Going | Wide Awake Family

The New Digs

Posted on July 10, 2013 by kimnjed

We have some pretty fantastic news to share!

We know where we get to live in Zhitomir!!!!! THIS IS HUGE!!!!

When we were in Zhitomir in May we stayed in a house that we talked about in this post. Let me jog your memory. We stayed in a house that is owned by a Ukrainian who lives in Israel. The house was renovated to be used as a small guest-house, or hostel for people who are coming to serve Mission to Ukraine (MTU), like mission teams, and people like us! The house has 4 bedrooms and is literally like a 4 minute walk away from MTU. People can rent the house out by the night, or just rent a room. We loved staying there, and while we were house-hunting my smarty pants Mother-in-Law suggested we ask if we could rent that house for a year while we’re living in Zhitomir. Duh! Great idea! So, we asked Ira, the director of MTU if she would talk with the owner about us renting. Ira, being the wise one that she is, was already a step ahead of us. She had a feeling we would like the house so she had already contacted the owner. 🙂 Well, we found out just a few days ago that the owner said yes! Thank you Jesus!!! AND, he’s renting it to us for well within our budget. THANK YOU JESUS! God is so good to us.

It would have been so super smart of me to take pictures of the house while we were there, you know, in case the owner said yes…but of course I didn’t. We thought it was such a slim chance we would be living there- kind of like a pipe dream, I guess I just didn’t think of it. Lame. Oh me of little faith, right? So instead I guess I’ll try to describe it to you.

The house isn’t it’s own free-standing structure, it’s kind of connected/a part of a big building that I *think* is other houses. You walk around the back of the building, along a pathway of 2×4’s covering rubble, and our entrance is there in the back. There’s an un-used shed back there…hmmm, not sure if that comes with the house or not.

Downstairs:
When you walk in it’s a pretty nice open space. To the right is a dining room table and the kitchen. The kitchen is one counter with sink, a little counter space, stove, and fridge. What I love is that the kitchen is open to the dining area and entryway! Most of the other kitchens I saw were a small separate room. Having the kitchen in an open space will help us tremendously with homeschooling, and with just the fact that we have 4 kids. 🙂 To the left of the entrance is a bathroom with a tub, shower, and clothes washing machine (ooooooh so teeny tiny! Haha!). Right next to the bathroom is a bedroom. The house has no living room, so we’ll turn that bedroom into a living room. And then directly in front of you when you enter the house is the staircase leading upstairs.

Upstairs:
Upstairs is so great! You walk up the stairs to an open hallway. There are 2 bedrooms to the right and then on the left is a bigger bedroom with a shower in it. Also on the left is a small bathroom with just a toilet. Straight at the end of the hallway is an enclosed balcony where we will hang our laundry to dry. We’re thinking our kids will all share a room, like they do now, and we’ll use that third bedroom upstairs as a guest room (hint hint)/Wide Awake International office space.

Quirky things of note:
-The kitchen cupboards are made of bright purple metal. Yesssssssss
-The stairs in the house are hazardous. We’re taking bets now on who’s going to be the first Johnson to take a tumble down the ol’ stairs. They’re like just a little too short for your feet, so you have to turn your feet sideways to walk down them. They’re also slippery, shiny wood. This should be interesting…
-There is a drying rack for the dishes in a cupboard right above the sink. So smart, right?
-There are no closets in the bedrooms. There are wardrobe thingies. Addy is pretty excited about having a wardrobe. Can you guess what book she’s been reading?

Amazing things of note:
-It’s a hop, skip, and a jump from MTU.
-It’s like a 10-15 minute walk to the city center of Zhitomir where there are fun things to see, nice places to walk, and easy access to bus lines.
-It’s ground level; as in, it’s not a flat 9-stories up. YAY!
-It’s clean.
-It’s furnished! We were anticipating having to buy everything needed for a home when we arrived in Ukraine. Now we can slowly accumulate the things we’ll need for a future place over time. The kitchen is stocked with the necessities for cooking, there are beds, linens, towels. All we’ll need to buy at the beginning is the fixin’s to make the downstairs bedroom into a living room. Easy peasy.

What a huge answer to prayer. This is just another way that God is laying out the path before us. What a blessing that I can picture where we’ll be living. We can describe it to our kids. We won’t have to take a bus to MTU. I could go on and on. We are just so extremely thankful to the Lord. He is too stinkin’ good!!!

We Need Your Stuff!

Posted on July 1, 2013 by kimnjed

Summertime is in full swing around here!

You know what that means…

Swimming lessons

Swimming lessons!

