make a whistle out of a sapling limb. Mom picked wild berries for pies and jam and made salads out of the greens she found in the fields. Dad knew the names of the flora and the fauna, and how to survive in the wilderness if need be. He took us swimming in rivers and camping in the woods. Mom cooked over an open fire and taught us camp songs under the stars.

The older I get the more I look like my mom, and the more I understand her wisdom and her love for her four kids. I hope my children grow up with a passion for God's great outdoors, and that they always appreciate His creative powers.

Countless Blessings

Blessings.

I have so many of them I cannot count them all; if I tried it would take me the remainder of my days here on earth just to recall the ones I experienced in the last few weeks. But now I have a REAL Blessing, my youngest daughter, Blessing, joined our family in April. Blessing is 4, and the other girl I adopted is an Angel, a REAL Angel! Angel is 13, and together they join my family and make it an even 10 children, five girls and five boys.

Ten children sounds staggering, but one of my daughters, Lonika, was adopted as an adult. I did not have the joy of raising her, but now I have the joy of helping to raise her daughter, my granddaughter Jayla. Four of the children that I did raise are grown and out of the house, leaving Shaylah, Zack and Thomas at home. Until recently, I was a mother to three young children, and now we are scrambling to find a van that will hold all of us!

It has been several years since I had more than three living at home, and the three that I have been raising, although they all have special issues and special needs, are pretty well adjusted to life on the farm and the routine that we have. All that has changed, and "chaos" is the code word for the day now. Blessing and Angel (Willette and Mercy when I adopted them, but they announced they were adopting new first names, as well as last) were born and raised in a refugee camp in Ghana, Africa.

When I started working in Africa, my heart was settled on the idea I would not adopt more children, that I would be more effective in helping a multitude of people if I didn't have more children that are my full-time responsibility. I knew that I am too busy as it is to attend to all of the needs of my three children still at home, and that I am past the age of having boundless energy to rush to little league baseball games and soccer tournaments. I knew the LAST thing I needed were more children to care for, considering the current demands of my role as a single parent, a radio personality, and as the founder of Point Hope.

I met Blessing and Angel when I was in Africa last August. I travel there at least twice a year to work in the refugee camp that my foundation supports, Buduburam. When I met these two girls, who are in no way related, I fell in love with both of them. When I returned to the states, I kept seeing their faces and remembering their stories and how tragic their young lives have been. Understand I meet hundreds of children on each trip; Point Hope is responsible for a feeding program that cares for starving babies and malnourished children, we care for pregnant teenage girls and for nursing mothers. We provide medical services to hundreds of residents of the camp, most of them single mothers. So I am used to having a baby in each arm and one tied to my back when I am working in the camp. I am used to falling in love with at least a dozen of these children, and taking the time to send them special packages of clothes and gifts upon my return home. But as I said, I had determined in my heart that after almost 25 years of parenting, with another 10 years to go before all are graduated from high school, I was finished stepping on Lego pieces at night as I make my way to the bathroom. I was finished reciting "I do NOT like green eggs and ham, I do NOT like them, Sam-I-am."... I was finished singing the alphabet (except with my grandchildren). I was finished teaching kids how to tie shoes and how to hold a fork and spoon. I was finished rushing to attend kindergarten field trips. Or so I thought....

God had other plans.

So now I am parenting two girls that had never ridden in a car before I came into their lives. They had never bathed in a tub, flushed a toilet, taken milk from a refrigerator, slept on a bed or taken a hot shower with water warmed from a water heater. They had never been in a swimming pool, walked on a sandy beach or had access to food any time they were hungry. Never once in her 13 years did Angel have a dollar of her own to spend as she pleased; Blessing never knew what it felt like to be tucked into a clean bed at night or kissed and held by a mother who loved her.

Today Angel went to the chicken coop after she got home from school and collected the eggs. She put a dozen of them in a pan as I had shown her, and put them on the stove to boil. In less than half an hour, the dozen eggs had been reduced to six, the other six were gobbled up by Angel while they were still so hot they were difficult to peel. Angel weighs less than 80 pounds and Blessing is about 30. And yet these two little "imps" can eat their weight in boiled eggs and oatmeal!

I am so tired I don't know what day of the week it is. The girls are learning everything for the first time, so life is a constant daze for me these days. But despite my exhaustion and my frustration at having to explain or demonstrate the most basic of tasks that we take for granted, my face hurts from grinning so much. Tonight I will fall asleep quickly again from sheer exhaustion, and I shall thank the Lord for my Blessing, and my Angel of Mercy!

Reflections of Buduburam

I'm writing from a seat aboard a Delta flight, returning once again from Ghana, West Africa. Thousands of miles and a world away from the farm that I call home, Ghana has become like a second home to me the past four and a half years.

The west coast of Africa is notorious for malaria; during the slave trade it was known as "The White Man's Graveyard," because many who ventured there never returned. The locals, who have been exposed to the malaria parasite via the pesky mosquitoes that carry the deadly disease, are also at risk.

Most of the children and adults we care for in the Buduburam refugee camp are suffering from malaria. Most recover with medication; many do not.

Just as malaria gets in your blood and causes a high fever and sometimes madness, Africa and its people are in my blood and I cannot seem to rid myself of the images, both good and bad.

When I am under the sweltering sun I am painfully aware of my lack of pigmentation, and I hope the sunblock I slather on does its job. But despite the fact that I am one white face amid a thousand black faces, I never feel unsafe or even self conscious. Indeed I feel overwhelming love and respect.

I try to emulate the grace and courage of those around me, knowing I fall short.

Delilah