MENTIONS
One Thankful Mom – https://www.onethankfulmom.com/
The Adoption Connection – http://www.theadoptionconnection.com/listen/
Dr. Karen Purvis, The Connected Child: Bring hope and healing to your adoptive family – https://www.amazon.com/Connected-Child-healing-adoptive-family/dp/0071475001
Replanted Conference – https://replantedconference.org/
Resources for adoptive and foster families – https://child.tcu.edu/resources/#sthash.69C1KPRq.dpbs
Intermountain – https://www.intermountain.org/home/
Lisa Qualls and Karen Purvis, The Connected Parent: Real-Life Strategies for Building Trust and Attachment – https://www.amazon.com/Parenting-Trust-Connection-Strategies-Adopted/dp/0736978925/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=the+connected+parent&qid=1585255935&sr=8-1
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TRANSCRIPT
Currey (Introduction) – What is going on? Everybody. Welcome to theology of hustle. I’m your host Currey Blandford. And today I’m talking to Lisa. So I met Lisa back at the replanted conference last October. And, uh, I just really enjoyed hearing from her. She has a incredible story, um, and has been in this, uh, adoption world for a long time and blogging about these sorts of things, thinking about, talking about these sorts of things. Uh, she also was about to release a book that, uh, I think everyone should read, but specifically adoption and foster families. She’s, she’s releasing a book in July called the connected parent. And if you’re in this adoption foster care world, you have heard of the connected child, which is a book by, uh, doctors, uh, Purvis and cross and, uh, they talk about trauma informed parenting, how we can sort of think about, uh, kids from hard places who have experienced trauma and that sort of thing. So this a book by Lisa and, uh, dr Karen Purvis, uh, Dr. Karen purposes last writing before she passed away, uh, is, is a really big deal and it’s very exciting. And, uh, I’ve gotten a chance to like, read through some of it and it’s just like super practical stuff and very helpful. And so in this episode we talk a little bit, I mean, we talk about what trauma means and what it means to be a parent with a child who has experienced trauma. Not, uh, you know, it can be physical, uh, emotional, that sort of thing. But just anybody in the adoption, any child in adoption and foster care has experienced trauma. And it’s a, it’s a big deal and it’s something we, uh, parents have to deal with. And so you get Lisa’s story in this episode, you get talking about trauma and trauma informed parenting and like all those things is episodes so good. I cannot wait for you to hear about it. I always love these episodes where we talk about adoption and foster care. If you’ve followed this podcast, uh, very often, uh, you know that. And so I’m excited for this one to get out there, make sure, uh, you check out all the links. Uh, the book is available for preorder, encourage you to, to preorder that. And, uh, yeah, I really hope you enjoy hearing from Lisa. Uh, if you want to stay up to date with, uh, theology of hustle, you can follow me on Instagram and Facebook @theologyofhustle and on Twitter @curreyblandford. And I hope you enjoy hearing from Lisa.
Currey – Well, Hey Lisa, thanks so much for coming on the podcast and chatting a little bit. This is super fun.
Lisa Qualls – Well, thank you for inviting me. I, it’s fun to be on this side of the interview. I bet. I bet. A little, a little strange too. I bet. So now I know how my guests feel.
Currey – Right, right. Um, let’s just jump off and have you, uh, just introduce yourself to everybody a little bit.
Lisa Qualls – Okay. Well, my name is Lisa Qualls and I live in North Idaho. I’ve been married almost 36 years, have a whole bunch of kids by birth, adoption and foster care, which we’re going to talk about more. And my work and my ministry, my vocation is I am a writer and now I’m actually an author and have a book coming out that we’re going to be talking about. I’ve been blogging at onethankfulmom.com since 2006 since the beginning of our adoption journey. I also, um, yeah, I have about 2000 posts there and I need to get back to more blogging. I haven’t been doing much in recent times. And I also have a podcast called the adoption connection that I do with my cofounder of the adoption connection, Melissa Corkem. And so we have a podcast, we have a resource site where we offer courses, we have a community, we have all kinds of things. So I think that’s most of what I do. Yeah, I love it.
Currey – Well, you also go to conferences and talk, which is how we met over the last fall, right?
Lisa Qualls – Yes. I actually should have mentioned that I am a speaker. I love speaking and my real heart, the thing I love the most is mentoring parents, moms in particular. I love it all, but that’s probably my statement.
Currey – Um, okay. So I know you have a, uh, very story, like a great story. I’ve heard bits and pieces of it. Let’s, um, let’s start with how this whole adoption thing maybe got started, like back to the beginning if you don’t mind.
Lisa Qualls – Okay. Well, going all the way back. Uh, Russ and I, we married young when we were undergrads in college and we started our family and had s — — even children. And during those years we moved to different States. My husband was in grad school and uh, so we had this beautiful family and I was a homeschooling mom and when our youngest was about three years old, I remember thinking, ah, life is feeling a little easier. I wonder what God wants me to do, like what’s next? And I had some different opportunities in front of me that I was considering and praying about. And then one of my dear friends called me and she said, I have to tell you, I big news, we are adopting two little boys from Ethiopia. And I remember just feeling like, wait, what? Tell me about this. I want to hear all about it. And it’s like some things sort of cracked open in my heart, you know, and we rest and I started praying about it, thinking about it, and I remember thinking, you know, I’m home caring for children. I love being a mom. I’m already doing this. And so to adopt children, truly in need of family just made so much sense. You know, it just, it, it seemed like a natural sort of outgrowth of what we were already doing. And so we began to look into it. We started sponsoring a little girl at an orphanage and fairly soon we decided we were going to adopt from Ethiopia and kind of follow our friend’s footsteps. And we also decided to adopt two little boys. Our youngest two were girls and we thought two little boys would be great. We didn’t want there to be just one. If we had the option, we thought it would be nice for them to have each other. And so that was our original plan and the story goes on and on. But we ended up adopting three children at that time and we, the little girl we were sponsoring also became our daughter and we returned a year later to adopt another girl that we met on that first trip. So that’s how we got to become adoptive parents.