Popsicles

Late nights

Ice cream

What happens when you have 4 kids…baby boy gets pink goggles…whatev…

Saturday Market

Church barbecues

Squishy Havalah in swimsuit cuteness

My iced coffee fail…more like coffee flavored ice water. No bueno.

and last but not least…

GARAGE SALES!!!

Oh yeah baby! One man’s junk is another man’s treasure, and all that good stuff.

Want to help support Wide Awake International but you don’t have any extra cash? How about having a garage sale for us? We all have extra stuff laying around that someone else is just dying to buy, right?

We are asking you to consider putting on a garage sale for Wide Awake International. Don’t have enough stuff to hold your own garage sale? Gather a few of your friends, combine your unwanted goods, stick it out in your yard, and watch the magic happen. Doesn’t that sound fun? We think so. Especially if one of your friends brings the coffee and doughnuts. 😉

If you are local to us and you have goods you’d like to donate, but are not able to host your own sale, please let us know and we can gladly take them off your hands. We’ll be hosting a garage sale on July 27th, and there will be one in South Salem on August 3rd.

Garage sales are a great way to spread the word about Wide Awake International, and a super great way to get your hands dirty no matter where you live.

So, what do you say? Are you in?

*See the “give” tab at the top of this blog to find out how to donate the proceeds of your garage sale to Wide Awake. Thank you for your tax-deductible donations and your love. We’re feelin’ it! 🙂

Zhitomir Scoop

Posted on June 20, 2013 by kimnjed

What exactly will we be doing in Zhitomir? Why Zhitomir? Have you been wondering?

Well, if you’ve been wondering, you aren’t the only one. People have been asking, so I thought we better set the record straight. 🙂

I’m not sure we’ve done a super good job of explaining what exactly our purpose is for moving to Zhitomir, specifically, and what we plan to do once we’re there. I’m so sorry about that! I feel like I’m constantly talking about it all with someone, so pretty soon I forget who knows what, and what I’ve blogged about vs. what I’ve emailed about vs. what I’ve texted about vs. what I’ve chatted about over coffee dates vs. what we’ve shared at church leadership meetings. Yes, we talk a lot. 🙂

So, here is the full Zhitomir scoop, in all of it’s glory!

Why are we moving to Zhitomir?

We are moving to Zhitomir because God led us there. Last April (2012) when Jed and I visited all over Ukraine checking out what different people were doing for disabled orphans we decided to check out Mission to Ukraine (MTU), and MTU is in Zhitomir. We were totally amazed and touched by the work done at and through MTU.

So, when we got home and prayed about where we should land when we first move to Ukraine, our hearts kept going back to MTU. They are the only ones we know about in Ukraine who do what they do, and we want to be a part of it. We have a lot to offer them, professionally, but more than that, they have so much they can teach us. We asked MTU if we could spend our first year in Ukraine volunteering for them, and after many months of communication they said yes! So, to Zhitomir we go!

Seth got into my flour bins, so we added some beans and made it a low budget “sensory experience”. Ha!

How long will we be in Zhitomir?

We don’t know the answer to that one. We committed one year to MTU, so we know we’ll be there for at least a year. This first year is really going to be such a time of learning. We don’t know what The Lord has for us after the first year. Maybe He’ll keep us around at MTU for longer, maybe doors will open in another place, we just take one step at a time and say yes. We’re really okay with that. The dreams He’s given us for the group homes are still completely alive in our hearts. We don’t know how God will take us from Point A (MTU in Zhitomir) to Point Z (medical group homes), but we don’t need to know that yet. Step by step…breathe in, breathe out. Whew! We are blessed this first year to have a “landing place” at MTU where right away we can be actively involved in the type of orphan care we love and have a passion for, but we don’t have to come up with something all our own, starting at square one. We can join what the Father is already doing and bless that. Super cool.
Note to self: I will know what I need to know, when I need to know it. Chill out.

What is Mission to Ukraine? What do they do?

Awesome, and a lot.

How’s that for an answer?

Kidding! You know I can’t just leave it at that! Remember, I like to talk too much. 🙂

MTU is a Ukrainian non-profit. It was started by an American missionary years ago, but now all the daily operations are run by Ukrainians. They have an American Board of Directors in Indiana that support-raises, resource-gathers, and provides guidance as needed, but MTU is a Ukrainian organization at heart. We will be the only foreigners working at MTU in Zhitomir.

MTU has a center in Zhitomir, but they minister all over the city. They have 3 main focuses: Crisis Pregnancy Counseling and Support, support of children with disabilities and their families, and the work at Romaniv Boys Orphanage.

