Oh my goodness, have I got a doozy for you today. I was trying to think of a clever title, but decided to just go with the obvious. You are seriously not going to believe this story, but I promise it’s true.
I’m not sure if you know this, but we have a team of builders who live here and do all the constant building and repairing on our property. They built the duplex and are now finishing up the barn and making accessible walkways around the property. We have a goal that all the construction on the Homestead will be done in the next three years and won’t that be a grand day! But until then, our building team of 5 men is a constant fixture on the Homestead. During the week they live in the old house at the front of the property and on the weekends they go home to their village about 50km away. They don’t have a ton of interaction with our boys, but they are always kind to them and the boys know them.
So, a few weeks ago one of the builders, a young guy named Vadim, was cleaning out the boiler room of the duplex. The duplex is heated with a wood boiler and every Friday one of the builders cleans it out. In the boiler room was a box of recycled documents from our office set aside to be burned. Vadim saw on the top of the pile of documents a copy of our Yaroslav’s passport and noticed that Yarik’s last name and patronymic were the same as his girlfriend’s. He snapped a photo of the document with his phone and texted his girlfriend, Vlada. “Hey look, this guy has your same last name. Weird, right?” (It’s not a common last name) Vlada looked at the name and birthdate and was shocked to put two and two together: Yaroslav is her long lost brother. I.Kid.You.Not. The girlfriend of our builder is Yaroslav’s sister!!! What the heck even??? It’s like a Hallmark movie!
This is how it all went down. When Yarik was small and it was discovered that he had a disability his mother put him in an institution. He is 8 years older than Vlada and she never met him, but she always knew she had an older brother with a disability. Yarik and Vlada’s mother was/is an alcoholic and her parental rights were removed when Vlada was small and Vlada was placed in an orphanage. She was typically developing, so she was not placed with Yaroslav. When she was 4 years old she was adopted by a good, loving family. Vlada always remembered she had a brother and when she was a teenager she decided to try to find him. She contacted her birth mother and was told that Yaroslav had died. She was too late. We don’t know why the mother told her that because we all know that Yarik is very much alive and well with us here on the Homestead. Imagine Vlada’s surprise when she got that text from her boyfriend! Ha!
The discovery about the relationship was made on a Friday afternoon and that very Sunday Vadim and Vlada showed up here on the Homestead. She just couldn’t wait to meet her long lost brother. Over the past month Vlada has visited Yarik here several times. She comes just to be with him, to sit with him, to get to know him. We don’t know if Yaroslav understands what a sister is, but he 100% understands that Vlada is someone special in his life. He asks for her almost every day and cries when she leaves to go home. He showers her with kisses and basks in her attention. He understands that she is there just for him and he adores her. For our Yarik, who’s need for love and attention is like a bottomless pit, Vlada’s presence in his life is a most beautiful, unexpected gift. And for Vlada to know her brother and to have a safe, warm, inviting place to build relationship with him- well, it’s just all around amazing.
Today we will celebrate Yaroslav’s 28th birthday and his sister, Vlada, will be joining us. He will be surrounded by all the people who love him: his big Wide Awake family and his very own sister. God’s love for Yarik and Vlada is just crazy big and we are thankful to be witnesses to it.
BeLOVE[d]
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Like I said in the last post, amidst all the talk of war and surviving Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, it’s been quite some time since I’ve given you a good update on each of our boys. If you would like to see more frequent pictures and hear about what our boys are up to on the regular you can always sign up for our newsletter (form at the end of this post) or follow our team’s Instagram. But today I thought it would be fun just to let you know how each of our guys is doing and how you can pray for each of them, specifically.
You can find the first part of the update where I shared about Vlad, Boris, Ruslan, and Anton here.
