the church | Wide Awake Family

Indiana Adventures

Posted on November 21, 2015 by kimnjed

I gotta tell ya, we just had the most encouraging week!

I’ve written before about Hands of Hope, our fabulous partners in Indiana. Hands of Hope provides awesome support to adoptive and foster families in Indiana, and they also do great orphan care through child sponsorship. Through the Hands of Hope Romaniv sponsorship we are able to bring fresh fruit to the boys three days a week, pay the salary of two teachers who are working full-time to teach the boys, and more. Hands of Hope is an immense help in bringing greater quality of life to our boys. Because Hands of Hope pays for much of the work that is done at Romaniv now, Wide Awake is able to put funds away to prepare for the future: group homes instead of institutionalization.

Their partnership and investment into our boys is priceless.

This past Tuesday Jed, Vladik, and I were able to fly to Indiana to spend some time with the Hands of Hope peeps and talk a whole lot about the boys we adore so much. It was a fast and fabulous trip! Jed flew in from Ukraine on Monday and we flew out to Indiana on Tuesday morning. At this point I’m pretty sure Jed could go 10 years without stepping foot on another airplane and be pretty happy with that.

On Tuesday night we got to spend the evening with some lovely people who sponsor sweet Boris and Zhenya. And then on Wednesday night there was an open house for “Friends of Romaniv”. Basically sponsors and any and everyone who loves our boys could come and just hear about what’s happening at Romaniv and how they can pray. It was beautiful. Many of the people who came Wednesday evening have visited Romaniv before and dearly love the boys. We always love talking about our sweeties, but talking about them to a room full of people who have loved them for years (in many cases before we even knew they existed!) takes it to a whole new level. Love-fest level! 🙂

The highlight of our Wednesday was a lovely young lady named Renee. Renee visited Romaniv on a mission trip when she was 16 years old. She fell in love with Vladik on that trip, came home and became his sponsor through Hands of Hope. Renee prayed and prayed over the years that Vladik would find a family. She LOVED our son before we did. Well, now Renee goes to college in Kentucky. She found out Vladik was going to be in Indiana and drove over 3 hours to come and see him in person.

What a special reunion. Vladik was clueless of the importance of that night, but someday he’ll understand.

Thursday night was just beautiful. Hands of Hope had an event called “Sip and Savor”. It was so classy! Free lattes and people walking around with trays of cheesecake? Yes, please. 🙂

The three main focuses of Hands of Hope were presented at the event: Orphan Care (child sponsorship), Foster Care support, and Adoption. Jed and I did the presentation about adoption because we received a matching grant for our adoption through Hands of Hope. THANK YOU!!!!! It was doubly special because Vladik was the first Hands of Hope sponsor child to be adopted. Cool, eh? I say hopefully the first of many!

Man, it was just wonderful to be in a room full of people passionate about caring for the orphan. There are so many different ways to say YES and hearing about all the ways people can say YES by partnering with Hands of Hope is just rad. It’s the real deal.

Besides those official meetings, we just had plenty of time to drink coffee and eat yummy food with our friends. All of these friends we met in Ukraine at one time or another through Hands of Hope, World Next Door, or Mission to Ukraine. They were all so happy to see Vladik in a family and we were so blessed to spend time with people who know our boys and our friends in Ukraine and love them. Common hearts + coffee + cozy couches = a whole lotta good times. We got to stay with our friends Christopher and Lois and it was seriously like a vacation. They spoiled the heck out of us. SO FUN!

God has blessed us so much with this partnership with Hands of Hope. Again, we are just amazed at God’s love for the boys. How is it, why is it that He has drawn so many hearts to this one institution in the middle of nowhere Ukraine? We believe it’s because God has something very special for our boys. He has been drawing them out of darkness into light for such a time as this. I’m just thankful we get to be a part of His unfolding plan.

To God be ALL the glory for the GREAT things He has done!

Offended by the Goodness of God

Posted on November 9, 2015 by kimnjed

Here are some reflections from Jed. Warning: extreme passion ahead. I hope you can read this with an an open heart to what the Father wants to say to you.

Church songs are great, right?

The lyrics pick us up in hard times, they carry us through the week and we are so glad to have the simple melody and words to express an emotion to God.
Or, they comfort our broken heart: songs of His goodness, faithfulness, love and on and on.
We’re walking through Gap whistling the tune, “You make all things work together for my good,” as you find your favorite pair of jeans on sale. The person in front of you buys your drink at Starbucks, “Hallelu,Hallelu, Hallelu.u.Yah.” Ok, that might be a bit off topic. 🙂

Good stuff.
Have you ever had a moment when a dear friend shares the depths of pain as a relationship crumbles, or the newsfeed reads of another child dying while escaping a war torn country, and all of the sudden those worship lyrics start to fall flat?
For us there is the oh-so-often overwhelming sense that there is not enough time or hands to give each of our boys the time they need. And even when we do get time and have plenty of hands, we still have to return them to their extremely traumatic lives.