Our primary interests lie in the work done with the disabled children, and the work at Romaniv. At the center children are given free physical therapy and speech therapy. There is a specialist who has started doing some work with autistic children, and MTU is in the process of developing Occupational Therapy, which doesn’t exist as a profession in Ukraine at this time. They have a wonderful pediatrician who is on staff full time and provides free care to children, as well as an ophthalmologist and dentist who volunteer time a couple of days a week when they aren’t at their own practices. All the therapists and other medical professionals are Ukrainian too! There are various classes held throughout the day for disabled children and adults of all ages. In their classes they get to learn about Jesus, do crafts and artwork, beading, learn different life skills, and build friendships in a place where they are fully accepted, just as they are. It is BEAUTIFUL. Every day several different special needs preschool classes are taught as well. All I have to say about that is CUTENESS OVERLOAD. When I got to assist with the preschool class for kiddos with Down Syndrome I thought I was going to freak out due to the extreme cuteness. It was almost too much to handle. OMG. While the kids are in class or therapy, there are Bible studies and support groups for the parents. Genius.

You’ve heard us talk about Romaniv. Love, love, love that place and those boys. MTU staff have visited Romaniv once a week for 5 years now. The transformation has been miraculous. There is still a lot of work to be done, specifically with the more severely disabled boys. Their lives haven’t changed nearly as much as the verbal boys and the ones who are more physically capable. We really desire to help in that area. We would love to be able to do what we can to bring about more change and help for the boys in “isolation”, as they call it. Those are the boys we would love to target while working with MTU, so we’ll see what God has in store!

There is so much more that is done at MTU: summer camps for disabled children and their families, summer camps at Romaniv, a social integration project, abstinence education…and on and on….cool, right?

“Look Mommy! I make Splash Mountain!! I put my arms up!”

What will we do at MTU?

We’ll do whatever they want us to do! We’ve said it before on here, and we really mean it. We want to be a blessing and we don’t want to push our own agenda. Right now it seems that they have a big need for Jed’s professional skills. Jed has a lot of experience in non-profit program management, building new programs, building a volunteer base, teaching caregivers to care for themselves, teaching people in the helps field learn to process what they see and work with…Jed’s job here in Salem has basically groomed him for helping at MTU. We couldn’t have planned it better if we tried. God is so smart! Jed is nearly bursting with ideas for MTU and already has plenty of work to keep him busy there for quite some time.

It seems right now that the best use of our family will be having Jed be the primary help at MTU. Of course I will help too, but Jed will invest the most hours. My main job this first year will be helping our family acclimate to living in Ukraine. I will home school the kids- like I do now, learn to grocery shop and run a house in Ukraine, and support Jed. I will most likely find out what special needs classes they need the most help with and assist every week in at least one class. I’m excited to have Addy and Ez help me with that! The woman who supports the moms asked me to help her as well. Yay! My biggest love at MTU is Romaniv. I hope to go to Romaniv every week and do whatever I can to support, help build, and expand the work being done there. I am SUPER excited for that!!

Wow, this is getting long. I better stop now. 🙂 I hope this helps fill in some of the info gaps. If you have any questions at all after reading this, please ask away! We really want to be clear and lay things out as plain as possible, so if I’m assuming you know or understand some things and you don’t, just let me know and we can explain better.

The aftermath. You either laugh or cry at the mess. We definitely decided to laugh.

I better go to sleep now. But, just so you know, I typed this post using my healed up blender finger! Aren’t you proud? Things are lookin’ up for the old finger! Yessssssssss.

*Random pics due to the fact that
#1 We’ve already posted all our cool Zhitomir pics and have none left
#2 Seth is too cute to resist. How could I deny you the cuteness??

Our Baby

Posted on June 16, 2013 by kimnjed

Our hearts are full to bursting!

My view from here

Our Wide Awake event happened on Friday night and I’m not sure I’ve stopped smiling since.

Jed and I were talking afterward about how we felt. The best way I could think to describe my feelings was like one of the feelings you get when you have your first baby. Of course when Addy was born I thought she was the cutest newborn ever (don’t even try to argue with me, I’ll win). But there was a special feeling that filled my heart when other peopled oooo’d and ahhhh’d over her. I would think she was cute regardless of other opinions, but when other people loved my baby it felt like a different kind of amazing. “They love my baby! They think she’s something special!”

That’s totally how Friday night felt for us, x 100.