Sasha, Yaroslav, and Vova are the newest members of the big Wide Awake Family and you probably feel like you know them the least. Back when the other 4 boys joined our fam I was active on social media and shared a lot about them. I really want you to know these three boys well too! They are so fun, precious, deserving, and wonderful. You would just love them if you met them face to face. I know it. They are impossible not to love. If you have any questions about any of our boys you are always welcome to write me! I love to talk about them to anyone and everyone. 🙂
Sasha joined our family in 2021, is now 16 years old, and lives in Side B of the duplex with Anton, Grant, and Lois the cat.Sasha (aka Sashulya) is the baby of the family (well, Sasha and Evie share that role…hehe). He is the youngest of our boys by a mile and is the cuddliest, most precious, sweetest, and squishiest ever. Everyone who meets him falls in love with his smile. When we were considering taking guardianship of Sasha we felt like the Lord told us that Sasha would bring us joy. That has been the truth. He had the easiest transition to family life and just brings us tons of joy with his singing and his wide smile that lights up his whole face. He thinks he’s smaller than he is and will try to climb you like a tree if he wants to be held. But, in fact, we are pretty certain that Sasha is going to turn out to be a giant. He’s growing like a weed and his huge hands and feet show no signs of that slowing down any time soon. He’s so big and just solid!
Sasha’s development is slow and he often seems to be in his own world. He’ll get fixated on a toy or a water bottle (his item of choice) and he’s a goner. But, some new developments are that he will now often turn his head when his name is called and when food is being cooked he’ll make his way to the kitchen in expectation. Those are big things! It shows that he is becoming more engaged in the world around him. Sasha is very musical and loves to sing. He can even count to 10! Now, he totally doesn’t know what numbers are or that he’s counting, but the team counts to 10 each day during yoga and he is repeating what he hears. He even does it with the same intonation as the team. It’s so cute.
Sasha loves cuddles, eating (I think he’s the neatest eater of our boys), his toys, old Soviet children’s songs, and being with the people who love him. We love Sasha deeply and are so very thankful God has put him in our family.
How you can pray for Sasha: Pray for Sasha to continue to become more engaged in the world around him. Pray for good control, or even healing! of his epilepsy. Pray for our team to have wisdom in how to best reach Sasha and teach him new things.
Yaroslav joined our family this past April, is now 27 years old, and lives in Side A of the duplex with Vova, Lesya, and Carlos the cat. Oh Yaroslav (aka Yarik, Yaroslavchik). Yaroslav gives us a run for our money, just like we always knew he would when we dreamed of getting him out of the institution. He is such a character! I think anyone who has ever visited the Isolation Hall at Romaniv remembers Yarik well. He is just someone that is impossible to miss. He is full of so much life, energy, charisma, and fire- you just can’t help but react to his energy. Sometimes I look at him and I just can’t believe that he is here with us and not at the institution. He was such a presence there!
If you’ll remember, Jed brought him and Vova straight out of the institution and to Germany where they were refugees with us in the church. It was a really miraculous story and I think that’s why it’s sometimes still a little hard to believe it happened. We don’t have official guardianship of Yaroslav and Vova but will start the paperwork process for that this next week. We’ll have a big celebration when they are legally members of our family, but in our hearts, they are already ours.
Yarik has grown and changed a lot since we brought him out of the institution in April. He walks so much better, it’s really incredible. He has good days and bad days, as far as mobility and coordination, but most of the time he is completely independent in his walking. He needs a wheelchair for longer walks, but around the house he is independent. He is learning, slowly but surely, about boundaries and the rules of how to live in a family, but he is sooooo smart. We know he’ll get it. He’s much smarter than we ever realized before. He understands cause and effect, consequences for poor choices, and all sorts of things. He likes “helping” in the kitchen and drinking coffee, but most of all he loves people. Yaroslav longs for love and attention. Like all the rest of our boys, after living a lifetime full of neglect and abuse, his need for love and attention is like a bottomless pit that will never be filled. Sometimes his attention-seeking behaviors can be pretty destructive and tiring to manage, but we know that his journey of healing has only just begun and it won’t always be like it is now. We have hope for his future.
We dreamed of having Yarik in our family for years. I’m so thankful that dream finally came true!
How you can pray for Yaroslav: Yarik has pretty fragile health, so prayers for his health and physical wholeness would be appreciated. We recently did some genetic testing but are still waiting for the results. We want to know how to best care for his physical body and hopefully, we’ll get some answers in that testing. Please pray for Yarik and his brokenness in attachment. He is highly emotional and extremely dysregulated, especially when it comes to relationships. Please pray for him to have peace in his heart and mind, and to better understand the immense love God has for him.