The religious prose no longer feel robust enough to contain the suffering caused by human injustice.
You might find yourself saying, as we find ourselves saying “These lyrics don’t ring true. God, you certainly don’t seem like a good, good father. Where are you????”
Or, maybe you’ve been on a missions trip and when you came home you could barely stand under the weight of western excess in light of the severe poverty witnessed afar. Perhaps you found yourself slamming your fist down, “God, how can you allow this injustice?! This inequality! Why have you forgotten those lovely people?”
“I can’t sing these songs to you God.” You may have even felt some bitterness swelling up in your chest. Dare I say, Doubt…?

Well, if you are brave enough to sit with these feelings for a spell and not ‘numb out’, not head back to the mall or app store to ‘buy out’, you may hear God speak his answer to these questions that haunt our faith.

Think of the story of worship leader Kevin Prosch, who met God in the closet his dad locked him in and learned to play the guitar and worship in the midst of the abuse.
Or, think of the miracle tree growing in the midst of a shanty in the garbage dumps of Nicaragua that provides medicine for the family living there.
Or think of our boys and their amazing capacity to love, despite their circumstances.
God speaks. Are we brave enough to listen?

But, maybe you need more than testimony. Perhaps you still can’t reconcile the goodness of God.

This is me, by the way.
But are you still brave enough to sit with these questions, these accusations…?
Most aren’t.

Many have quietly walked away from God, shaking their heads.
“I’ve just got too many unanswered questions,” is the statement as they make their curtain call from church community. In that case, there is a world waiting with open arms to receive your weary soul, clinking glasses, “Three cheers for one less fool, duped by faith.”

My dear cousin Brett sat outside of the garbage dump in Nicaragua, having seen the immensity of inequality and suffering caused by poverty. But then he noticed the healing tree I mentioned earlier, and he saw the comfort siblings were able to provide their dying baby brother.
As he held these accusations out to God, “How are you working all things together for their good…? How are you perfect in all of your ways?” God met him and said, “You equate my goodness with material wealth and well-being. But goodness looks far greater than what you deem as good. You don’t get to define me and my goodness. You won’t see all that I do for my people and don’t assume that my “lack of material provision” means that I am unmoved by their suffering.”

As Kim and I sit in the midst of suffering with our boys, we hear God say, “I am so near to these precious ones. Their capacity to love comes from my nearness to them, despite all that this world has done to their bodies. I am holding them close.”

Yesterday, I was reflecting on this while watching Cousin Brett sing songs with my boys, who were rocking, singing, clapping, crying, screaming, self-harming or off in their own world.
A thought came to me, maybe a revelation. When time wraps up and we stand before God we will see the truth. We will see how He has been with each of us in our highest joys and our deepest suffering. We will see His goodness, the way He defines it, for everyone, and we will say “God, you are righteous and just in all of Your ways.”
And at that point some real worship is gonna go down.

Until that day comes, we have some great words in the book of Psalms to help us process, petition and bring our accusations to God. Psalms is a book in the Bible where the writer rages at the sight of injustice, pours his heart out in the places of pain and loss, and at the end of the day he still has a price on his head and a heart full of love.
Maybe Psalms and all its honesty and sometimes offensive accusations might be a little more helpful than quoting pop church songs, when we’re struggling through life’s deep questions. God is not surprised by our questions, nor is He offended by them.
Maybe that big book in the corner needs a little dusting off.

The Skinny

Posted on August 6, 2015 by kimnjed

I’m here! I’m here! Oh.My.Gooooooodness. It’s been such a long time.

I had this whole introspective, from-the-gut-post in the works, but, while trying to finish it up I realized I just don’t have the energy for that right now. So, you get a not-from-the-gut informative post instead. 🙂

There are a whole lot of emotions goin’ on around here, that’s for sure. We are gearing up for our first visit back to the States, as a family. We leave on Tuesday. WHAT???? Pure craziness I tell ya. Our life is never boring. All my introspective writing was on our feelings about leaving our Boys and it was UGLY. The thought of being so far away from our Boys for several months brings on an instantaneous sob-fest, so I’d rather not delve to deep into that topic. Let’s just say that we don’t want to leave them, but we are excited to be with family and friends. It’s confusing, and not black and white. So, there.

