But I digress, I'm going to "tell all" about our experiences at Lebanon Christian Academy last year.
In the 21-22 school year Annika experienced some sexual harassment in public school. It was horrible for her and I felt so much guilt over having exposed her to the situation in the first place. The boys received a slap on the wrist from the school, though we did press charges and they had more consequences after pleading guilty. We decided that finding a good Christian school would at least hopefully expose the girls to less of this type of behavior.
Annika is a confident, beautiful 15-year-old. She doesn't parse or spare her words and largely says what she thinks. She stands up for the underdog and will not allow perceived bullying to take place without saying something. She calls out injustice of any kind every time she hears it. Again, she is a 15-year-old girl who has not yet learned that there can, at times, be more gracious ways of stating things. But I am so proud of her and know she will continue to be a voice for the voiceless.
We chose LCA largely because they had space for both girls. Poor decision. They are associated with a Independent Fundamentalist Baptist church. We did not know much about the Independent Fundamentalist Baptist group then, but we sure have learned since then!
We had difficulties throughout the year. Racism toward Asians has increased exponentially since Covid. Both girls dealt with it because, Annika may look caucasian, but she is proud of her Kazakh heritage and is quick to tell people that she too is part Asian. There were comments such as, "Our dogs are not safe around you because Asians eat dogs." Some of the kids in Eliana's class would say they were speaking the language of her people then do the "Ching chang chong" thing. They pulled their eyes on the corners to make "Chinese eyes" {imagine making fun of her gorgeous almond shaped eyes!} and did so many other stupid things. I spoke with teachers and sent emails, of course.
The final straw, as we were hanging in there white knuckling it to the end of the year, came 2 weeks before the last day. I was returning from a wonderful trip to Georgia when I got a call from Annika requesting to be picked up from school. Here is the story of what happened to her that day. I do not want to share these things, but I do so with her permission in hopes of saving someone else from this type of thing.
Annika started the whole situation by throwing it out there in class that it was a little ironic that Eliana would be playing an orphan in the end of school play since she used to be an orphan. {Annika did not realize that we had already excused Eliana from the play.} This started a discussion about what an orphan is and whether Annika could truly say that she and Eliana used to be orphans. Rather than the teacher shutting this discussion down she joined right in. She sided against Annika and even looked up the definition of orphan and read to the class that an orphan is someone whose parents are deceased.
I'm going to just interject here that children who have been adopted don't always know much about their origin. Are their first parents still living? Why were they placed in an orphanage to begin with? If they identify as an orphan DO NOT ARGUE WITH THEM. If they prefer not to think of themselves as an orphan DO NOT READ DEFINITIONS TO THEM. Just don't! The last thing you want to do is go right to the heart not the most painful part of their story and quibble over minor details.
And if you insist on quibbling please, please get your facts straight.
"Under U.S. immigration law, an orphan is a foreign-born child who:does not have any parents because of the death or disappearance of, abandonment or desertion by, or separation or loss from, both parents." -USCIS website
Anyway, to continue this awful, painful story. Annika acted like it didn't bother her. Because she is a 15-year-old girl. And she did not want them to know that she was dying inside. So the conversation digressed from there until a classmate said, "Hey Annika, did your parents hate you so much that they killed themselves?" At which point Annika requested to go to the principal's office.
I know you are thinking, "Oh good! Let's get this conversation under control!" But no, if you assumed he supported Annika you would be incorrect. He told her, he told her, that if she starts a conversation she has to be prepared to see it through and cannot control where it goes.
Anyway, Keith picked her up. Later that day he picked up Eliana. They did not go back. We spoke with the principal and, let me tell you, he knew we had our daughters' backs by the end of that meeting!
They agreed to work with us and allow the girls to finish their assignments at home. We were grateful that we did not have to enroll them in a different school for those few days in order for them to officially pass 6th and 9th grades but we would absolutely have done that rather than subjecting them to another day there.
We decide we had to tell. It has taken time to be able to. It's hard. But the girls are doing well. I think they feel protected by the actions we have taken. It was hard to know what to do and we prayed hard about it. My trip home from Georgia was tough. I cried {sorry, seat mate, at least I'll likely never see you again!} quite a bit and prayed even more and had a knot in my stomach until I had my sweet girls in my arms.
If you have adopted children, please don't send them there! If you have children of any race other than caucasian, please don't send them there! Actually, if you have children, please don't send them there!
I want to state again that all of this was shared with Annika's blessing.