Currey – Yes. Okay. So how many of those children were biological siblings?
Lisa Qualls – None. And in fact none. And what’s really, really an interesting twist in our story is the little girl we response spring was living with HIV. She was in an orphanage for children exclusively with HIV and our agency, when we became aware that her orphanage was actually hoping we would adopt her and they began talking to us and when we became aware of this, we went to our agency and said, you know, we would really like to adopt this little girl as well and they would not place a child with HIV with us. They said they did not want to assume that liability. And so we went to another agency that we had heard had placed some children with HIV and they agreed to do the adoption. So we actually adopted three unrelated children through, through two different agencies simultaneously. It was something. Yeah. Um, okay. Well, um, that’s a lot to take on. Yes. It was far more than we ever could have dreamed.
Currey – What year was this if just kind of put it in context?
Lisa Qualls – Yeah. We brought, um, our two little boys and our daughter home in the spring of 2007 and then we returned in the summer of 2008 for our other daughter. Yeah. So it was a while back and things were happening very quickly in Ethiopia back then.
Currey – Right. Well, and it’s amazing how much things have changed in even that short amount of time, you know? Uh, yeah, yeah, in a lot of ways. But, uh, that is not the, like, I guess your story would not be this sort of prescribed, uh, way of going about doing things, especially today though, right?
Lisa Qualls – Definitely not. And you know, back then we didn’t have to travel twice. Like our children were legally adopted and our children in Ethiopia before we ever met them. So, and that doesn’t happen anymore either.
Currey – Yeah. Yeah. For very good reasons. I, I’m sure so, yes. Yes. Right. Um, okay. So you have four children in the span of, uh, of two years and uh, they all come home. And then what, what happened?
Lisa Qualls – Well, and that’s where the story gets complicated. You know, we brought her two little boys home first. And the way it worked back then was that the U S would not give a visa to an HIV positive person, um, until they had submitted or the parents in our case had submitted this entire waiver packet of information. And so we knew when we went that our little girl would not be able to come home with us on that first trip. And that was really, really hard for us to accept because we were going to have to meet her and then leave her again. And there was no timeline. We had no idea how long it would take. So we brought our two little boys home first. And honestly, it was wonderful and so exhausting at the same time. You know, they were at that point, um, our older one had just turned two and our younger one was an infant. He was barely five months when we brought him home. And so, and both of them came home with a little bit of health issues, nothing severe, but in terms of physical health stuff. But still it was exhausting. And we also, when we met our daughter the first day we met her, we knew that there were going to be challenges. Like we could see it right away. And so we also knew when she came home and joined the family that life was going to change a lot. Now we were really optimistic, you know, that when she settled in everything was going to be fine. And you know, we had a ton of training. We read all the books and um, we were really, I think somewhat naive. I think what I had no idea of then was how long the process of helping a child heal actually is. It’s actually a lifetime, you know, it doesn’t happen in a year or two years. It’s a very long process.
Currey – Yeah, they don’t, uh, I mean they talk like adoption agencies talk about it, but I think rarely give you the extent to which you’re about to embark on that.
Lisa Qualls – Right, right.
Currey – Mmm. Okay. So, uh, when did you start, I mean I’m, I assume there’s a pretty significant learning curve cause you’ve had, uh, biological children up to this point and now bringing home kids who have experienced trauma, you know, relational trauma and, and, and other traumas, I’m sure. Um, where did you start to sort of understand that maybe this is a little little different than I assumed?
Lisa Qualls – You know, I think, I think it might be when my husband was still in Ethiopia getting our daughter and it was such a hard, hard trip and the trip home was unbelievable. She was so hypervigilant and so reactive. And um, it was a very hard trip home. And so it was beginning to sink in even before she arrived here. And, um, when we went to pick them up at the airport, the kids and I all went to get rest and our daughter and she was so incredible. I mean, you know, some of her survival skills were that she was absolutely adorable, super high energy. Like she was the child who would jump the highest, sing the loudest, run the fastest, say take my photo, you know, like she would, she knew how to be adorable because it was a survival skill and it’s part of how she got the attention of people who were able to help her and even get her to the orphanage. So those survival skills also there was a level of frenzy. So at the airport, while we’re waiting for luggage, it was a wild trip like running and running in the airport and us trying to kind of capture her and we’re trying to be so sweet and her siblings are all like, wow, you know, what is happening here? But, um, yeah, I mean from the very beginning and we thought, okay, we have never dealt with this before, but we’re going to figure it out. But we already knew right then that we were going to have to learn some brand new skills
Currey – So what did, uh, learning a new skills look like then?