Wide Awake is like our baby. Wide Awake represents all the forgotten babies on the other side of the world who have captured our hearts. Of course we think Wide Awake is something special (we better or else we have no business selling all our stuff and moving to Ukraine!), of course we think the plight of the disabled orphans is something big and important, of course we think those faces in our video and our powerpoint are beautiful and valuable, regardless of what others may think. God put that love in our hearts! It all comes from Him.

Perty yard

BUT, on Friday night people oooo’d and ahhhh’d over our babies. People were loving our babies and it felt amazing. “They love our baby! They think it’s something special!” 🙂

When you see people valuing what you value it brings hope.

When you see people sharing your event with all their friends and asking thoughtful questions you feel thankful.

When you see people driving 3 hours because they love you and they are excited about what God is doing it makes you cry.

We had a fantastic turnout on Friday and we could not be more humbled and thankful.

Thank you a million times over to every single person who came!

Thank you to those who invited a friend!

Thank you to those of you who gave generously of your time to drive over mountains to get there.

Thank you to those who gave generous donations! Blown away. Woohooooooo!

God is so faithful. His love NEVER fails.


Happy Father’s Day to Jed! He is seriously amazing. Yes, I’m biased, and yes, I’m right.

Pass the Tissues…

Posted on May 14, 2013 by kimnjed

So last night I laid in bed awake till almost 1:00am with a brain that wouldn’t shut off. What was I thinking about, you ask?

-What will we do tomorrow?

-I have to take advantage of every moment. What if none of my contact hopes works out for tomorrow? Will it be a “wasted” day?

-Is Mission to Ukraine (MTU) expecting me to come in tomorrow? Hmmm…I better check in with them first thing.

-There sure are a lot dogs barking. Kinda makes me feel like I’m in Kosovo. 🙂

-I hope Jed gets to Zhitomir okay on Thursday. He won’t have a phone…how will I know when to meet him at the city center?

-How will I fit all my kids on the tiny marshrutkas they have here in Zhitomir?

-I kind of wish I had ice cream right now.

-How will my kids make friends here?

-Will we be lonely?

-What will we do tomorrow????? Surely God has a plan, right?

Yeah, my mind was spinning and I was kind of worrying…about everything. People tell me all the time that they could never do what we are doing, or getting ready to do. How do we do it? How are we so brave? Hahahahaha! Now you see. 🙂 We are nothing special. Sometimes we look like deer in headlights. We cry (well, not so much “we”, more “me”). We fret. We keep ourselves awake worrying about things we can’t do anything about. But, in the end we just put one foot in front of the other and praise God He’s not afraid to use cracked, imperfect vessels like you and me to be His hands and feet.

It kind of reminds me of our time fostering. People would always say they could never foster; that it would be too hard to let the babies go after you start to get attached. Let me tell ya, it was too hard. It was impossibly hard. But, God called us to it and He gave us grace for what He called us to. It doesn’t mean it didn’t hurt like crazy. It doesn’t mean we didn’t ever cry ourselves to sleep at night because of the heartache. It just means that when He calls you HE gives you every single thing you need to accomplish His purposes. And because of that I would do it all over again in a second.

This is scary. This is wonderful. This is exciting. But trust me; we are not anything special. Talk to our close friends and family. Pass the tissues, ’cause we all got issues. We worry about all the same things you would worry about if you were in our shoes, but we know He will give us every single thing we need to accomplish His purposes. We just need reminders of that every 5 minutes or so.

That truth is not only for us! I don’t know who all is reading this, but I know that God wants to remind someone about this truth today.

He is enough. He will make the way. He will smooth the path. His word does what it sets out to accomplish. He doesn’t expect you to be super strong or super brave or even a little bit perfect. He asks you to be willing, and the rest is up to Him.

Step out! Act on the dreams God has planted in your heart. Tell Him you are willing and watch what He does. Don’t let fear hold you back. Love fully. Live fully. Trust. (I’m preaching to myself today too!)

Isaiah 55:10-13 rocks my world:

“For your thoughts are not my thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares The Lord.

As the heavens are higher than then the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.

As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish, so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater, so is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.”

Oh, but it gets better. Listen to what happens when we trust! This is the best:

“You will go out in joy and be led out in peace; the mountains and hills will burst into song before you and all the trees of the fields will clap their hands.

Instead of the thornbush will grow the pine tree (Ha!!! Yesssss!) and instead of briers the myrtle will grow.

This will be for the Lord’s renown, for an everlasting sign, which will not be destroyed,”

It is my joy; it is your joy to partner with The Lord in His work.
Trees clapping, hills singing…bring it.