Vova joined our family this past April, is now 27 years old, and lives in Side A of the duplex with Lesya, Yaroslav, and Carlos the cat. I am so so excited to share with you about our Vova (aka Vovka, Vovchik)! Vova is doing absolutely fantastic and his journey of healing over the past 8 months has been nothing short of miraculous. I am just in awe of God’s love for Vova. When Vova was in the institution we heard a rumor that he had Phenylketonuria (PKU), but the diagnosis was not in his paperwork. Once we took him out of the institution and I began to read up on untreated PKU and its symptoms, the more I was convinced that Vova was suffering from that disorder. The wait to get testing and help for PKU in Germany was months long and we ended up returning home before anyone there could help us, but FINALLY, in September we got the official diagnosis. To put it simply, PKU is an inborn error of metabolism that prevents the body from processing an amino acid found in protein. For someone with PKU, protein is toxic to the brain and when left untreated, the person develops a severe intellectual disability. Our Vova’s PKU was untreated for 27 years. 🙁 The only treatment for PKU is a carefully controlled low-protein diet and the introduction of medical food, which provides Vova with a form of protein his body can use. In the US and most other developed countries when a baby is diagnosed with PKU their treatment is overseen by a team of specialists: a doctor, nurse, and dietician. But here in Ukraine, there is a doctor…and me. She basically gave us a couple cans of formula, a list of foods Vova can’t eat, and a wish for good luck. Ha! Let’s just say that my learning curve has been steep. But, over the past 3 months, our team has worked together and we have Vova’s PKU under good control. I do the research and math, write his weekly menu, and go grocery shopping for his special foods. We hired our friend, Inna, and she comes once a week to the duplex to cook for Vova. She has to weigh everything as she cooks and then portions out each meal by weight. Everything goes in the freezer and then the team just consults the menu and pulls out his meals for each day. It’s the only way a team of people could accurately treat his PKU. It’s a lot of work, but it’s going well!
At first, I think the team was a bit skeptical, and I’ll admit, I was too. We knew that some of the effects of untreated PKU are irreversible, but we hoped to see some sort of change after the diet was started, even if it was small. It’s just impossible to know which aspects of Vova’s disability are caused by the untreated PKU and which aspects are caused by him living in Romaniv all those years. The only way to find out was to begin treating the PKU and watch what would happen. I didn’t expect much, but Vova is changing and it is miraculous to watch! He is making so much intentional eye contact. He is happier, more peaceful. A previous doctor told us he had cerebral palsy because he was so spastic, but the geneticist (our PKU doc) thought the spasticity was more related to his untreated PKU. She was right. His muscles are still tight, but nothing like they were before. Untreated PKU has a really horrid smell and the whole house just reeked of it. No more! Vova smells fresh and clean every day. Vova used to yell a lot- kind of like a singing yell, but super loud and once he started you couldn’t get him to stop. He would randomly start yelling in church, in the car, anywhere. Now he barely ever does that and when he begins you can sometimes get him to stop just by talking to him. Another major thing is that he has started to toilet train! He was fully in diapers and had no interest in the toilet before, but now he will go there himself! He needs help, but he shows when he wants the toilet. It’s unbelievable. He is like a different person.
I am so thankful for our doctor here who has come to truly care for Vova and is so helpful to us. There is a wonderful community of Ukrainians with PKU who have donated their extra formula to us to get us by until the government starts to provide it to Vova in the new year. Our team has done a great job of following instructions and being careful with Vova’s diet. It is truly a team effort and we are rocking it. I’m just thrilled and thankful that Vova has this opportunity to truly LIVE. It’s just great.
How you can pray for Vova: Please pray for continued healing of Vova’s brain and body from the years of untreated PKU. Pray for a reversal of the harm it has done to his body. Please pray for Vova to grow in understanding of our love for him and God’s love for him and for him to learn to trust more. Pray that he would not be afraid.
Thank you again, for walking this journey with us. Thank you for loving our boys and caring about their lives. Thank you for supporting this work so that our boys could be free and live lives full of love. We are thankful!
