Senior Year Slump

I had never heard of Swaziland before. My daughter approached me in October 2015 during the fall of her senior year and said that she wanted to go there for three months with Adventures in Missions (AIM), a Christian Atlanta based mission program. She had to sign up right away because the group was leaving on January 21, 2016. I thought it would be impossible since it was during the spring semester of her senior year. How would she finish high school? How would we come up with the $6,000 she needed? My daughter was in such a low place in her life that I had no reservations about letting her do this. It seemed to be exactly what she needed. You see, most days during that fall semester she struggled just to get out of bed. In fact many days she didn’t. Even with my threats and yelling, I had to go to work so I had to just leave her there and pray she’d snap out of it. She told me how she hated life and didn’t know where she fit in.  A few months earlier she had to quit the cross country team because of an injury. On top of that, her best friend of two years stopped talking to her just as their senior year began. She had such low self esteem and confidence and couldn’t seem to find joy in anything. She didn’t even want to get her driver’s license. She was 17 and didn’t care to drive the brand new car I bought for her that summer as an incentive. My heart would break when she would tell me, “Mom I’m just sad.” Thank God she went to private school because she missed 19 days the fall semester of her senior year. Many times I felt helpless because nothing seemed to be working- counseling, prayer, medicine, etc… So I was going to do all I could to make this happen for her. God opened all the doors and worked everything out. She raised over half the money by getting donations from generous family members and friends. Her school said they would allow her to participate in the graduation ceremony in June but she’d have to go to summer school to get her diploma. Her father was on board with the idea, which I thought would have been the roadblock. All was set and finalized. On January 21st she would be on her way to Swaziland, in southeast Africa. So I decided to throw her a Going Away / 18th Birthday party at our house the Saturday before she left. We had friends and family over to celebrate. A map of Africa hung on the wall with a tiny little arrow pointing to Swaziland. She took photos with guests in front of the Swazi flag. Everyone was so proud of her and her courage to go across the world to serve in such a place.

If you’re not familiar with Swaziland here are a few facts. It’s located in Southeastern Africa, surrounded mostly by South Africa and Mozambique is to the northeast. It’s about as big as Connecticut and is an absolute monarchy ruled by King Mswati III. It has the highest prevalence of HIV in the entire world with over 26% of the adult population being positive. The average life expectancy is 50 years old. According to wikipedia, 37% of the population is under 14 years old. In fact it also has one of the highest orphan rates in the world. The United Nations Human Development report in 2016 ranked it 148th out of 188 countries. The United States came in at number 10. (Norway is #1 just in case you’re curious.) So for my 18 year old private school, only child, foodie, “can we order room service?”, hotel snob, “I don’t eat leftovers” daughter, I knew that Swaziland was going to be quite the eye opener. I had high hopes for what this experience would do for her soul. She and I both knew that this was an opportunity to get her away from her lonely, comfortable world and allow God to heal her heart through the eyes of little children who would get excited over the simplest things that we take for granted, like wearing shoes.

