Orphan Care | Wide Awake Family

A Love Story, Part 3

Posted on September 4, 2015 by kimnjed

This is Part 3 in our adoption story. You can read Part One here and Part Two here!

After camp Jed and I both began to see Vladik differently. Our hearts toward him were changing, but it wasn’t something we talked about with each other. We both just knew in our hearts we had a special love for him. Honestly, every person who serves at Romaniv has their “favorite”. Ha! You know, that one boy that you just connect with in a special way. My “favorite” changes from week to week. 😉

Separately, Jed and I both began to think more and more about Vladik. Our love for him grew and grew. Separately, we started to wonder if God had something more for us and Vladik together. We didn’t know even what that would mean. We didn’t know how old Vladik was (it’s impossible to guess the ages of the boys at Romaniv), if he was even available for adoption (only 9 boys out of 86 at Romaniv can be adopted), or what God had in mind. Then, over time we both, separately (great communication skills, eh?), began to feel like God was maybe asking us to consider adoption. Holy smokes. Scary thought. It’s one thing to love Vladik at Romaniv and camp. It’s a whole other thing to love him in our home, as our son, for the rest of his life.

In October Jed and I began to talk about Vladik together. We both shared with the other our musings about adoption and laughed about how crazy it sounded to bring pursue adopting one of our boys while continuing to live in Ukraine. Was it even possible? I mean, all of our boys have so many needs, could we raise Vladik here and continue to be effective in the work God has called us to? Was Vladik even adoptable? What about our other kiddos? Were there any safety concerns for them? Would a family need to live in America to be able to adequately care for Vladik’s medical needs? How could we afford an international adoption while living on raised support? Would it be possible to do an American adoption from Ukraine while living in Ukraine? So much to pray about and consider. We decided to keep those thoughts to ourselves for the time being and just wait on the Lord. We knew that if He wanted Vladik to join our family He would speak to us.

The very next morning, after we had first talked about our love for Vladik we got an email from a dear friend in Switzerland. She told us that she had had a dream about us and felt like she was supposed to share, even if it sounded strange to us. She dreamed that she was coming to visit us in Ukraine and we were so excited because we were adopting two boys from Romaniv! In the end we ended up adopting one boy, but then before we could get back to adopt the other one he passed away. 🙁

Of course we didn’t know what the whole dream meant, but wow. What an encouragement from the Lord that he would speak to us through our friend about adoption when we had told NO ONE our hearts! Shortly after that we found out from the assistant director of the institution that Vladik was one of the few boys available for adoption! Oh my.

Then came November, a really dark time for us. We began to learn more about what makes Romaniv the way it is. Jed always says “Romaniv didn’t get the way it is from everybody doing their best job.” Ain’t that the truth. The plain and simple truth is that the enemy has kept that place in darkness for far too long, and he doesn’t plan to give it up easily. This work we do is absolutely our dream come true. We couldn’t imagine doing anything else, yet this work comes with plenty of pain and heartache. All is not lollipops and roses. We try to be very positive about what we share on social media about the Boys and our work. It’s not like we’re dishonest or anything, it’s just very important to us that we always maintain the boys’ dignity, and to remember hope when we share. Our boys have had everything stolen from them. We will not go in and steal their dignity as well. Honestly though, the more and more time we spend at Romaniv, the more and more layers of ugliness we uncover. That’s just bound to happen. In that regard, November was just plain rough on our spirits. It was not pretty. We couldn’t manage to think of much except putting one foot in front of the other. The weight of injustice became almost too much to bear. Adoption dreams were on the backburner.

Then two of our boys that we love VERY much were sent to a hospital several hours away and were lost to us. The Director said they would be gone for at least a year, and “maybe forever”. It felt like a death. We just arrived one day and they were gone. Oh the tears. We were devastated because we knew those boys would not understand what was happening. Would they be scared? Would they be treated well? Then we remembered our friend’s dream. One of the boys that was sent away, Valera, was Vladik’s only real “peer” in the Isolation Hall. He was the one other boy that would try to play a little, and the two of them were attached at the hip. One of our big issues with adopting Vladik was knowing we could never take him away and leave Valera behind, but Valera was too old to be adopted. When we first started talking about adopting we had discussed trying to get guardianship of Valera and were really thinking we could find a way to take him home too, and then he was gone. Just like the dream. So, so sad. Maybe this adoption idea was too much for our hearts to take on.

