Orphans with Special Needs | Wide Awake Family

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 🙂

Introducing…

Posted on August 31, 2015 by kimnjed

Vladislav Christopher Johnson- orphan no more!

Today, in a courtroom in Romaniv, Ukraine, Vladik was legally declared to be our son. We are officially a family of seven!

Ours was the first international adoption in the town of Romaniv and we are praying it helps to pave the way for many more to come after us. The court went well and although it was a long, serious affair, there was nothing scary or tense about it. All the parties represented agreed that our family adopting Vladik was in his best interest. The representative from the orphanage said “You can see they love him like parents. It’s almost like he’s already a part of their family!”

Ain’t that the truth.

Remember when I wrote this post about Vladik being found by a super lucky family? So yeah, the secret’s out: we are that most lucky family. It was KILLING us to keep the secret for all those months. Whew! I’m so glad we can now share our joy with the world.

The story of how we came to adopt Vladik is wonderful and beautiful, and tomorrow I’ll begin to share it all with you.

Now we have a 10-day wait (Ukrainian law), and then we will be able to take Vladik out of the orphanage FOREVER.

The first of our Boys, redeemed.

Once he was abandoned, but today he is a beloved son, brother, grandson, nephew, and cousin.

Our hearts are full and we pray many families will come after us. Our Boys are absolutely treasures. How blessed are we that God gave one of those precious treasures to us for our very own?? We are the luckiest.

Praise God. He sets the lonely in families!!!!

Three More Loves

Posted on March 27, 2015 by kimnjed

Yesterday we received some FANTASTIC news!

Three more of our precious boys were confirmed AVAILABLE for adoption!!!!

I can’t even wait to introduce them to you. Please help us find their families!

So without further ado…

*The boys have been given alias names to protect their identity*

Meet Ben!

Ivan

photo 4 (6)

Do you recognize this little munchkin? Yes! He is one of our “Littles”! Both of our Littles are officially available for adoption! Ben is the littlest of the littles and needs a family urgently. He is failing to thrive, and truthfully he will never thrive in an institutional environment (actually, I don’t know of anyone who could). His health is very fragile and he just can’t seem to gain weight.

The Littles together, shortly after their transfer to the institution

photo 1 (6)

Ben is 5 years old and he came to the institution in July of 2014. We quickly saw that he would not live long if something didn’t change. There are just not enough staff to manage all the other boys in the Isolation Hall AND to give Ben the careful attention he needs. He started withering away soon after his arrival. He must be fed slowly because he refluxes so badly, and the nannies just didn’t have the time he required. We hired a nanny to care for the two Littles in a room just for them. A great ministry here in town hired another nanny to alternate days with our nanny, so now every day of the week, from 7am-7pm the Little ones have great care from nannies who truly love them. Those nannies have literally saved their lives! (Not an exaggeration) We are so incredibly thankful for them.

Ben is no longer losing weight, but he still doesn’t gain. He is nonverbal and we have never seen him smile. BUT in the past month or two there has been one major improvement! Ben now cries when his nanny leaves his room! When she comes back in and calls his name, he turns to her and is almost instantly quiet. He also cries when he wants to be held. These are miraculous developments! He can sit up on his own, bear weight and stand while holding on to the crib railing, and he can take steps when holding on to someone’s finger. This little guy is teeeeeny tiny. Oh how he needs a mama to scoop him up and cuddle him as long as his little heart desires. Would you consider Ben?

photo 3 (6)

photo 2 (5)

Meet Isaiah!

Irakli

Isaiah is pure sunshine. He is also 5 years old, and this boy’s smile lights up the room! He is the other of our “Littles” and shares a room with Ben. Isaiah has cerebral palsy and is nonverbal. He is learning to hold his head up and has gotten much stronger over the past few months. He has never had any kind of therapy, so just imagine all the potential hidden in there!

Isaiah loves his special nannies and reserves his best smiles and laughs for them. It’s actually really beautiful to see how they have bonded. What a gift.

This amazing boy will bring such joy to a family. He giggles and smiles so easily, but he will never reach his potential in an institution. Of course he will require a lot of time and attention, therapy and doctor’s appointments, but oh man it will be worth it. He is just amazing. Please help us find a family for Isaiah!

Addy and Isaiah, back in July. Our kids adore Isaiah!

Irakli2

Meet Aaron!