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We’re nearing the end of a doozy of a year and I realized, amidst all the talk of war and peace, I haven’t updated you on our boys in quite some time. This whole work exists because of them and for them, so I figured you might be wondering how they are doing! If you follow our team’s Instagram account or subscribe to our newsletter you have definitely seen pics of our fellows, but really good updates have been few and far between. So, consider this my end-of-year gift to you- part 1. We just have too many boys these days to try to write one big blog post about all of them. That’s a good problem to have! In this post I’ll share about Vlad, Boris, Ruslan, and Anton, and then in the next post, I’ll write about Sasha, Yaroslav, and Vova. Let’s dive in!
Vlad joined our family in 2015, is now 22 years old, and is living in Oregon Vladislav (aka Vlad, Vladik, Vladchik, Vlad the Builder, Vlad the Chicken Man) is doing fantastic! Many of you commented after his latest Youtube appearance that he was like a completely different person and I have to say that you’re not wrong. Vlad has grown and changed in ways we could have never imagined. When we adopted him 7 years ago he was barely verbal and whatever words he did have were barely intelligible. Now he is fluent in Ukrainian and English (and understands Russian) and is understood well by most people, most of the time. Vlad is crazy smart and crazy creative. We are so proud of the man he is becoming.
Vlad currently lives in Oregon with my parents. After our time as refugees in Germany, our Johnson family decided to make a quick visit to Oregon to see family and to do some Wide Awake business. Right before we left Germany to head to Oregon we had the idea to leave Vlad there for some time. Vlad has a lot of issues with his teeth and the structure of his mouth. Those issues have worsened drastically over the years and no one in Ukraine will even touch him. I get it- it’s a bit of a hot mess in there. There is an orthodontist in Oregon who years ago had offered to treat Vlad for free. We were thankful but knew we could never relocate our family to Oregon for the time it would take to treat Vlad’s mouth. But Vlad has grown, matured, and changed so much, we decided that he was ready to be in Oregon for his treatment without us. It kind of felt like a “now or never” moment. We asked my parents if Vlad could live with them, and they said yes! My mom just retired in May, so she has the time now to support Vlad that she wouldn’t have had before. I was able to visit Vlad there in November and he is absolutely thriving with my parents. We could never ever express to them how very thankful we are for their love and support of Vlad. It means the world to us.
In November Vlad began working in landscaping at a local company that employs people with disabilities. He only went to work once, then got sick, then visited us in Ukraine, but he arrives back in Oregon today and next week will get to begin working twice a week. He is loved by his church family and some of our friends back in Oregon. He is just doing great!! Also, his teeth are really changing. It’s exciting to see that progress. Vlad is happy, healthy, and thriving.
How you can pray for Vlad: Pray for peace in Vlad’s heart while he is away from us. He really does worry about us and our safety. He thinks about the war here and I know he feels a lot of emotions about it. Also, please pray that he would find friendship at his new job. I would just love for him to have a friend there.
Boris joined our family in 2017, is now 30 years old, and lives in our home. Boris (aka Bmo, Borya, Borka, Beemchick, Beemchick my Weemchick) has been in our family for 5 years! I can’t even believe that, but it also feels like he’s just always been with us. We love our Bmo. This year has been a rough one for our Mister Man. I mean, who am I kidding, it’s been a rough one for us all. But Bmo has really shown us with his body how stressful, difficult, and confusing 2022 has been for him. Navigating war, living as refugees, and then entering back into life in a country still at war has been challenging for all of our boys. Their understanding of the situation is limited, and for the ones who are nonverbal, it’s even harder because we don’t know how much they do and don’t understand and we don’t know what worries they hold inside of them. When we lived in the church all together in Germany Boris struggled soooo much. Who knows? Maybe he thought that was our new permanent home. Maybe he thought “Well, I guess this is what our life is now…” He was very vocal about his frustration with life there and he regressed in many of his skills and abilities. It was really heartbreaking to see, and actually, his regression ultimately helped us make the decision to return home to Ukraine. His suffering was painful to watch and there was nothing we could do to make it better for him. So hard. Transitioning back to life here in Ukraine has been good for our Bmo, but it has not been easy. It’s not like we got back home, the switch was flipped, and he was suddenly back to his old self. If only. No, it has been a hard road of recovery, but bit by bit he is getting back to where he was before the war began. We’re still in a war zone though, so some of our struggles will remain until the war ends and we can truly begin to feel safe and secure again…whatever that may look like. It’s honestly hard to imagine feeling truly safe again, but even still, we pray for God to comfort Bmo and bring him peace in his heart. He has made great strides since we returned home in July. We just keep loving him and helping him to feel secure in his place in our home and family. Boris is a gift to our family and I truly can’t imagine our lives without him.