Reckless & Weak

As the party came to a close, Katelyn left around 8pm with one of her friends. It was her last Saturday night with her buddies until mid April. We had church in the morning so I asked her to be home by 12:30am like any other Saturday night. Cleaning the kitchen and talking with my parents, around 10pm my cell phone rang. It was her number but when I answered it wasn’t her on the other end. It was the mother of the boy’s house she was at with her friends. She told me Katelyn wasn’t “lucid”.  I asked why would she say that? I was confused. It had only been 2 hours since she’d left. I didn’t understand why she would describe her that way. After her brief explanation, I asked her to take Katelyn to the emergency room and I would meet her there. I hung up the phone and turned to my parents. I couldn’t believe what I was about to have to say to them. We had just celebrated my daughter going to Africa to help orphans. Now we needed to go to the ER because she wasn’t “lucid”. We were all speechless and horrified. What had we missed? What was really going on with her? My mom and I sped to Methodist West Hospital as my dad followed. We got there before Katelyn arrived. As I was aggressively questioning the poor girl at the front desk as to the whereabouts of my daughter, I turned around to see her being carried in by one of her friends. Her head hung over his arm with her hair swaying back and forth. Mouth opened, eyes closed with the smell of vomit and vodka reeked from her skin. She looked pale and was unresponsive. They rushed her to a room in the back and laid her on a bed. After checking her vital signs, blood was drawn and an IV started. I stood in the back of the room watching in shock praying for her not to die. At this point I didn’t care about Africa or graduation or college, I just wanted my daughter to live. My mind was racing. Had she taken drugs? Was she subconsciously trying to get out of going to Africa? I had no idea what was going on in her mind that would have allowed this to happen. The friends she was with that night said that they had been drinking. They said that she kept stealing their drinks as a joke and slamming them. She was only 115lbs and what I didn’t know was that she hadn’t eaten that day. She had gotten on Adderall a couple months prior and it affected her appetite. (Side note – Adderall is a dangerous drug!) I remember the sight of my mom kneeling on a chair in the waiting room praying. My dad there beside her. My brother and sister ‘n law showed up but didn’t know what to say. Everyone was perplexed by how this night turned out. The doctor came back a couple hours later with her labs results. Her blood alcohol content was .338%. There were no drugs found in her system. With her weight, no food in her system, and the amount of alcohol she drank in such a short time, she was in a very dangerous place.

We were told that she had to be coherent before she could leave the hospital.  The IV helped push fluids through her body but the alcohol had to run its course. The night went on- 2am, 4am, 6am; she still couldn’t stay awake or form a sentence. Her mumbles and morns made no sense. My mom and I prayed and cried as we held her hands and waited through every hour until she was finally able to talk. It was noon the next day before she was discharged. Headed home I remember thinking, “now what?” What were we going to do now? The doctor advised us that she probably shouldn’t go to Africa and instead maybe needed some treatment or at the least counseling. It was Sunday. She was to leave on Thursday. When we got home we all slept a few hours. That evening we had to talk about what had happened and how we were going to deal with it. My parents, Katelyn, one of her friends that was with her that night, and myself sat around the living room and confronted the issue.  We shared tough truth and tough love. She was in a state of disbelief about what was going on. She had gotten to a good place mentally and had come so far. Hearing the details of what had just happened left her devastated, ashamed, and utterly embarrassed. She had no recollection of how or why she was drinking like that. Her only explanation was that she got carried away and didn’t use good judgement. She was having fun and didn’t realize what she was doing. When we mentioned her not going to Africa she became very emotional and begged to please let her go and that she needed to go. As much as I felt like there needed to be consequences for this incident, I was scared of her staying home and not going. I didn’t know what else to do as her parent. This mission trip was what I counted on to “fix” her. I trusted God to fill her with his love there. We were all set to go and this happens. Now it all went sideways on me. There was no Plan B.

The next few days were tough because I wasn’t sure that I could allow her to leave. I felt like it may be irresponsible of me. My parents and her dad supported me in whatever I decided to do. Despite my fear, I let her go. I booked a flight to Atlanta with her so that I could see her off from there. She was meeting her team there before they were to fly to Africa. I sat in the Atlanta airport scared and excited for her. We spotted her crew and she had to go. In the middle of this busy airport, I cried and prayed with her before I said goodbye. I hugged her, kissed her cheek and watch her walk away. It was one of the hardest goodbyes so far. Just 4 days prior I was praying she wouldn’t die, now she’s flying across the world. All I could do was trust God to protect her and move in her heart while she was gone. The flight back to Houston was very emotional for me.