Andryi2

Aaron is 11 and he came to the institution at the age of 7. We just have to smile when we think of Aaron because he keeps those nannies hopping! He is absolutely exploding with energy. He’s really unsteady on his feet so he’s constantly roaming the halls half-running/half-falling. When he has the opportunity he will literally try to climb up your body! Ha! Aaron loves touch and he craves physical contact. Sometimes we can get a glorious moment of quiet when Aaron will just let us hold him and wrap our arms around him. He really does love that and it does wonders for his brain development. It’s just a matter of getting him still enough to realize he likes it. 🙂
Aaron loves any kind of sensory play, like feeling the dirt outside and holding his hand under a running faucet. He likes to sit in a wheelchair and be pushed around, even though he doesn’t need a wheelchair! The best thing we can do for Aaron is take him on walks. He likes to be outside so sometimes we just get him outside and follow wherever he leads. Aaron doesn’t have any words, but when he gets excited he gives his signature shriek to let us know how he feels.

Andryi

It’s hard for me to write about Aaron because I want to be completely honest, yet I am desperate for him to have a family. I want to tell you that Aaron needs a family that can provide him with plenty of love, plenty of time, plenty of patience, and plenty of structure. Right now he gets no attention and he has no sensory input at all. He is constantly striving to meet his sensory needs in an impossible environment. This puts him in a hyper-arousal state where he wanders from place to place climbing and reaching and falling and shrieking. We have no doubt that he will absolutely blossom with a family. Our peaceful moments with him give us that hope. I just want to tell you honestly that right at this moment an adoptive family will have quite a road ahead of them. BUT Aaron is worth it. He is as worth it as my own sons.

Please, please share our boy. We are praying that his family sees him quickly, and that nothing holds them back from their baby.

A rare moment of rest on Maks’ lap 🙂

There you have it! And don’t forget about our other sweeties who are also available! Two of them will become unadoptable at the end of this year, so time is of the essence.

Jonathan

Micah- ages out in November!

Stephen

Alex- ages out in December!

I can’t share the details, but Alex urgently needs a family. We have until December to find him a family (already not a lot of time), but due to other circumstances we are praying for a family to step up even sooner. Several people have inquired about him, but no one has taken any steps toward him.

Thank you so much for praying for, loving, supporting, and sharing our Boys. They have no voice. They have no choices. We MUST be their voice. They have been hidden away for far too long. This is their year!

A Couple Weeks in Photos: February 23rd

Posted on February 23, 2015 by kimnjed

Hi! How are ya? We are just fine and dandy. Many good things are happening- in our family and in Wide Awake. I wish I had the time to just sit down with each of you and give you all the details, but alas, a blog post of pics will have to do.

We are deep in the throes of homeschool and language lessons and Romaniv trips and Young Adult nights and Legos and orphan advocacy and Barbies and parenting and all kinds of other stuff. No day is like the one before. It’s not all glamorous, in fact I wouldn’t classify any of it as “glamorous”, but it is our life and we wouldn’t trade it for the world. (except some days when the copious amounts of unglamorous snot, saliva, and poop threaten to overwhelm…)

Hehe…anywayssss…time for pics!

*There are a couple of boys in this post that are available for adoption. I gave them aliases to protect their identity. FYI. Mommy and Daddy, are you out there??? 🙂

A playground in our neighborhood

It’s the little things. 🙂

We found an ice road!!!

Hava decided maybe she COULD write some letters! I’m glad I didn’t push her earlier.

I can’t resist. My baby is so cute!!!! Yep, he’ll always be my baby.

This is “Micah”! He is available for adoption and I can’t wait to write a post all about him and find his family!!! I’m just waiting for confirmation on his diagnosis. Pure sweetness.

“Stephen”!! Stephen needs a family too. He is blind and needs so much sensory input. Running him in the halls is the best. He can walk, but sometimes he likes a ride. 😉

Please keep praying for our sweet one. Little love needs a miracle.

Hava Rudy the Cutie

Sweet loves with Tanya, a most amazing volunteer. She loves the boys so much.

Seriozha. He loves to say “Beep beep!” He is normally silent, so when he perks up with a loud “beep beep!” it makes us laugh so hard!

Ez Pez Dominez

Still can’t resist.

Addy Maddy Baddy

Seffer Boy-o

Luckiest mom evah! Right here.

Yaroslav. I can’t even explain to you how much I love this boy. The smile, the squinty eyes, the thumb-sucking. Too.Much.

Micah! Someone see this boy. He is beyond precious. I have video and more pics. I’ll write more soon. But let me just tell you that our whole team is in love with this boy.