Sweet Valera

December came and we prepared to make a couple Christmas videos for Wide Awake, to introduce people to two of our boys. Jed decided to feature Boris in his video because they have a really special connection. I couldn’t decide who to feature in mine! After lots of indecision I decided to feature Vladik in my video because my deepest connection was with him, and I hoped maybe his family would discover him by watching the video. Jed and I had basically stopped talking about adopting him ourselves, so if he couldn’t be ours I made it my mission to find him a family of his own.

Thousands of people saw the videos of Boris and Vladik. 🙂 Only a few days passed and a family wrote an email inquiring about adopting him! My heart leaped and sank at the same time when I read their email. Is that even possible? It sure felt like it. We wanted a family for him so badly, but oh man, I had so hoped it would be us. Whenever our kids would watch the video of Vladik (which they were slightly obsessed with) Havalah would say “But Mommy, we don’t really want him to be adopted right? Because then we would never get to see him anymore!” She said it every.single.time. Anyway, I got over myself 😉 and was truly excited to get that inquiry about Vladik, but then we found out that the interested parents were too young to adopt Vladik. They were only 12 years older than him, and by Ukrainian law adoptive parents have to be at least 15 years older than the child they are adopting. Back to the drawing board, loving our boy more than ever after seeing how many people responded to his preciousness in the video.

Then one morning in January Jed woke up early and felt like God spoke to him super clearly, “So, when are you gonna finally move forward with adopting Vladik?” Uuuuuuh now, I guess???? Ha! Jed came and told me he felt like we were supposed to go for it, and that was that. I mean, we loved him, he needed a family, it was really a no-brainer. All of our reasons for saying no seemed absolutely fearful and selfish and lame. Our baby was right in front of our faces and he needed his mommy and daddy. We sought wisdom from our parents, our pastor, and a few friends, and they were all completely supportive and completely not surprised. 🙂 In mid-January we began working on documents, and on August 31st Vladik became our son.

It might have taken 15 years, but Vladik is finally found. We pray and believe that God will use Vladik to be a voice for those who are yet to be rescued. We pray and believe that God will use our family, and our adoption story to show Ukrainian people the value of our Boys. It’s awesome, God has spoken to us, and to many others that Vladik is going to bring our family so much joy. We know that of course there are bound to be some rough moments ahead, but we just keep getting the word “JOY”. As Jed and I drove away from court after the judge declared Vladik was our son we had tears streaming down our faces: “How is it that God saved Vladik for us? How did we get to be the lucky ones?”

He is so valuable. He is so beautiful. He is our baby and we are the happiest, most blessed family in the world.

A Love Story, Part 2

Posted on September 3, 2015 by kimnjed

This is the second part in a series about our adoption story. You can read Part One here.

After God turned our hearts to Ukraine, and orphans with special needs there, we knew we had to go check it out for ourselves. I remember the first time we visited Romaniv in 2012. We saw Vladik there and our hearts were touched because we saw that he had Apert Syndrome like Jonah, the boy we had loved. I even wrote a bit about him here. Then, as you know, we ended up moving to Ukraine in November of 2013. YAY!

After our move we began to visit Romaniv every week with MTU (Mission to Ukraine) and grew to love all the boys. The boys in the Isolation Hall were our main focus and every week our love for them deepened as we came to know them more.

We loved Vladik very much, but honestly, not any differently than any of the other boys. I guess he held a special place in our hearts because of Jonah, but we weren’t considering adoption at all. I promise! Ha! We had ended up adopting our Seth before we moved and felt that someday we would adopt again, and most likely that would be a Ukrainian adoption, but the idea was far away in the future. We did not even remotely think about adopting one of our boys. I mean, how could you pick just one, when our biggest dream is that they would all know the love of a family? Yeah, not happening.

Then came MTU summer camp. The last two summers our family has had the EXTREME pleasure of serving at camps for kids with disabilities, put on by Mission to Ukraine, one of our non-profit partner here in Zhytomyr.

They have loved our Vladik for many years. Just look at these pictures!

MTU actually plays a giant role in every part of this adoption. We came to Zhytomyr to volunteer for MTU. We heard about the work they were doing at Romaniv and longed to be a part of it. They had been visiting the boys for several years before we came along. If it weren’t for God leading us to MTU there is no doubt in my mind- we would not know Vladik. 🙂 THANK YOU MTU!!!!

Anyway, every year Romaniv sends 6 boys to MTU’s camp, along with one of the nannies. This is outrageously amazing for our boys. They never ever leave the grounds of Romaniv. It is their entire world. But, every summer 6 boys get to escape for 8 days and truly LIVE.