Lisa Qualls – Well, I would say that I can clearly remember a day when the behavior, the emotion, you know, she was so what we call dysregulated, you know, and she would rage and scream and hurt people and hurt herself. And it was so difficult and it was very scary for our other children and sometimes for us. And I remember going to my bookcase and I had, you know, I’d read all the books and I remember just pulling books off the shelf and looking through them and thinking I need help and I don’t know where to find it. And um, I started calling people. I started, you know, fortunately at that point, interestingly, we used to actually engage with each other on our blogs. You know, we didn’t have Facebook groups way back in 2006 and 2007 that’s a conversation actually happened in the comments with the blogs. I started connecting with other moms and I was finding out that a lot of us were struggling too. And so I began to learn from them as well. But I had a very hard time admitting the depth of what we were going through because I felt like we had done so much to advocate for adoption and adoption of these children in such great need that I didn’t want anybody to know that we felt like we were failing miserably. Like I began to doubt whether I was even a good mom at all and I had believed, I mean, I had been parenting for 20 years when we brought her home and I really felt like I was a good mom and I loved being a mom and all of that felt like it was, I was not so sure anymore. I wasn’t sure what was happening to me, who I was becoming. I didn’t like the mom I was becoming, but I was, I just didn’t know quite what to do. And eventually we heard about the university of Washington adoption medicine clinic and we took our daughter there and that was the beginning of getting help because the doctor there, Dr. Bledsoe, she was incredible and she completely understood what we were dealing with. She had seen this before. She’s an adoptive mom herself. And I felt for the first time, like somebody not only understood but could help me. And I remember sitting there in the waiting room, she, because Kalkidan was so difficult to control, she had started to play in this area of the waiting room that was like a little alcove. And so the doctor actually came out and started our appointment out there with me and we sat down on these little chairs in this play area and she was asking me about my daughter’s history. And I just remember at one point, just through my tears saying, I don’t think I can go on, but I don’t want to miss what God is going to do in my daughter’s life. Like I had slivers of hope, even though it seemed very hopeless at the time.
Currey – Yeah, that’s a lot. That’s a lot. Did you have any sort of, um, understanding of trauma going into like adoptions?
Lisa Qualls – I did. I, you know, my bachelor’s was in psychology. I’d worked actually in a group home for what we then called behaviorally disturbed children. Now we know that they’re, you know, children from deep trauma, you know, and so I did have an understanding of it, and I remember reading, attaching and adoption by Deborah Gray. It was required reading for our agency. And I remember reading that and thinking, wow, I am so glad that there’s someone who can help these families. And I had no idea that I was going to become one of those families. It just, I thought, Oh, it happens sometimes to other people, you know? And as it turned out, it was our story and we were extremely blessed, extremely fortunate to actually have Deborah Gray for our therapists later. We traveled to Seattle about if 600 miles round trip every other weekend for a couple of years, every, well, yeah, every Sunday for our appointments on Mondays, she was worth it. Yeah.
Currey – Well, I mean, and still one of the leading sort of, uh, people working in this area. Right. She’s just amazing.
Lisa Qualls – Yeah. And she has a number of books and she’s just, she’s very, very gifted as a therapist
Currey – and just like a wonderful person. Like you just being around her, right?
Lisa Qualls – Yes. Yeah.
Currey – That’s awesome. Okay. So what did, uh, your transition into sort of trying to help, uh, your daughter sort of regulate and what did, what did all that look like?
Lisa Qualls – Well, it took a long time to get our first appointment with Deborah Gray, you know, from the time that we requested until the time we were actually able to see her was, was a number of months. And during that time I was writing and blogging and one of my readers said to me, Lisa, have you heard of Karen Purvis? I was like, no, I haven’t heard of her. And she said, you should read her book, the connected child. So I got the book and I remember reading it and thinking, Oh, Oh, there is a whole different way of thinking about these children and how they’ve been impacted by trauma. And I liked the book and I learned a lot. But what was even more powerful was that I saw some videos of Karyn speaking and she was a gifted speaker. And I remember watching these videos and crying and thinking she has hope for my children and if she can have hope for my children, then I’m going to hold onto her hope and I’m going to learn everything I can and I’m going to believe that my children can heal. And it was right about the time of our 25th wedding anniversary and Russ and I actually went away for our anniversary, which I don’t know how we managed that given the state of our family. But I remember saying to him, okay, I really want to have an amazing time on this trip, but there’s just one thing I needed to do. I need you to watch three videos by Karyn Purvis. And he was like, what? At our big romantic getaway. But we watch this together. And I remember just having our arms wrapped around each other and just crying, watching these videos and wanting so badly to see our children be healed.
Currey – Yeah, I mean that’s the, that’s the, uh, I mean, trauma makes it feel hopeless, right? Like, uh, these, these behaviors make it feel like there is no, no hope. And that’s like one of the most dangerous places we can get in as is like sort of losing hope. Right?
Lisa Qualls – Right. It because when we lose hope, I think we begin to slide into shame and shame then breeds isolation. And then with that isolation comes, you know, all kinds of terrible things, depression and, and I think we get very shut down toward our children. And so we have to have hope and we have to keep learning and keep growing and keep seeking help. Not to mention we need to pray a lot and we need to trust God because it’s, this is so far beyond us. And I do believe that God places the lonely in families, that he brought the children who I was meant to, parents to me and to rest. And that’s not to say that they were born to other people so that they could be my children. I don’t believe that. But God knew what was going to happen to them and he chose us to parent them.
