OCT 5 2015 | Privilege, Africa, Justice and a Single White Girl, Part 3

Sea Change Church · "Privilege, Africa, Justice and a Single White Girl, Part 3" · Christine Garde Denning · October 5, 2015
Automated transcript. Not reviewed for accuracy.

We're back here with part three of the AdamStatmiller.com podcast with Christine Gard from Could You, a ministry reaching out to Mozambique, Africa, seeking systemic change for the good in that area. Christine, we've talked about how God got you hooked and you were in South San Diego, you're working with gangs and all these things. I want to move more into like kind of personally what you've gone through, where you are, what's happened.

You're a single woman at the time. You're a single woman now. You have a daughter, but it wasn't because of prom night. You know what I mean? It was my choice. Tell me a little bit about how you came to get united with your daughter. Okay. So I was in my gut. I'm working down in that community and doing work with gang members and families and at-risk kids.

And at the time had really been praying and feeling like I just was hungering to mother and really wanted to mother. I wasn't, I had been dating someone, but it wasn't going to end up in marriage. And so it felt like I just would love to figure out how to mother and pray about it. And then, and this is kind of why I feel like God really does answer prayers.

And so, and not always in the ways that you think, because at the time I was praying about, sure, I'd love to get married and then have a baby. And that would be how I was going to mother. But then I felt like I watched an opportunity present itself to me and that one of the girls that I really cared about, one of the young girls in our program had gotten pregnant young.

She got pregnant at 14 and she, when she was delivering the baby, she called me and she said, at the time, I mean, her mom and dad were not doing well. And it's always, for me, it's always weird telling their story because you want to honor them and they're here now. And so you want, you don't want to get into too many gory details, but just leave it to say, she came up in a crazy broken situation with a mom and dad that were not able to take care of her.

Although since then, her mother has had full restoration and that's been a crazy, crazy story that I got to be a part of. So amazing. But at the time they couldn't care for her. So I picked her up, took her to the hospital and I found that I was the only person there. And I stayed and I cut the umbilical cord of this baby and I stayed. Are you serious?

Yeah. And I watched this baby be born and I fell in love with the baby when the baby came out. And I said to this little girl who had the baby, how do we, what do we do next? Like, how do you go back into a situation that's really tough? And, and where you're not going to be cared for, the baby's not going to be safe. And she said, well, can I, I said, why don't you come home and live with me?

And she said, can you take my 11 year old sister as well? And I just knew that this whole thing was a lot for me, but I knew I could handle, I thought I could handle an infant and, you know, a 14, 15 year old, but I didn't also think I could take an 11 year old. So at the time I said I couldn't do all three. But then within a few weeks, some stuff happened.

And I remember I got a call and she said, I need a place to stay because some stuff happened at the house and the cops came and they're going to put me in a group home. So will you take me and the baby? And so I was able to bring her and the baby home to live with me and to care for them. And I had said, you know, why don't you go back to school?

Because she had quit school. And so she found out that she's a really smart kid and she did really well in an alternative program where she graduated high school, four year high school in two years. Incredible student. She wanted to be a nurse. She liked being a kid. She liked having boundaries. She liked having, I don't know if she liked having boundaries, but she liked having, you know, I remember our first Christmas.

It was every. I actually believe kids do like having boundaries. I do. I do. They bring safety. And she liked her own room and she liked that somebody, you know, we cared for. It was beautiful. She didn't care if you're white. Yeah. It was really beautiful. And so they became family for me. And Leilani felt like a daughter. And it's always an interesting thing because early on, I remember thinking, you know, this is, she fills this place of mothering in a way that is incredibly real.

She has a mother as well. And so there's this thing where people will say, well, what does she call you? And she, oh, I remember her saying, she calls me her Chris, which embodies for her something because there's not a word that what, what it is. Like, so I've raised her until she was four. I love that. Yeah. I really, because it's like when God said, you know what I mean?

He doesn't have a name that describes you to have words that are undescribable. I, yeah, I get it. I totally get it. There's, there's a thickness to the meaning that goes beyond what can be said in words. It's true. And I felt like, so it was always. And your daughter's name, let's just name her. What's her name? Her name is Leilani. Leilani. And I, and I, I always say, like, she'll say you're like another mother or I'll say she's like a daughter.

And you adopted her from the. I didn't adopt her. You never adopted her. I never adopted her. But you co-raised her with her mother. Who I do love. Her name's Adriana. I love Adriana. How old is she now? Adriana has, she's 30. So Leilani's 17. Yeah. Okay. So 31, 32. Let's, and that's a powerful story, but I want to move kind of for the people that are single, that are feeling like, I like what you said, like God answers prayers in different ways than, than we expect.

Um, talk about that because I guess, um, I just went to the adaptive surfing, uh, um, championships thing and they don't call it disabled anymore. It's adaptive. Um, you've kind of been adapted, adaptive because you look at singles and a lot of times they've been stigmatized as having, you know, you can't really get on with your life until you get married.

You can't really be a mom or have the spirit of motherhood. You're just waiting for those moment. Um, you haven't let singleness define you in the ways that many others have. And you've, you've broken through every barrier you've mothered, you've started your own organization. Uh, not that singles don't do that on a regular basis, but talk about that, that journey.

And as a woman, I mean. No, it's, it's definitely something that really is a passion of mine because, so I really believe that God wants to get, God does give us the desires of our heart. I think unfortunately we go to him with this pre determined way that it should look. Right. And if we don't get it exactly as we believe we deserve or we want, or then I think we, we don't open it up for the fact that God really can take a broken world and restore it in ways that are surprising.