They are treasured at camp. They laugh at camp. They play at camp. It’s like Disneyland on steroids for these boys. We were at camp last July waiting for the bus to arrive from Romaniv and who, to our enormous surprise, stepped off the bus? VLADIK! We had no idea any of our boys from Isolation were coming!!!! Vladik had never been to camp before! We were so happy!!!!

You guys, Vladik did so great at camp. Oh my word. He started out the week with many institutional behaviors (screaming at the wrong time, loud noises at inappropriate times…) but after only 2 days at camp those behaviors were gone. He was trying to sing the songs and do the motions. He was doing his best at the games. He was sitting quietly during lessons. He gained new words every day. It was so beautiful.

The most unexpected and most beautiful thing for Jed and me was how Vladik connected with our kids. Addy and Ezra had met him at Romaniv before camp, and Vladik had immediately taken a liking to Ezra. Vladik likes most people, but for some reason (God) he really latched on to Ezra during the couple of times Ez came to Romaniv. That relationship only grew at camp- and the feeling was mutual. Ez was drawn to Vladik and really began to love him.

One night toward the end of camp, I was putting the kids to bed in our room and all the lights were out. Jed was away and the kids and I were talking about our day. I asked them each what was the best moment of their day and the most difficult moment of their day. That day the camp had held Special Olympics, so there was a lot of great moments to talk about. When it came to my turn to share Ezra piped up, “Mom, I bet I know what your hardest moment was. When the Romaniv boys were getting their medals at Olympics I saw you crying. I bet that was hard for you.” I answered him that that moment was actually my best and most difficult moment all at once. It was the best because I saw all the joy on the boys’ faces and I was so happy to see them so happy. But it was the hardest because they were the only campers who didn’t have a mommy to walk them up to the front to get their medal. I was sad because I knew they were going home tomorrow and I knew that their home was not a good place.

All of a sudden, in the dark room I heard a weeping, almost a wailing coming from one of the beds. It was Ezra! “Ezra! What’s wrong? Are you hurt?”

“Mommy, why? Why do the boys have to live there? Why do they have no mommy? It’s not fair. I don’t want them to go back there! Why does Vladik have to live there? He’s my friend. How long is he gonna have to wait till his family finds him?”

Pretty soon all four of my kids were weeping. Their hearts were broken for the boys. In that moment they really got it. They really began to understand why we live here in Ukraine. They began to understand why we sold everything and came to love these boys. Ezra said “Mom, we can never leave Ukraine. The boys need us!”

That camp, that night, our kids fell in love with Vladik. That night my heart began to shift. I began to see Vladik in a new way. I shared the story with Jed and he cried. We could barely stand to see him get on that bus to head back to Romaniv. Something was stirring. God was up to something!!

PS: Thank you MTU for the pics of Vladik when he was little 🙂

A Love Story, Part 1

Posted on September 1, 2015 by kimnjed

This is the first in a series of posts about our adoption story. It’s a miraculous story and I pray God uses it to speak to other families who are considering adoption. So many boys and girls like our Vladik wait and wait for their lives to begin. Every child deserves the love of a family. Would you read with an open heart and ask God how He would have you respond?

This is a love story. For God so loved Vladik, that He preserved his life until the day his mommy and daddy would find him. For God so loved our family, that He picked us up out of our lives and dropped us across the world so that we could find our baby.

One night, in August 2010, with newborn Seth, our foster baby asleep at my side, I was browsing online. I have no idea what I was looking for, but somehow I came across the blog of a woman who had just returned from Ukraine, having adopted two little girls with Down Syndrome. Her story caught my attention and I ended up reading her whole adoption story in one evening. One blog led to another, which led to another, and pretty soon I found myself immersed in a world I had had no idea existed, the world of special needs adoption. My heart was broken in two, never to be the same.

Jed and I always knew we would adopt someday. We believed in orphan care and it was important to us. Since before we were married we had dreamed of moving overseas to care for orphans. That’s why I became a nurse! While we waited for God to send us overseas we fostered medically fragile babies. So yeah, adoption was on our radar, but not orphans with disabilities, or kids with disabilities in general. We just hadn’t thought of it. Well, maybe that’s not all true. We had thought of it, and then rejected it. “Yes, we’ll adopt- but only healthy kids. We could never raise a child that would require our hands-on care forever.” We fostered babies with special needs, but that wasn’t permanent.