Currey – Yeah. Amen. And I appreciate that, the caveat there because it can feel like, yeah, we, we, we very quickly, especially those of us in the Caucasian community get very, uh, excited about how much, um, work we can do sort of saving children or something. Right. And like it’s very dangerous.
Lisa Qualls – Uh, it is, it’s not the mindset that we need to have. We need to be open to laying down our lives. That’s what this is. It’s really about, it’s being willing to be changed and to be humbled. And you know, Russ made had a great example one time he said, it’s like our family was like on this train track and we were cruising along and everything was great and we were gonna bring these children right onto the train with us and continue on our journey. But that is not what happened. Our train left that track and started on a completely different track and we will never be able to go back to that original track that we were on. We are a different family now and there’s a lot of grief involved with that, you know, but that family that we were before is, is gone and we became a brand new family and I have to believe it’s to the glory of God that in all of the brokenness that we’ve experienced, that God is glorified and that family that we were before was beautiful. And this is beautiful in a different way.
Currey – Yeah. Because, and thank you. Yes. Uh, very much so. Let me start crying. Talking about, I mean it’s, it’s beautiful stuff because I think many of us are not good at holding those things, intention or holding them at the same time. Right. Because this did profoundly alter your family in, um, some pretty devastating ways. I’m, I assume, I’m sure, uh, you know, and required a lot. I mean, was it, there was a lot of tears, there was a lot of sadness, there was a lot of struggle and at the same time sort of, he’s making something beautiful out of that and like, this is the story, you know? And so I think it can be hard with a lot of times to hold those things, intention and believe them both to be true at the exact same time. Right?
Lisa Qualls – Yes. And I think one example of that is that our other children, our original crew suffered a lot. They were very wounded. They, you know, one of my daughters, I can hardly say this without crying, but she said, you know, my parents wanted to help children who didn’t have a mother. And as a result I lost my mother. And because she felt that she couldn’t reach us, you know, we were so consumed. And our older kids, you know, they just stayed away from the house a whole lot more. They tried to help as much as they could. Um, and our younger kids just really hardly had access to us a lot of the time because we were dealing with such extreme behaviors. And when I want to slide down into grief and regret and grief is okay actually, but that deep regret. And there was a point where I thought, have I ruined my children’s lives? Have I destroyed my family? But now, you know, we’re 13 years out from those early, earl — — y days from when the kids came home. And I can say, I really like who my children have become. You know, they are empathetic and kind and they see past people’s behavior to their hearts. You know, they, they actually are very good at dealing with children with trauma. I have a daughter who was a camp counselor who pulled every skill she knew with a very traumatized child. I have another young daughter who’s still in high school who teaches swim lessons and she’s had foster kids in her classes and she’s like, I get it. I think I know what they need. You know, like, and I’ve two children who’ve become physicians and you know, the are serving and loving and I think that my children have become more servant hearted and open-hearted than they ever would have been had we not walked through the hard, hard years.
Currey – Yeah, because biological siblings, I mean there’s a whole, this is a whole other side of this whole thing, right? You’re uh, I mean it’s all, yeah, we think about our kids a lot. I mean w something that our kids did not choose was to be in ministry and to be in it, to have an adoptive sibling. Right. They didn’t, they didn’t have a choice in those things. And so man, navigating that how, yeah, I, I appreciate your, your, your thoughtfulness behind that. Um, uh, around navigating biological siblings because you don’t want to put them in difficult situations just so there’ll be better people. But at the same time, we’re never made better people until we go through difficult situations. Right.
Lisa Qualls – Well, I think that’s true. There are a lot of things that God takes us through that we would never for ourselves, for our kids. And you know, we’re so attempted to ask the why, the why questions. And I think for me it has to be sort of the what question, like what do you want from this for us, you know, how do you want to change us? How do you plan to bring glory to you, yourself, into your kingdom through this experience? Because if I get stuck in the why, that’s just not a helpful place. I don’t think God minds us asking why. I’m not worried about him being mad. I just think it’s not always great for me if I get stuck there too long.
Currey – Yeah. I mean the Psalms are full of that sort of questioning of God. Right. Um, biblical, like literally he can handle it, but like you said, it can’t stay there. You can, I believe that the creator and sustainer of all things can handle my why question, right? I think so. Yeah. I think that, but I think we are hesitant to go there a lot of times because as Christians we feel like everything has to be hunky Dory. And if, and if there is struggle, then there’s something wrong with either God or us. And that’s just not not the case. Yeah.
Lisa Qualls – Well, and I think as adoptive parents, we very quickly go to, there’s something wrong with me. Did I not hear God? Did I make a mistake? Was I wrong? Right? And if we were supposed to do this, then why am I failing? Why? Why can’t I figure it out? Why isn’t my child doing better? And, uh, yeah. I think that we have to come to this place of surrender of saying, okay, God, this is your story and I’m going to walk in it to the best of my ability.
Currey – Yeah. Right. Yeah. That’s a hard place to come to. Yeah,
Lisa Qualls – it is. It’s very painful. It’s very painful. Yeah.