How you can pray for Boris: Please pray for Boris to have peace and calm in his heart and mind. He is sooooo stressed much of the time. He even shakes because of the tension in his body. He isn’t harming himself, but he is very obviously not at peace.
Ruslan joined our family in 2018, is now 35 years old, and lives in an apartment with our team member, Luda. I would say that out of all of our boys Ruslan (aka Rus, Ruslanchik) has grown and changed the most over this past year. It’s absolutely incredible to see how much he has matured! Rus really doesn’t like change, especially when it is unexpected. He is a big fan of routine and knowing what comes next. So, as you can imagine, we were quite concerned about how Ruslan would do when we evacuated to Germany. I am amazed to say that Ruslan did amazingly well in Germany, and he even thrived there. If you would have told me a year ago that Rus would sleep in a room with 7 other people and do just fine I would have laughed in your face. But he did! He slept with 7 other people in one room. He lived with 39 other people in the church and was mostly happy. It was truly miraculous. One massive saving grace was that in Germany Ruslan was able to work. A place that employs people with disabilities took Rus and Vlad under their wing and the two of them were able to go to work 5 days a week. I think if Ruslan hadn’t had the stability of the work he would have really struggled in Germany. It was such a loving, positive environment and Ruslan really thrived there. We are so thankful for that experience.
After we returned home to Ukraine Ruslan began working at the electrical shop where Vlad used to work before the war. Our friend, Dima, really believes in the value of our guys and dreams of providing more work for people like our boys. His team likes having Rus there and Ruslan feels so proud to have occupation. He is slowly learning how to do different tasks and Dima even makes up work for Rus, just so he feels that he is helpful and needed there. It’s really great. Ruslan works at Dima’s shop Monday through Thursday for a little over 2 hours a day. We are super thankful to Dima for loving Rus and providing him with the possibility to work.
Ruslan is fun-loving, and caring, and really loves to pray and go to church. We love him so very much!
How you can pray for Ruslan: Pray for Ruslan to continue to grow in wisdom and to truly know that he is loved.
Anton joined our family in 2018, is now 34 years old,and lives in Side B of the duplex with Grant, Sasha, and Lois the cat. Our precious Anton (aka Antoshka, Antoha, Antonchik) has gained so many words over this past year! When we first took Anton from the institution he could say one word, the Ukrainian word for “God”. If you asked him who loved him he would answer “God”. Over the years he has learned to mimic a lot of words that people say and sometimes repeat after them, but this year he has begun to say a lot of words independently! It’s really great when he can express his wants and desires and we can only hope that his verbal skills will keep growing because I think better communication is key to helping Anton when his emotions are too big to handle. He is a high-emotion dude and in the past, any negative emotion would be expressed in anger. He is now able to sometimes express sadness too, which is a big step!