Jed with baby Seth, during our fostering days 🙂

A while later I came upon Julia’s blog. Julia was advocating, and still does advocate, for orphans with disabilities. Fun Fact: We have since met each other twice here in Ukraine, and Julia even got to come to Romaniv to meet our Boys! Isn’t God fun? Julia was advocating for a little guy in Ukraine with Apert Syndrome. Did you know our new son Vladik has this same syndrome? Like I said, God is fun 🙂 I had never heard of that syndrome, didn’t know anything about it, but that boy struck me. I read her post and learned that he was 4 years old and about to be transferred to a bad place- an institution. He needed to be adopted quickly. I’m telling you what, I fell for that baby hard. Jed came home one night to a red-faced, sobbing wife and was a little confused. Ha! I started rambling to him about Ukraine and orphans with disabilities and mental institutions and teenagers in cribs and “aging out” and he stood there shocked. I told him “We have to DO SOMETHING. We can’t just sit by and let this happen. We have to do something!!!” He was a little shell shocked, but agreed to pray about it and see if God laid it on his heart as well. What a guy. 🙂

In the meantime “Jonah”, the little Apert guy was constantly on my mind. His face was in my dreams. I would weep over him and all the little ones in cribs as I did the dishes. My heart ached and the ache wouldn’t stop. The Holy Spirit was at work. God was working in Jed’s heart too, and soon we were both praying about how to respond to Jonah, specifically. We prayed for many months. We sought council from our parents and our pastor. We prayed some more. Then in early 2011, after much prayer, many miracles and confirmations (SO MANY), it became abundantly clear that God was asking us to move forward to adopt Jonah.

The first photo we saw of Jonah

We were so excited!!! This sweet one who had captured our hearts would be our son! Gone were the worries about raising a child who would need our care forever. We could have cared less. All of our old worries and hesitations seemed so selfish. In the light of what these babies suffer without a mommy and daddy to fight for them, in the light of what Jesus did for us…how could I be worried about losing our “empty nester” years??? Our baby needed us.

So, we sent in the initial committment paperwork and money to say to the adoption world “You don’t need to advocate for this one anymore, we’re coming for him!” In Ukraine there is no referral given to adoptive families before they travel. You can pursue the adoption of a certain child, but until you actually get to Kyiv and request their file there is no guarantee that you will actually get that child. Another family could go there first and adopt them, not knowing your intentions. You could get there and that child may not even be adoptable. There are many unknowns. We were aware of that, but when we got the email a few weeks after we had sent in our initial paperwork, letting us know that another American family who was already in Ukraine was adding our boy to their adoption, we were utterly devastated.

Shocked. Heartbroken. Confused. Happy for our Jonah, that he could have a mommy and daddy so soon, but heartsick that they were not us.

We had loved Jonah from afar for many months and now we would never even get to meet him. God had spoken so clearly. We had researched the heck out of Apert Syndrome and felt so well-equipped. Miracles had paved the way for us to begin the adoption process. God, what was that all about? What were you doing? Why?

Then God spoke again. Jed was out mowing the lawn, praying, asking God what He was up to and he felt God speak to Him so clearly,

“Jed, I am so much more interested in the process than in the end result. You have one end result in mind, but I’m taking you on a journey. I needed you to love Jonah like a father. I needed you to love him with abandon. I needed you to have that father’s heart for Jonah because I need you to love lots of little boys and girls like Jonah.”

And so it happened that a little boy with Apert Syndrome caught our hearts and led us to Ukraine. A little boy with Apert Syndrome broke our hearts for Ukrainian orphans. He helped us to fall in love with children with disabilities- so in love that we would give up everything and cross the world to touch them and smile at them and hold them in our arms. God used Jonah to start us on the best journey of our lives- the journey to our Boys and our own little treasure, our Vladik.

To be continued 🙂

Wide Awake + Humedica = AWESOME

Posted on June 25, 2015 by kimnjed

A couple weeks ago we had the amazing privildge of hosting a volunteer team of medical professionals from Germany. They were sent by Humedica, a German relief organization, and they were absolutely the biggest blessing to us.

Jed’s parents volunteered for Humedica in Kosovo for 15 years and hosted many medical teams over those years. It’s through them that we came to know the director of that wonderful organization.

Humedica’s primary aim is to provide disaster relief. They are often some of the first on the ground in earthquakes, tsunamis, and other disaster situations. Their huge volunteer base of medical personnel is standing ready and waiting for their chance to serve. Throughout the year Humedica also sends small medical teams to do short-term work in non-disaster areas. That’s where Wide Awake came in!

When Jed went to Switzerland last year he hopped over to Germany and met with Humedica’s long-term projects director to see what it would look like to get a team to Ukraine to help us at Romaniv. Boy, are we so very glad they agreed to the idea!