Here’s the skinny on what is happening in our life. Deep breath, here goes:

ADOPTION. We are in the home stretch of the adoption process! In fact, we were supposed to have court today, but it was rescheduled for August 31st. There were no jurors available today and yeah, it’s frustrating, I cried a lot, but we know that God’s timing is perfect. After court on August 31st there will be a 10-day mandatory waiting period and then we will get to take our boy out of Romaniv forever!!!! I can’t wait to introduce him to you!

TRAVEL TO THE US. We had already planned, before our move to Ukraine that we would head to the US as a family for our first visit in August 2015. Many, many months ago my parents planned that when we arrived, in August 2015, they would take all of their kids and grandkids to Disneyland. Well, the time is upon us! Woohoo! The timing is a little stinky, with our adoption court rescheduling, but oh well. We are just thanking God for this last big hurrah before we have another son and our lives change forever. Don’t people call that like a “babymoon” or something crazy like that? Let’s call Disneyland our “babymoon”, nevermind that our baby is 15 years old. Hehe. (details, details)

So our family will leave Ukraine on Tuesday and fly straight to California. We will have a few days to catch our breath before my family joins us for Disney. Jed will leave Disney early (on the 20th) to fly back to Ukraine. He was supposed to be picking up our son at that pointt, but then court was rescheduled and yada yada yada. We couldn’t change his ticket. Whatevs. The kids and I will head to Oregon after Disneyland and start to get settled a bit, get ready for school to start. I will fly back to Ukraine for court on the 29th. I’ll leave the kids with family and friends in Oregon.

After court I will come back to Oregon and Jed will stay in Ukraine to finish up all the documents for our new baby. Then he and our newest Johnson will fly and meet us in Oregon. Together at last!!!

HOUSING. We decided right after we got home from camp that it would be best to move out of the house we rent in Ukraine and put our stuff in storage. We really can’t afford to pay for a house that’s not being used here, and a house that we’ll be using in Oregon. So, we’ve been busy packing up and moving out. FUN.

While in Oregon we will be renting a house from some crazy-generous friends who are giving us a screaming deal. Praise God!!! Friends and family are letting us borrow stuff to set up a temporary Oregon home. 🙂 Thanks! We don’t know where we’ll live when we come back from America, but we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. I can’t think about it now or my head will explode.

SCHOOL. Our kids (minus the new arrival) will be attending school in Oregon! This will be a first for them. Addy and Ez have been to school in Ukraine, but we homeschooled in the US before, so this will be a new adventure for us. We know our new son will need a TON of medical care and there is just no way I can meet his needs and homeschool 4 kids, so this feels like the most peaceful decision. I’m a little nervous about it though! Eeeek!

TIMING. We aren’t exactly sure how long we will be in the US. The working plan is that Jed will stay for about 2 months, and then return to Ukraine. There is a TON of work that needs to be done here (always) and he just can’t be gone for a long time. The kids and I will stay behind in Oregon until our new son gets the medical care that he urgently needs. We don’t know how long that will take. We anticipate more than one major surgery with specialist surgeons. Things like that just don’t happen fast. I’m prepping myself to be gone from Ukraine for at least 6 months. I can’t think about it too much though or I turn into a basket case. Oh my Romaniv babies! But, our top priority is getting our new son healthy, so we will do what it takes to make that happen. 🙂

WIDE AWAKE. Are you signed up for our newsletters? If you aren’t, you should. You can do it here. I’ll confess that we have not been stellar about sending them out super regularly this year. But it’s in our hearts to do better with that. Anywayssss in our last newsletter we talked about Wide Awake’s partnership with a local church here in Zhytomyr. Christian Youth Church is the church our family attends here in Z-town and we love our friends there. The vast majority of Wide Awake’s volunteers are from Youth Church, and they are our fam here in Ukraine.

Wide Awake gave a grant to Youth Church to be used to carry on the work with our Boys while we are in the US. The grant pays for the work of volunteer recruitment and management, and will pay for the drivers and gas to get the teams to Romaniv while we are away. Vika, our friend and volunteer, is in charge of the Romaniv work for Youth Church and she has already done an amazing job of growing the work while we were away at camp. She has recruited many new volunteers and we have now added a Saturday team! So now the boys get teams coming AT LEAST three days a week, and many weeks they get even more visits than that. Praise God for Youth Church and their love for the Boys! We are leaving the work in good hands and we know that our teams will continue to be faithful, even though we will be so far away. What a huge relief!

That’s the skinny! It’s a lot. I know. If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to ask. Thanks for coming along on this wild ride. We could never do it alone. 🙂

Wide Awake on Wheels

Posted on March 26, 2015 by kimnjed

The day has finally come!