Currey – Yeah Okay. Um, that’s good. That’s a great stuff. Um, so let’s jump back on the story train, I guess. So where did you start seeing hope and start seeing, uh, beauty in, in the story? Lisa Qualls – So I think we began to see more hope for our family as we learned more and more about parenting with connection, being mindful of trauma and building trust and attachment. And, you know, we had the incredible benefit of getting to go to TCU and go through training with dr Purvis, herself and her team. And a lot of that gave us hope. It gave us hope for our children’s future. It gives us hope for ourselves as a family. And you know, all four of my children had trauma. You know, it’s not like only one, you know, I am freer to share about one of my daughters than I am about the others. But, um, and we can talk about that too, but I think we saw hope for different kids at different points, you know, and even still, I mean, one of my adopted daughters is a young adult now and the things that are happening in her life that are so good, it just really encourages me because, you know, parenting, any teen or young adult, you know, it’s an up and down process of, Oh, are they, is everything going to turn out okay or is this going to be a disaster to, Oh, they’re the most amazing people. So, um, yeah, I think there’s just been glimpses of hope all along the way with our kids, but we’re still very much in the thick of it. I should add, I have at home right now still two middle school boys and a high school daughter. Everybody else has grown. And, um, but I’m, you know, parenting middle school boys, it’s not an easy task under any circumstances.
Currey – Yeah, no, I appreciate that clarification. Um, I guess, and, and in my experience very much like, um, even the connected child principles, even TBRI even they take so much time and so much energy, right. And like you might see a little glimmer of, of connection and attachment like forming in one area and then in another area it’s just a disaster with one parent and the other parent and like it is a pro. It’s a, it’s a slow trying process. I, I would say from my limited experience,
Lisa Qualls – it really is. And I think the other thing is that even if we use the perfect techniques, let’s say you could be a perfect connected parent, our children are not like little computers that if we say the right thing, they spit the right thing back. It does not work that way. Sometimes what we’re trying works for a while, sometimes it works for one child and not another, sometimes it really takes our kids off. You know, there’s certain things that just don’t work with every kid. And so I think we have to take what works and use it and be open to continuing to learn new things and be okay with the fact that we’re not going to apply everything we learned from every source.
Currey – Right. Very much so. Yeah. That’s great. And, and be willing, I think the flexibility for us has been the hardest part, right? Like you find something you like do it and you keep doing it and then when it’s not working, it’s very, very difficult to switch gears and like be introspective enough to say, Hey, maybe I’m just doing this because I think it’s best and maybe I need to reassess. Right,
Lisa Qualls – right, right. And our children are continually getting older and maturing developmentally. And so we just ha, we do have to be flexible. In fact, I honestly think flexibility is one of the most important characteristics for adoptive parents. I think the parents who cannot be flexible, the stories get really tragic.
Currey – I very, very much agree with that and have seen that as well in, uh, in our, in our experience. So, um so if you’re comfortable, I would love for you to share, um, the rest of, of your story and your experience with, with your daughter. If you’re not comfortable sharing that story. I totally understand.
Lisa Qualls – So, no, I’m, I am fine sharing it. Well sometimes they get pretty tearful, but I can do it. So our daughter Kalkidan. So when he came home at, she was five and a half and she was the first of our daughters to come home. And her, um, challenges were the most severe of all of them. And we tried many, many things and like I said, you know, we definitely found hope. Connected parenting was the best thing we ever did. We, but even with that, some of the challenges began to grow to a point where we were really dealing with safety issues, whether she was safe with our other children were safe and we ended up in having a inpatient psychiatric hospitalizations twice, once in Seattle and once more locally. That was a really hard experience for me as a mom with a lot of support and advice. We ended up deciding to have our daughter be in residential treatment for a period of time and because we simply could not keep her safe anymore at home. And we found a wonderful program that was very attachment focused, very connection oriented in Helena, Montana. And um, I’ll just say it now because people will ask. It’s called Intermountain. It’s for younger children. And fortunately for us, it was in our area of the country. We could drive there. It was a long trip. But um, Kalkidan at Intermountain experienced healing that I don’t think we ever could’ve experienced at home. Even seeing therapists regularly, she needed this constant therapeutic environment from the moment she woke up until the moment she fell asleep. She was in a therapeutic environment and we work together with the team there. We traveled there for parent weekends, we did Skype therapy, we did calls, you know, we, we tried to stay as involved as we could while she was gone. But it took a long time even there for her to begin to truly heal, to begin to understand what it was to live in a family and to begin to trust us. It was a long process, but when it began to happen, talk about hope. Like we began to see her, um, trust us and want to be near us and want to part of the family, which she had never wanted before. And our hope really, really began to rise. And she also, one of the beautiful things with Intermountain is that they have a chaplain for the children and she deeply grew in her faith and our understanding of God while she was there as well. So I think all of those things, incredible therapists, incredible staff, this a chaplain, um, all together, you know, by the grace of God, it was, it was a very healing time for her and for our family too. So Kalkidan returned home in August of 2014 and it was amazing. I mean, she was 13 years old and it’s like she began to know how to use words like she hadn’t ever used her words before. She had always used behavior to express everything. And now she was using her words. And I remember one day I said something to her and she went and she wrote me a note and she said, mom, it really hurt my feelings when you said this. And she gave it to me and I still have it. And I thought she could never have done that before. I mean, it was really quite amazing. And the beautiful healing that happened between Calcutta and the other children in our family was just, it was something to see. I mean, because they were scared. They did not trust her at all, you know? And they began to be able to relax around her. And we had, not intentionally, but we had almost artificially twinned her with our youngest daughter. They were a year apart in age, but they were in the same grade. They were the same size. They were, you know, they were very similar. And when Kalkidan came home, that relationship between Claire and it on just became the sweetest, sweetest thing. And we had Kalkidan in her own room, but we put a bunk bed in there and every night Claire would go down and they would read books together in bed and spend time together and Claire would tell her stories and different things. And some nights she slept in there and some nights she slept in her own room. But more and more they just, um, began to build this beautiful relationship that we’re profoundly grateful for. So that was sort of throughout the fall, Calcutta and went back to school. She was doing great. She was a very athletic girl. And um, in things were going really well and we thought, wow, this is our future. This is what it’s going to be like. We began to dream of all the great things, you know, that God was going to do in her life. And, um, unfortunately that December, right after Christmas we lost her in a very tragic car accident and an accident that I was very injured in. And you know, it just, it, it took us to our knees. Like how it was very confusing. I mean talk about wanting to ask the why questions, you know, like why. And I did. Why now I remember literally in the hospital saying, I feel so ripped off. Like we poured everything into Kalkidan’s healing and then God took her. But as time passed, as we grieved and we, I mean we’re still creating five years and we are still grieving, you know, but it’s different now of course. And it was in the early years and I think where we have come to in this process is realizing that God gave us the gift of her healing so that we could hold onto that when she was gone. We have sweet memories, we have times of laughter, we can remember we had a beautiful Christmas with her, which had never happened before. And we have all those memories. And I think it, her healing has made our grief deeper and far more sweeter than it would have been if we had lost her in the midst of the most difficult times. So we give thanks to God for all the healing that we were able to see. And it gives me hope for other children and hope for my kids still that I’m parenting like, okay, we can do this. There is hope for every child. I really believe that there’s hope for every child and every family.