Germany was pretty rough on our Antoshka. Our living situation was basically like a mini institution and he absolutely did not thrive in that environment. It was no surprise to us that he struggled. Actually, I’m pretty amazed he held it together as long as he did! I didn’t really talk about it publicly, but in May we ended up sending Anton from Germany back to Ukraine to live with our team members that had remained here at the Homestead. Anton was struggling so hard and his aggression was growing and growing. He basically became a 1:1 and since there were so many vulnerable people living all together and no way to isolate him, there was just no way for us to keep people safe. It was actually a really tragic and impossible decision. We felt we had no option. We had to remove him from the church, but there was nowhere for him to go but home. Oleg and Maxim, two of our team members, were living here at the Homestead so Grant drove Anton to the border of Ukraine where Oleg met them and took Anton home. Although we felt we had no other alternative, it ended up being the best decision ever for Anton. We knew our guys could keep him safe and if things were to go bad here they could easily put him in the car and drive to Western Ukraine. We didn’t worry about his physical safety, but we definitely worried about his emotional state and how he would feel, being separated from all of us. His understanding is really limited, so we knew he would be super confused and sad. But, Oleg and Maxim did a great job with him and actually, once Anton was back here we knew it was just a matter of time before everyone else joined him. We are his guardians. We knew we couldn’t stay a couple of countries away from him for long. He just gave us the kickstart we needed. 🙂
Since returning home Anton has done fairly well. He has his good seasons and hard seasons, but overall I would say he has had more good times than bad times. He is surrounded by people who love him dearly and he knows it. He is happy, healthy, and growing and he is very precious to us.
How you can pray for Anton: Please pray for Anton to learn to care for others. Pray for him to learn to express his emotions without aggression toward others.
Thank you for loving our boys! I know much of the growth they have experienced is because of the faithful prayers of the people who love them. They are all on journeys of healing and we are so honored to walk beside them and to be their family. Thank you for helping to make their freedom possible.
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This was originally shared in our newsletter (last Friday), but I wanted to make sure everyone got the news. If you aren’t signed up for our newsletter you should be! Sign up below 😊
So, last week I told you all a bit more about Zhanna and Vanya and about how much they have come to mean to our family and team. Well, you didn’t know it, but I was prepping you for this week’s news: Zhanna and Vanya will soon be moving into the duplex!! Ohhhhhh yeah, you read it right. They are officially becoming a part of our team and family here on the Homestead and we are so thankful and excited.
Years ago, before we even had land in our village, before we adopted Vlad or had guardianship of any of our boys, we would sit and imagine how the dream God had given us would play out. We wondered who would come to help us, who would want to live with the boys, and Jed had an idea. He thought about how amazing it would be if parents who already had their own children with disabilities would want to come live with our boys in community. That way, our boys would have loving people in their lives who already see the value in every life, and our team could help support the parents as they raise their children into adulthood. We thought it could be a win-win for everyone.
When we met Zhanna last spring it was obvious from the start that she shared our same heart. We clicked right from the beginning. Back in the fall I shared our dream of parents like her living with our boys and offhand mentioned “Hey! Wanna come live with Anton and Sasha?” We laughed about it and moved on. Then on Chrismas day, when we were having a quiet day with the boys, Zhanna and Vanya were with us and she brought up that conversation. She asked me if I really meant what I said about parents like her living with our boys. I told her I definitely meant it! Parents like her already “get” our life. It is not a big adjustment to live with our boys, because she has already adjusted her entire life for Vanya. She is committed to him for life- she’s not going anywhere. Zhanna told me she was seriously considering it, and we started to discuss details. Then on New Years Eve, she came to me and told me “I want to live here with the boys. I feel in my heart that it is the right thing for us.” ❤️ We met later to talk details, and the decision was made. Our family just grew.
Next week Zhanna and Vanya will begin to spend their days at the duplex, and then sleep at home at night. We will all take our cues from the boys and over the next couple of months they will slowly transition to living full-time with Anton and Sasha. At the end of February Grant will join them. 💪 It will require each and every one of us to grow and change, but we are all ready. One of our values is to be a welcoming community- and we are ready to live that value out. Zhanna and Vanya will no longer be alone, and we will have more of the help we desperately need so that we can bring more boys out of Romaniv and into family life.
I really can’t thank you enough for praying. God was working on Zhanna’s heart for months and we had no idea. Anton and Sasha are in the perfect spaces, emotionally, to be able to accept new people into their home. It is just right.
God is so good to us and our boys. He doesn’t miss a detail.
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Back in May we had our first “Open Doors Day” for Dim Hidnosti, the Ukrainian arm of Wide Awake. Open Doors Day is a time for our organization to open wide our doors and invite people from the community to come see and learn about our work. Many of our volunteers have joined us after coming to an Open Door Day. We’ve had 3 so far, and each has been a success. I think it’s time to do another!
