Do you have staff? How do you handle so many special needs? Are you exhausted? I received these questions recently and this post is going to share the nitty gritty of our home. A home that probably looks quite a bit like any other home….with 7,845 kids. A home with an often exhausted mama (because all mamas are tired), a… Read More
On the first day of school, I introduced Joel’s third grade class to Blackbeard the Bearded Dragon. BlackBeard has limb difference because he was bullied and attacked by other lizards. They hurt him and he lost a foot and several claws. To save his life, BlackBeard was placed in an ‘orphanage for lizards’ that houses reptiles that can no longer… Read More
I flew back from Bulgaria late Saturday night., I was in the hospital Sunday morning. Israel woke up with a leg swollen triple the size of normal with ‘concerning’ redness. Mentally and physically, I was exhausted and emotionally spent. Much of Sunday was a blur. At one point during his stay, I was helping distract and hold him down as they… Read More
There are times that something is right in front of your face and you don’t see it. I look back on those two days, and I’m embarrassed to say that it never crossed my mind. I had walked those steps over and over, and not once did I wonder how the children reached the third floor to see us. How… Read More
There’s this strange dichotomy that I am living. One month ago, I sat in orphanages where children like my son, Joel, die. I’m not exaggerating, I’m not sensationalizing, boys like my son die. You see, he has a facial deformity, he is deaf, and he cannot see well. These things equate to “rejected”, “unadoptable”, “hidden” and “unworthy” in orphanages across… Read More
I hung up the phone and looked at the numbers I had written on the yellow post-it. I wasn’t sad, I was just numb. His IQ scores were very low and yet I didn’t know how to process this. Part of me wanted to grieve, but another part was angry. It wasn’t that I expected him to be genius, it… Read More