Currey – Yeah. Amen. And uh, yeah. Amen. That’s awesome. And I appreciate you being willing to share that story and um, yeah, it’s, it’s beautiful and it’s tragic.
Lisa Qualls – Yeah, it is. And the thing that it does though is I feel very free to share Kalkidan’s story. And because she is not here, it will. And because I think she would want her story to be used, you know, it’s a very hopeful story. And Hmm. That is a unique position to be in because most of us who are parenting our kids, those are their stories to tell. You know, we, we can’t, it’s hard to be a speaker, a teacher, a blogger, and not reveal too much about my kids. But with kalkin on her story can be shared.
Currey – Yeah, you’re very right. It, it, yeah. And I, I think, um, parents of younger adoptees especially, uh, should take note of that very well because you have to be very cognizant because it’s easy to overshare and it’s not yours to share, you know, at the end of the day.
Lisa Qualls – So. Right. Because those stories you share when they’re little, if you know, if, if you don’t move communities a lot, which we haven’t, we’ve lived in our community for 20 years. Well now my kids are in middle school. Right. And you know, it’s even attention for me as a blogger. Their friends’ parents follow me, their friends will go on my blog, find pictures of my boys when they were and print them out. And you know, it’s tricky. It’s a very tricky thing. Currey – Yeah, that is, it is. Um, that’s good. Ah, that story, when you told it at Replanted Conference, I just like, I lost it. I, it’s such a powerful story. And, uh, yeah, it’s amazing that you saw the good though. I mean, uh, you know, y’all journeyed with her for such a long time and
Lisa Qualls – yeah. Yes, we did. We did. And I’m, I’m really, I can say I’m so thankful now. She changed my life completely. Yeah.
Currey – Um, well that feels like a great segue into your upcoming book, right? Um, yes, it’s called the connected parent. Is that, is that right?
Lisa Qualls – It’s called the connected parent real life strategies for building trust and attachment with an emphasis on real life, I think. Right?
Currey – Yeah. No, very much so. And that’s, that’s awesome because so connected child is, you know, for those of those, those of us not in sort of this adoption foster care world is sort of this, you know, TBRI model like it is the book, you know, that you send everybody to first, right?
Lisa Qualls – Yes. I would say every adoptive and foster parent should read the connected child. It was written by Karen Purvis and by Dr. David Cross who founded the, the Institute for child development at TCU, which is now called the Karen Purvis Institute for child development. And it’s like the foundation of understanding the impact of early trauma for children and how we can best parent them. So yes, it’s an incredible book.
Currey – Hmm. Yeah. That’s awesome. And so yeah, part of what makes your book beautiful is it’s the last writing, uh, who you coauthored with Dr. Karyn Purvis. Correct. How did the, like how did all that go down?