So back in May, we planned and prepared, anticipating our first time of opening up our doors. We had no idea who would come and if it would be worth all the time and effort. I remember the day of, it was a beautiful day- so sunny and warm- until it wasn’t. Just as people started arriving the floodgates opened and it began to pour down rain. We had planned to gather outside, so everyone was running around like crazy, bringing everything inside and adjusting plans last minute. We had a great turnout; the house was jam packed. It was not ideal to be crammed inside, but we were all just happy that so many people came.
That day turned out to be a super significant day, although we didn’t know it at the time! That was the day we met our dear friends who we now call family, Zhanna and Vanya. Zhanna is mom to Vanya and a psychologist. She has worked tirelessly in our city for the rights of people with autism. She has counseled moms who have a newly diagnosed child and worked with the high-ups in the city toward inclusion and support for families who have a child with autism. And all the while Zhanna has single-parented her son Vanya, who is 15 and has autism. I’m not sure how Zhanna found out about the Open Doors Day, but she came, and it turned out to be a life-changing day for all of us.
Zhanna and Vanya started coming to just about every single gathering and event that our team provided. They were present at every art class, every party, every outing. It was just a natural fit from the very start. We love them and they love us. It feels like we have always been together. Zhanna and Vanya spent Christmas and New Years with us, and yesterday we all celebrated Vanya’s 16th birthday together. It was really special. Vanya understood that it was a special day and he was so happy!
Yesterday at Vanya’s birthday Zhanna told us it was the first time she really felt like she and Vanya were accepted in a family just as they are. They are not expected to be something they are not, or something they can’t be. They are loved just because they are Zhanna and Vanya, and they are precious to us. They have become a part of our big Wide Awake Family.
When our family moved to Ukraine and left our biological families behind we began to redefine “family” in our hearts. We had no choice but to open our hearts to the possibility of finding family in Ukraine, or else be alone. Then, of course, we added our boys to our family and redefined “family” once again. When someone asks me how many children I have I always stumble on my answer. “Well, I have 6 Johnson kids, but then 4 more who call me ‘Mama’, but a couple of them are in their 30’s and they don’t actually live in our home…”
Nope. No. No more. I decided I’m done with that. I’m done with the stumbling and mumbling and explaining. If I am “Mama” to our boys, then they are my sons. In my heart they are my sons, and in their hearts I am Mama, so why do I need to stumble over my words? Jed and I are committed to them for life, and we have ultimate responsibility for their health and well-being, soul, mind, and body. They are our family. I am a mother of 10. 😆
We still dream that in the duplex there would be house parents (a mother and a father figure), but we also have learned over the past couple of years that the nuclear family is not the only type of family that can be amazing. Friends who are committed to each other through the good times and the bad can also create a wonderful family. When Max and Morgan moved back to the US we worried that Anton and Sasha would feel that loss of house parents and that it would affect them negatively, but we have learned an amazing truth over the past 4 months: our team is Anton and Sasha’s family. Yes, they have our Johnson family always and forever, but that’s not where their family ends. They have our entire team who is committed to them and loves them: Lesya, Masha, another Masha, Tanya, Tonya, Luda, Nina, Oleg, Maxim, Ruslan, and MIra. No matter who is sleeping at the duplex with them each night, they have been just fine, because it’s always someone from their family there with them, and they know they are safe and loved.
Last week Jed and I met with Zhanna and we were talking about our future together with her and Vanya. We discussed our commitment to them as a part of our family, how in our hearts “family” is not reserved just for those who live in our home or who share our blood. We have team members who have basically no biological family and we are family to each other. Zhanna and Vanya have been very much alone and there is no reason they should stay that way: we can be family for each other. ❤️
Family is a place to know and be known.
Family is a place to forgive and be forgiven.
Family is a place to serve and be served.
Family is a place to love and BeLOVE[d].
I thank God for the beautiful family he has given us, both here and in the US. We are blessed to be loved by many people, and to be able to open our hearts to others who have been alone for so long.
Do you know of anyone who is need of family? Maybe your next YES is opening your heart to someone who is lonely. ❤️ Why not give it a try?
BeLOVE[d]
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