This will be the final chapter in “Our Story”, though God willing the story itself is far from over. The 39-year-old woman who left California is now on the edge of “old” at 61. Sometimes, as Ron and I reflect on all that has transpired in these past twenty-one plus years, we recognize that between the two of us, we have packed in enough living for ten people. If you have followed our story through these chapters, you may agree that our lives have been a bit full to say the least! Our story has contained all the elements – the sadness and the joy, the tragedy and the comedy, the regrets and the triumphs…all of those things that make up life on this side of eternity. The following season – the one I call “the middle years” – was no different.
God first called us here to Ecuador to rescue children, and including our own two, Nathan and Emily, we have had nineteen living in our home. Today, their ages range from our oldest, Nathan at 34 to our youngest, Lenny, who is 22. The early years, when the kids were young, were certainly busy, but they were also a delight most of the time. God’s promise to make this once “barren woman” (both Nate and Emily were miracle babies) a “joyful mother of children” was abundantly fulfilled. But as we all know, children grow up, and during the process they become teenagers. If you do the math, this means that at some point we had at least ten of them in our family at the same time. Anyone with adolescents at home can imagine what that was like – just multiply your experiences by at least five! No matter what kind of parents we are, and how “good” are kids are, there comes a point in our children’s lives when they begin to challenge the limits and expectations we have for them. While a natural part of the maturing process, it’s still hard on all of us, parents and teens alike. But add to that the fact that many of the children living in our home were not siblings – our family had eight different last names! Sometimes battle lines were drawn between the various family groups living in our home, and other times a few would join force against each other or us. But beyond this, due to the brokenness they had lived with before coming to our home, complexities arose, particularly between male and female “non siblings” which, had we been wiser, may have been foreseen and dealt with differently. Through it all, we tried, as all parents do, to establish boundaries to protect the kids (and ourselves) from the pain that poor decisions bring. But because of those boundaries, a couple of the kids chose to leave, unwilling to submit to our attempt to parent them. A few others chose to cross those boundaries so often that we finally, painfully, had to ask them to leave (though we always made sure they had somewhere to go).
During those middle years, there were many times that I felt like I would collapse under the weight of it all, often feeling inadequate and like a failure as a mother. On top of that, I struggled with my priorities – should I remain at the school as a teacher or stay at home to be more available to the kids when they were there – a battle every working mother faces, I suppose. But this “job” wasn’t just a job – it was also our ministry. So where were my time and energy supposed to go? Who was God calling me to be? Reading through my journals of that time has been hard, but it has also been an incredible reminder of God’s faithfulness. As Emily once told me during this season when she found me broken and in tears, hiding in the bodega in our bedroom after learning that our family was, unexpectedly, going to be growing once again, “You don’t have to be a super mom, because you have a super God.” No, I was not qualified. But I was called, and that meant that somehow, despite my failures and the mistakes I had and would most certainly make in mothering these kids, God had chosen me for the job, and it was His responsibility, ultimately, to bring them to Himself.
And he has done that, time after time. Six of our kids are now married, adding their wonderful spouses to our family. All but Nathan and his family and Grace and her husband Peter (who will both graduate this month from university, Grace as a dental hygienist and Peter with a degree from Wharton University in Pennsylvania) live right here in the Quito area. Some of those couples are now parents, with children of their own. Nathan and Jonna have blessed us with two beautiful grandchildren, Sadie and Owen. Maggie and David have given us our delightful Thiago, now in Kindergarten at Montebello. Boris and Fernanda have three children, Zoe, Milca and Nathaniel. Mauricio and his wife Fanny have given us sweet little Lionel. And while the choices that brought them into our family were not God’s best, babies are always a blessing, and we cannot imagine our lives without Valeria’s daughter Kristen and baby Ian, Nella’s adorable little Eric, and Isabel’s Briana. Several of our children and some of their spouses, much to our delight, work at the school, serving alongside of us at Montebello. Others, like Boris and Nathan, are involved in their own ministries, and our hearts rejoice in all God has done in them and is doing through them. Many of these once broken and lost children are now adults with lives that reflect the work that God has done in rescuing them, drawing them to Himself and redeeming them. Others are on a still on the path toward wholeness, trying to make better choices with their lives. Still others are floundering, “out there somewhere”, not yet having grasped God’s goodness or the purposes for which He brought them to our home. But whether they are walking with Him today or are still prodigals, we truly do believe that because our God is Sovereign, whether for a short time or a long one, their coming to us was a part of His work in their lives, seeking to redeem them from the empty way of life handed down to them by both society and their own broken families. And we know that like our own, none of their stories are fully written. Until the day they stand in God’s presence as we all will, there is still time. There is still hope.
Beyond the children, there is the school, which may not have been our idea but was most definitely God’s. The road from Montebello’s beginnings, with our twelve children and a couple of underqualified tutors in a little house at the bottom of the property to our current facilities where 140 people are employed and nearly 650 students are being educated has been a long one, with a lot of twists, turns, and quite a few “potholes”. After three years in the guest house, growing from twelve to forty children and a handful of teachers, we opened the doors of Montebello Academy in 2006 to 160 students, and every year that growth has continued. We have been learners along the way, right along with our students and staff. Our methodology has gradually evolved and will continue to do so, but our mission remains unchanged: to educate kids from ALL classes and to make disciples for Jesus Christ who will go out into the world with His message for mankind. And as the ministry has grown, God has called many amazing people alongside of us to carry it forward. We are so thankful for those who have been here from the beginning, fighting shoulder to shoulder with us through some pretty rough battles. We are thankful, as well, for those who have come to work with us more recently at a time when, more than ever, our mission is under threat from enemies both seen and unseen as our postmodern culture raises its fist against God and His people. But these fellow “soldiers” are so much more than that, to us. Along with all of the children and grandchildren God has added to our home, we consider these people to be our family as well. In Matthew 19:20, Jesus says, “And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or fields for my sake will receive a hundred times as much and will inherit eternal life”. He has given us that and so much more. We are blessed.
What lies ahead for Montebello Academy and for the Stiff family in Ecuador? Only God knows, but because He does, we will trust that it is good. We also know that it won’t be easy, because it never has been – it isn’t meant to be. While heaven is promised to us, in this world between gardens, we will struggle, but we will not struggle alone. God walks before us, behind us and beside us. And best of all, He dwells within us. And that is enough.