Lisa Qualls – Well, I already shared about how one of my readers pointed me toward Karen and the connected parent. And you know, I had been terribly desperate to find help. And when I read the connected parent and as I had read all of the other wonderful books written by experts, I just remember thinking, okay, I understand this, but what does it really look like? Like how do people actually do this in their homes? And I felt like, like these authors were so wonderful, but they were not living my life. They were not 24, seven parenting children like this. And so I began to write about everything I was learning through Karyn and through the connected child. And in time that ended up forming a relationship with, um, the founders of empowered to connect with Michael and Amy Monroe. And with Dr. Purvis, they invited me to start writing for them and then they invited me to start speaking with them. And you can what an honor that was. But also I had never really done public speaking. The very first public speaking I ever did was in front of a thousand people in Nashville. I thought I was going to just lose it. It was so scary to me at that time, you know? And, but I remember Karyn was sitting right in the front row and I remember seeing her face and I was just telling our story. And so I was extremely fortunate to get to know Karyn. So I had this idea and I thought, what if we could take all this incredible research and knowledge that Karyn had and the Institute was teaching and combine it with the real life experiences of me as a mom. What if we could put that together? Wouldn’t that serve parents so well? To actually see, I mean the good and the bad. Speaker 3 45:22 And when you read the book, you know that I failed all the time at, at trying to do this right. I’m not at all perfect. And so I asked Karyn’s assistant, Emily Pickett, who is also on the book. I asked her, I said, what do you think of this idea? She said, I think it’s a great idea. I said, do you think I should ask Karyn? Like I was so nervous and she said, do it. So we were all staying at a hotel together for empowered to connect. And, um, Karen was having breakfast, you know, the little breakfast rooms at the hotels. And I said, Hey, can I sit with you? And, and so we started chatting and basically I pitched my book and I said, this is the idea I have for a book. What do you think? She said, well, I think it’s a great idea. I said, well, do you want to do it? And she said, yes. I just could not believe it. And that was way back in 2012. And so we started writing this book together in 2012. And, um, it was an incredible journey. I not only learned about how to write a book, but I learned about how to get a book published. And that is a huge learning curve and big process all by itself. So there’s, there’s a lot involved in getting a book, publishing, getting it to print. So we wrote this book, it took us a very long time because shortly after we began writing, Karen was diagnosed with cancer. I think that’s the timing of it, but she had cancer. So we paused for a long time. Then when she went into remission, we started writing again. We were of course in the thick of very, very hard parenting. Speaker 3 46:58 So it was a slow process. And then we lost our daughter. And there was a time when I thought, this book is not going to be finished. I can’t, I’ll never be able to do this now. I can’t. I could, my brain just wasn’t even working. And for a couple of reasons, one, some head injury and injuries, but also just the grief process is very hard on our brains too. And, um, but then I thought, I need to finish this book for Kalkidan. I mean I, all of this because of her. And so I told Karyn, I want to do it, I want to finish. So we delve back in. We started writing again and then her cancer came back and we kept writing almost nearly to the end of her life when it came back. I don’t think anybody realized how quickly she was going to decline and then pass away. She actually called me one time in, during a treatment and because she was working on the book during an infusion treatment, it chemo treatment. And so we were really pushing hard to get it done and we did get it to a very good place. Um, in terms of completion before she passed away and after she died, I thought maybe that’s it. Maybe we really aren’t going to finish this book. But I waited a while and then I approached her family and they knew about the book and they said, yes, we want you to finish it. We want this book to be published. So with the help of Emily ticket, who I already mentioned, she was Karen’s assistant knew her so well knows TBRI and all the methods so well. And she was able to take Karen’s writings, the things that were incomplete and bring them all together so that we could finish the manuscript. And I’m deeply thankful for Emily’s help with that. And I was able to find a publisher and yes, the book is coming out on July 7th of 2020.
Currey – Yeah, I mean, so exciting. And I think again, for those outside of the adoption foster care community, it cannot be overestimated the impact that Dr. Karyn Purvis has had on the entire community. I mean, we still, every time we teach a class for empowered to connect, uh, we show videos of, of Dr. Purvis, you know, uh, with children. She just had a way of connecting with these kids. That was the Holy spirit inspired. I, I, I can only say, you know, um,
Lisa Qualls – I think so too. And you know, her work has reached far beyond parents to educators and judicial systems and all kinds of treatment centers and all over the world. And so I, I do think that this book has the potential to serve a lot of people. I hope it does. I hope that it gets into the hands of many, many thousands of people.
Currey – Yeah, I agree. I mean, we were talking a little bit about this before we got started, but you know, my wife and I teach a trauma informed parenting class through empower to connect where parent trainers and this book is like what you need in order to like sort of talk about these things with parents because it’s not just managing a trauma for parents who are dealing with that. That’s a big part of it. But that trauma and that that attachment affects the way we parent and the way we relate to our children and it shows our flaws as much as it does anything else, right?
Lisa Qualls – Oh, absolutely. I mean I think we find ourselves, if we’re able to be reflective, we start reflecting on our own childhood and how if we had children before we adopted, how we parented then and there’s just so much we can learn and things I’m learning more recently that I’m working on a lot through the adoption connection is how parenting a child who has something that Dan, he has called blocked trust when their ability to trust us is, is a blocked because of all the damage actually to their brain from trauma and the way that their brain has been rewired by trauma. When they have this block trust, it actually affects our parenting the way our brains are working. It’s a neuro behavioral thing that parents can develop something called blocked care and it becomes very difficult for parents to press on. You know, they might be able to continue doing all the tasks of parenting, but their hearts become very shut down and as I’ve learned more about this, this is becomes something I’m really passionate about is helping parents rekindle compassion for themselves and for their children. Speaker 3 51:44 And actually through the adoption connection, we now have a course that we call it from apathy to empathy. And because I think parents can get into a really hard place in, in their own hearts and in their minds, and it’s not by choice, it’s literally the way our brains protect us from the responses. You know, we’re anticipating a certain response and attachment oriented response. And when it doesn’t happen over and over again, our brains are impacted by that and they begin to shut down. So it’s really important that parents feel understood. We can give parents all the tools in the world, but if they do not feel understood, if they don’t feel nurtured and cared for, they can’t really put it all into practice. So we need to take care of the parents first.
Currey – Amen to that. Uh, yes, very, very much so because, and, and care for them and build them up and, and be a, be a church that, uh, is about, uh, families that are, are, are, uh, raising kids with, with, from hard places, kids with traumatic experiences. And so, yeah, very, very much so. It’s, it’s such a beneficial thing. And obviously like this is a big, a big deal. Dr Karyn Purvis’ sort of like last writing, you’re, you’re involved in it too with a, you know, you have a great following. And so I imagine that layers like a lot of buzz going on about the book. What have you seen so far as far as all that goes?