Today we bought a van!!!

Thanks to amazing friends and supporters in Lucerne, Switzerland and Talbot, Oregon we’ve had the money for months! But, laws in Ukraine concerning vehicle purchasing kept changing after the first of the year and we were waiting for the final decision on how the laws would be interpreted before we forked out the cash. The laws would determine if we drove in a car from another country or if we bought locally.

Jed ended up finding a great van right in our very own town, and today he picked it up!

And there was much rejoicing. 🙂

There is space for 8 passengers and then the driver. There is also space for at least two wheelchairs! What a blessing. This will also give our family much more freedom and that brings an extra dose of rejoicing! (think room for grocery bags, the ability to give friends a ride, and the possibility of drives out of town to nature…yay!)

To our friends who gave thousands and thousands of dollars, your gift will literally change lives. We can’t even describe to you how much easier it will be to get to our Boys. The Director has welcomed us there as often as we want to come, but lack of a vehicle has limited us many times. No more! Many of our youth that come to Youth NIght miss out on the events because of the difficulty of transporting people in wheelchairs. No more!

Tomorrow the van will make it’s first trip to Romaniv. Wide Awake is on the move! Praise God!!!!

PS: I just got confirmation that three more of our boys ARE OFFICIALLY AVAILABLE for adoption! Expect an intro post soooooooon!!!

A Nervous Confidence

Posted on February 14, 2015 by kimnjed

Have you ever wanted something so badly that you were afraid to ask God for it, afraid of what His answer might be?

Me too.

I remember back in 2011 when Jed and I were planning our first trip to scout out Ukraine. We had no idea what God had in mind, but we just knew we had to get over here and see in person what was being done for orphans with special needs. One night I was away from home, having some quiet time alone with the Lord and I had a big wish in my heart. I wanted this wish to come true so badly that I was almost afraid to speak it out loud- even to God.

“Lord, please let us see the Lost Boys. Please let us in that institution, even if it’s only for 5 minutes.”

That institution is locked and many times the volunteer teams are turned away when they want to see the Boys. It’s very much like Romaniv, but bigger, and in a different part of the country. That was the very place that drew our hearts to Ukraine in the first place and we were desperate to touch and see the boys face to face.

Guess what? God granted that wish. He is amazing.

Another time I remember was when we got home from that scouting trip to Ukraine. We had fallen in love with the country and her people. We had visited the Lost Boys and Romaniv and knew in our hearts we were made for that work. It was so hard to ask God about that dream…afraid of what his answer might be.

“Lord, do you want us to move to Ukraine to serve those Boys? They already have our hearts. Please say yes!!”

Guess what? Here I sit in Ukraine, my heart full of 80 Boys who have changed my life forever.

Now I have another dream. This one is BIG. I’m so afraid to even type it out. But the time has come.

“Lord, please let 2015 be the year of Romaniv Adoption. Please bring every one of our adoptable boys a family this year.”

(See, I’m so afraid to ask that I just deleted that prayer and had to re-type it.)

We have several Boys who are available for adoption and they can’t wait any longer. They shouldn’t have to wait any longer. We can be their voice, and now it’s time to speak. I know I warned before that I was going to start advocating hardcore for them, but some unexpected things kept us from really going for it, till now. Recently, in desperation I wrote about our one sweet boy who is suffering so much. The outpouring of prayer and support and encouragement was amazing. It’s time to go for it.

Adoption can’t save every boy at Romaniv. The vast majority of the Boys are not, and will not be available for adoption. But it is our responsibility to give a voice to the ones who can’t speak for themselves- and for the adoptable ones that means looking high and low for a Mommy and Daddy to call their own. Our Boys can’t reach out on a blog or on Facebook. They can’t tell their story or share their picture. All they can do is wait. But I can do those things. I can reach out. I can share their faces and their stories. So I will. They deserve it.

God is doing a new thing.
VLADIK HAS A FAMILY!
AND, we hope to have some very good news to share about our Sweet One very shortly!! Yay!

God is moving hearts.

I have no idea how God plans to bring these families out, but it’s not my job to understand. All I’m supposed to do is tell the story and be faithful with what’s been given to me.

I have confidence and I have anxiety at the same time. I write with ease one minute and delete paragraphs in another. I remember God’s truth and promises in the morning and forget them in the afternoon. I have issues. 🙂

All this is to say, get ready. Open your eyes. Open your hearts.
2015 is their year. You’re about to meet some true treasures. We love them so much it hurts. PRECIOUS.

I can’t wait to introduce them to you!!!!