“How I Got Here” (part one)

I grew up, starting from ages six and a half or so and remained until about thirty-three, in the conservative Mennonite Church. I am presently part of what you might call a charismatic church that meets here in Wooster, Ohio.

How on earth did I get “here” from “there” and why?

For the answer, I guess we need to go back to life before six.

I was a foster kid in the Oregon foster system. I was supposed to have been adopted by what I will call family number three. But for various reasons, some I have been told, others I might be able to surmise, it fell apart. The story I was told at the time was that they had found out “certain things” about my background that “raised questions” about whether they could keep me and eventually adopt me.

The caseworker broke the news to me one afternoon, while on a fun outing to a local park in Portland, Oregon, where I lived at the time.

In the course of a things that “suddenly” took place, I moved. From a family in suburban Portland, to a family in a community of what was called “Mennonites”.

I had no idea what a Mennonite was.

All I knew was, I was a nothing (probably), was a mistake and although I did not know the word for it, had absolutely no identity except “mistake”, “foster kid”, “maniac”.

I remember the caseworker asking me if I wanted to be called by my given last name, or by my present foster family’s last name. I felt a probably unbelievable shame and hated my “real last name”.

What kid wants the identity of being “a foster kid”? I sure didn’t.

I just knew that I did not have any identity and whatever a Mennonite was and whatever was involved in being part of a Mennonite family was better than being “nothing” that was passed around from place to place.

There are several reasons I am saying all of this.

Sometimes life makes us grab onto things for the sake of survival.

Sometimes we have no choice at the time but to grab onto something, anything, just so we can survive.

Sometimes what we really need does not become apparent until later.

Sometimes we make huge life decisions on the spur of the moment and this creates patterns that follow us throughout life.

Sometimes we really have no idea why we make some of the decisions we do.

Sometimes, it takes years for the truth to come to light.

(to be continued)