Lisa Qualls – Well, it’s been really exciting and really surprising. We have not even yet begun to really start the book launch, but um, I just a couple of days started posting some things on Facebook and things have gone crazy. It’s so exciting. We immediately shot up to the number one position on Amazon in new releases for adoption, special needs parenting and I think Christian and family relationships. That was really exciting. But the next day there’s a whole other ranking on Amazon called their bestseller ranking. And the very next day we shot up on that to number one and adoption and number two in special needs parenting and number two in Christian and family relationships. And the really fun little thing about that is now we have this little orange thing that says best seller on the, on the Amazon book description. And we were pretty thrilled. I mean, you know, the book doesn’t even come out until July. So the most important thing, what I’m learning is the most important thing for a book is preorders. The more people who preorder it book, the stronger the message to booksellers publishers is that the book is needed. It’s wanted, people are going to buy it. So as people have began pre-ordering, it’s just not only raising our ranking, but it’s sending a clear message that this is an important book and a needed book. So we’re, we’re kind of beside ourselves with happiness to be honest as well.
Currey – You should be. That’s amazing. I, uh, I’ve yet to preorder my copy, but I’m going to go do that now. Just, you know, after the interview, just to make sure, but I’m telling everybody about it on Instagram and like sharing and so, yeah, it’s awesome. I’m so excited.
Lisa Qualls – Yeah, me too. And I consider it a deep, deep honor to be able to bring Karyn’s final written work to the world. I mean, it’s a gift. She was a gift and I just am very grateful to get to be part of it.
Currey – Amen. I love that so much. I love it so much. Uh, okay. Well Alisa, are you ready to jump into our final two questions to kind of close this thing out? Yes. Um, okay. So, uh, my first question is, what is the strangest job that you have ever had? Can I give to you two? Yes, please.
Lisa Qualls – Okay. When I was in college, I worked at this group home and the funding for my job, both, both Russ and I work there together and we hit, we were newlyweds and the funding for our job was completely cut. We went to work one day and the owner of the group home told us it was our last day and you know, we were just like, what are we going to do? And we had to find jobs very, very quickly. Well, the only job I could find, it was in, we went to college in Seattle, it was working at the kingdom, which was our, was the big sports arena back then for the Seahawks and the Mariners and everybody was called the kingdom. And I was a parking lot attendant. So you know, when people would drive in back then you actually, you didn’t swipe a card, you paid cash to park. And so we would wear these money belts and collect all the money. It was, it was a very interesting job. Not particularly fun to be honest, but it was, Hey, it paid some of our bills, which was good. The other really interesting job, um, that I had is when Russ was in grad school, we were back East in upstate New York and we were painfully, I hate to use the word poor because there are people who are truly poor. We had people we could have called if we absolutely needed money, but we were in a painful spot and I was able to get a job as a housemother at a sorority. And so my little family, we had three children, we moved into alpha few sorority and we lived in the sorority house for two years. So I was parenting my kids there and believe it or not, I had another baby while we lived there. So yeah, that was a really unusual and unique job and a complete gift from God because we were able to make it, you know, with rest being in school.
Currey – That’s, those are two very good stories. Good job with that. That’s awesome. um, okay. So my final question then is what is one piece of advice you would give to somebody looking to bring God’s kingdom more into their work
Lisa Qualls – Well I think all work when it’s done by us and an attitude of service is ministry of sorts. You know, we are bringing God’s kingdom to the world in the work that we do. And I should add to that, even the book, the connected parent is not a faith-based book and there was a reason for that. We want that book to be in the hands of everyone, not just Christians. We want foster parent organizations and States and schools and everybody to use the book. But not everything we do has to be obviously faith-based, but it’s our faith that fuels us to do the work that we do. And so I would say I try to be very genuine about my beliefs and, but I am happy to serve anybody, any adoptive and foster parents regardless of their belief system. So I think we have to be ourselves and we have to love people well because it’s, I believe that you will never argue someone into the kingdom of God, but you can love them into the kingdom. And so when we can put the love of Christ on display in our work, that is the most powerful thing I think we can do. Yeah.
Currey – Amen. That’s good stuff. Lisa, thank you so much for making time for me and chat and I’m excited about the book to get it out there.
Lisa Qualls – Thank you so much for having me. This has been great.
Currey (Conclusion) – I hope you enjoyed hearing from Lisa today and just for story, just hope powerful and so incredible. And, um, just one of, uh, I really appreciated just talking about, you know, uh, biological kids in the home and how they interact with, uh, adopted and foster siblings and just, uh, so much wisdom here. I encourage you, again, to make sure your preorder, uh, Lisa’s book and, uh, yeah, just educate yourself. If you have a friend that’s in this adoption and foster care, uh, world, uh, send them the book. I every, every parent should be, should be reading these things, learning about this sort of stuff. And so, yeah, I appreciate the work that, that Lisa’s doing out in this world. So, uh, you can scroll to the bottom of your app right now, uh, on iTunes and leave a rating and review for me. That would be awesome. It just helps get the word out about the podcast. So more people know about awesome resources like, uh, like Lisa’s and, uh, here’s some amazing stories. So I would appreciate you doing that. And until next time, get out there or stay in and hustle.