Humedica sent us a general practitioner doctor, an ENT doctor, a physiotherapist, and a nurse. They worked so hard for our Boys. They literally saved our little Ben’s life. They came to game night and helped out our graduates. They held a medical clinic at a conference in Kyiv for the parents of kids with disabilities. They did home visits to several of our graduates with disabilities. They did a physical for every single boy in the Isolation hall at Romaniv. They took boys for x-rays and looked at MRI results, bought special formula and made feeding plans, met with the Romaniv medical staff and helped them to troubleshoot their most urgent issues.

They rocked.

Even now we are getting emails from the team checking on the boys and giving us advice. We are so thankful!!

Thank you Humedica for sending us your best. Thank you Sabina, Julia, Dominik and Hildegard for loving our boys and serving them so well. Thank you for blessing our lives and bringing us so much hope. It was our honor and our joy to work alongside you.

Come again! We’re waiting for you!

About a Boy, and His Love

Posted on June 17, 2015 by kimnjed

Do you remember back in January when I came to you with a desperate plea for one of our darling boys who was absolutely wasting away? I wrote about him here. We, and the orphanage staff feared for his life. He was dying before our eyes. At that time I asked for a family to please step up and adopt him, but then shortly after that post, issues with his documents made him unavailable for adoption. We mourned that loss of opportunity, but still, God had his way with that post and hundreds of people contacted us, letting us know they were faithfully praying for our sweet Danya.

Today I want to encourage you and let you know that your prayers have not been in vain!

“To the world you may be one person, but to one person you may be the world.”

-Unknown

Meet Mira.

Mira first came into our lives when our local Ukrainian church’s discipleship school began to volunteer for Wide Awake. Wide Awake was the “outreach” portion of their discipleship training, so we instantly had 12 volunteers every week at Romaniv! Mira was on the team.

Romaniv is a pretty extreme place. The whole team faithfully served there for this whole past school year whether they liked it, loved it, or…didn’t really enjoy it at all. We could never thank them enough. They have been the hugest blessing to our lives!! Most of the team members had no idea places like Romaniv, and people like our Boys even existed in their country, so hidden is Romaniv from society. Serving at a mental institution isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, and that’s okay! But for a few of the team members it was completely life-altering. Mira was one of those people.

The discipleship school ended a few weeks ago, and still many (most!) of the team members come to Romaniv every chance they get. In between university exams they’ll squeeze a visit in, filling up our boys’ love cups, and getting their own filled in return. They are pretty much the best group of teens I have ever known. I wish I could have been half as cool at that age. 😉

Mira never EVER misses a trip to Romaniv. During every day of Romaniv day camp, she was there. Every day of the German medical team’s visit, she was there. She is just always there. And she is making a difference.

You see, our sweet Danya loooooooves Mira. And the feeling is quite mutual. Over the past month or so Mira has been at Romaniv almost every single day, and the changes we have seen in Danya over that time have been nothing short of miraculous!

Mira is not a therapist. She’s not a medical professional. She’s just an 18 year old college student with a fierce love for one small boy.

When she is at Romaniv Danya gets her whole self. He gets her hugs, her tickles, her eye contact. They walk together, they run together, they smell flowers together and feel the grass together. They sit together and rock together. Mira truly SEES Danya, and Danya comes alive. His heart is so ready to accept her love, and her heart is being changed in the process. It is a miracle for them both, and all glory goes to God.

Danya in January, and Danya last week 🙂

I think that sometimes we humans operate under the thought that unless we can do something “big” that is noticeable by a lot of people, and impacts large populations that it’s not important. I think we miss so many opportunities for love while searching for the next “big thing”. Me too!

What about the people right in front of us? What if there is one person out there that is desperate for someone to truly SEE them and your eyes are just the ones equal to the task? They don’t necessarily need someone more qualified or smarter or more important. Maybe they just need you- to walk together, smell flowers together, sit together…just BE together. Maybe.

I know one boys whose life is literally being saved by that kind of love.

Praise God for His never-stopping love for our Danya. Praise God that He knew just what Danya needed, and praise God that Mira said, and keeps saying YES.

One foot in front of the other, Friends. One YES at a time, with eyes wide open, with hearts Wide Awake

“I am only one, but I am one. I cannot do everything, but I can do something. And because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do the something that I can do.” -Edward Everett Hale

Mira and Danya from Wide Awake International on Vimeo.

*Please keep praying for Danya. He still has far to go, but as you can see, he’s on the right track! THANK YOU!