Saying Goodbye

Off to Africa

Life in Swaziland

Over the next three months I was on the edge of my seat waiting for an email, text, or phone call. I loved hearing from her and listening to her share stories about what she was experiencing. On the weekends they would go to the nearest town, Manzini, where they could get wifi and she was able to call and send me pictures. I could tell from the sound of her voice that we had done the right thing. She was in a setting that was stripped of all the luxuries we know here in America. Social media was absent from her daily life. There were no more distractions. No more feeling empty in a room full of stuff.  Her day was spent working in an elementary school where over half the children were orphans. Hot African days with no air conditioning, no restrooms like we have here, just outhouses for all to use.  A couple times a week she could take a bucket shower. Katelyn said the children there were always so happy. Even though they had so little. Some didn’t even wear shoes. They pumped their water from a well. There was no television or electronics. They were so fascinated by her cellphone and seeing photos on it. They would say to her, “shoot me”, which meant they wanted their picture taken. On the weekend they would go to church together. Never again has she complained about our hour long service here at home. She said the people there spent hours worshiping and praising the Lord on Sundays. Over the 11 weeks she spent there, God did some amazing things in her heart. He filled holes that we could not fill and gave her a new sense of strength. I’m thankful that God pointed her heart towards Africa and she followed His lead. I am also thankful to all the people, family and friends, that donated money towards her trip. They were instrumental in making this happen.

Her Elementary classroom

Here’s a video she sent me. She told the kids to say hi to the camera. She loved how the little boy wipes her hair out of her face. The kids were always fixing her in some way, her skirt, her hair, straightening her chair before she sat down. They adored her.

I’m so thankful for the team of young adults that were there with her on this journey. About 15 or so, 18-24 year olds from all over the United States. Each day they would pray for one another and have Bible study every night. She told me one of her favorite memories was of their time on the porch in the hammocks or Enos watching the sunset while listening to praise music and sometimes a little Coldplay.

Her Adventures in Missions team

Crazy Dave the tour guide in front

Here’s another video she sent me. Thank goodness she didn’t tell me ahead of time what she was about to do. She said that she was the last one to go and she had already backed out twice. The tour guide, Crazy Dave, volunteered to go with her. She and I both are far from thrill seekers. She claims that this was a defining moment for her. Overcoming her fear and proving to herself that she is capable of more than she ever realized.

A trip to South Africa while she was there. This is Kruger National Park

The Drinking Game

I’ll admit I was naive. I never imagined that my daughter would put herself in the hospital because of alcohol. She hadn’t done anything like that before. I think it’s very important to be realistic about a teenager’s ability to obtain alcohol. Talking to them at a young age about the dangers of it is so important. Explaining to them what can happen when you drink too much and how it impairs judgment. Please use my daughter’s experience as an example if you need to. She’s lucky she was with people who cared enough about her to call an adult over to the situation. If they had just left her alone that night the outcome could have been tragically different.

I have questioned my own relationship with alcohol at times. I know I must have somehow played a role in this. What have my experiences taught her? Have I led by example? I think that I was very lackadaisical in my approach to parenting in this area. I wanted to assume she knew better and trust her to make good decisions. Instead of sit down talks about it, I’d just quickly tell her, “Be careful. I love you. Don’t drink” as she would fly out the door for a night out with her friends. I chose not to talk about it because I felt like I had to be on one side of the fence or the other. Either I had to condemn it and tell her I have no tolerance for underage drinking. Is that really realistic? Or I needed to discussed the importance of responsible drinking, which honestly felt like I was condoning it. So instead I stayed very surface level and made no effort to be on one side or the other about it. Now I realize that it doesn’t matter what side of the fence you’re on, there’s one thing all parents MUST DO……TALK ABOUT IT! Bring it up. Ask questions. Let them run through the potential consequences out loud as you guide them to make the right decision. And of course, check in on your own relationship with alcohol from time to time. Because remember, like Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, “What we do speaks so loudly they can’t always hear what we say.”

I am grateful that Katelyn allowed me to share this story. It was certainly a time that we have both put behind us and are better and wiser because of it. Hopefully this can in some way help other parents and young teens navigate their way through the inevitable topic of underage drinking. Communicate. Communicate. Communicate. We were all teenagers once. It’s not easy. Love, Forgive, and Build up with Words Daily. And if your kid asks if they can go serve in Africa, don’t be afraid to let them do it. It’s pretty awesome over there!

A trip to South Africa while she was there. This is Kruger National Park

Her Elementary classroom

Her Adventures in Missions team

Her view outside of her window where she slept.