And so I, I still believe that I want to be married and I believe I'm going to get married. Wait a second. God, before we go to your, your path of marriage, which I fully agree with as well, God surprises, say that thing again. I think he takes, we live in a broken world and I don't believe that the bad things that happen, it's because God wanted bad things to happen.

Of course. But I believe he lets bad things happen and he restores a broken world in a way that surprises us. We get to be part of that restoration in a way that is even, it surprises us, it exceeds expectations if we allow us to be surprised by God so that we can't dictate how it is that we're going to. Right. I love the words that God is elaborate.

He's audacious in the way that he surprises us. I love that word. And then also, you know, I don't think many, I think people have wants of their heart, but I don't, I think it takes a long time to walk with the Lord until you know what the desires of your heart are. I believe that they're deep wells and I believe that wanting to get married or wanting to sing your song on the voice, there's a deeper desire there.

It's a desire to be known. It's a desire for intimacy. It goes way beyond the surface of whatever the thing is that we want. And so I realized that God has given me the desires of my heart when he's not giving me the wants. It's true. That's true. No, it's very true. And I think we have to trust that God knows what he's doing. And so I think what, what I remember during those early years of, I was, I was content.

And so I... Are you still content? I am content. Yeah. I mean, there's days when you think, oh, I want something different, but I was content. And I feel like God's given me the gift of contentment because I could see around me purpose matters. I was making an impact. And so, I mean, people would look at my life and they would say, you're choosing to live in a neighborhood that's bad.

You're surrounding yourself with this kind of a community. You're never going to meet your spouse. So, and then they would hear stories like one day I had this date with this great guy and we were going to go to Coronado. And so we'd go to the beach and we were renting these bikes, but something had happened and I just happened to have a bunch of kids with me from the program.

And so I put them on one side of the island and then I was going to do my own date and then I was going to pick them up later. And they decided that they, whoever I dated had to accept all of them too. So over lunch, they found us, they came to the table and they basically said to this guy who we had on the first date, she's a package deal. We're the package.

If you don't care about us, you're not going to get in. And this group of kids scared him away. It was true. And the truth is, it was true. He wasn't interested after that, but I thought, you know what? Somebody will be interested in that and these kids, but I feel like I got to mother them. And so I look back in history and I think how many of them said you were the mother I never had.

Right. How many of them. So I feel like I got to mother in ways that were generational and interesting. Is it as fulfilling as having your own children? I get really mad. I get so mad when women say to me, and they've said it more times than I can remember, that I don't understand. I don't understand because I didn't birth my own child. I don't understand because the kind of love that a mother really has with her own birth child.

And I think that that's not true. I think that they underestimate the power of what love is and what God. God puts the lonely in families. I think what I've experienced is as rich, I think it's different, but I don't think it's less than. And I remember, and I'll wait. Different, but not less than. Different, but not less than. And I'd say, so I got to raise Leilani and care for her at the ages of birth to four.

So you get to experience that. And then 12 to 13, she moved to New York City with me, and I got to be raising her as a junior high. And now she's with me again, 16 to 19. And so I'm getting to walk through these years of those years. And I remember on her, we threw her a quinceanera when she turned 15. And there was a moment that for me, it was a beautiful moment that embodied this relationship.

So we put on this party for her, and it's at the senior center, and lots went wrong. So we ran out of food, and too many people came. The tuba player didn't show up. Yeah. And so the speaker blows. And so her stepdad comes in, and he puts some music on in his car. And we put a strobe light on, and kids dance. And the reality was, it was fun. It was beautiful.

It was a perfect day in their minds. And at one point, the mother-daughter dance, her real mom starts the song and does the dance. And then she stops the song and turns to me and brings me out to finish the song. And then in that moment, there was something that felt so right that the gift it was to be able to be in this girl's life and in the whole family's life.

So they are family for the rest of my life. They are. I believe when I get old. And I often think, worst case scenario, I'm never going to die alone. Right. Because I feel like that is, my own family is good, but this family also is a family that they constantly will say to me, we'll be taking care of you. You can always live with us. Or in your...

So I just feel like the gift of loving those kids. God puts the fatherless in families and puts the lonely in families. I heard that this week. Give me one sentence as we close this segment, if you can, that you're saying to the person who feels the obstacles are too big for them. They feel boxed in by their current position situation. What would you say to them?

Doesn't that be a sentence, but... No, I would say, I would say, get out and serve or love someone. I think there's something about figuring out how you, it changes your perspective. It brings such joy. I especially have a heart for women who are so hungry to be married and have their own kids. Don't miss out on it. And so if it doesn't work in the same way, if you're not...

Don't miss out on what? Don't miss out on the opportunity to raise children if you don't get them the traditional way. You can mentor, you can adopt, you can foster care, you can love a teen mom. I mean, there are... You know how many babies out there would be, and young parents out there would be so excited to have. So I feel like don't miss the opportunity because it doesn't look the way you want it to look because you'll regret it.

I love that. Don't miss the opportunity because it doesn't look the way you want it to look. Because most people feel like they've missed the opportunity. They haven't. Right. No one out there, doesn't matter how old you are or what your circumstances, no one out there can't get an opportunity to mother. They just have to pray and ask and be open to say, okay, God, who do you have?

Right. Hey, this is the AdamStatmiller.com podcast with Christine Gard of Could You, an organization reaching out to make systemic change for the good in Africa and in particular Mozambique. We'll be right back.