Hello Friends, Jed here.

There are some big changes on the horizon for Wide Awake International, and I want to share those changes with each of the valued members of the Wide Awake Community. Kim and I are so incredibly thankful for your generous partnership and it’s important to us that every person who invests in this work is up to date on decisions we have made. 

If you have followed this work for a minute, you know that we Johnsons have been living apart for the past year and a half. We are still very much in love, but the needs of our boys have taken me to the US to help our son Seth get the medical, emotional, and educational support we just couldn’t get for him in Ukraine. Kim, our girls who are still school-aged, and Vlad have been on the Homestead in Ukraine with our team and all the other boys. As you can imagine, living on two sides of the Atlantic with no airport in Ukraine has been a big stretch for us. 

This year apart was a test to see if we could even get the support Seth needed here in the States. He has begun to thrive with the right counseling, medication, and an amazing school (GO SAXONS). We can see now that it is 100% the right choice to have him in the US as he finishes up high school. There is now hope for his future that was lacking when he was home in Ukraine.  

Seth isn’t our only son whose needs haven’t been fully met in Ukraine. Boris’ medical needs seem to be beyond the scope or desire of our local medical professionals. We’ve beaten down the doors of too many specialists to count and no one is interested in seeing Boris as valuable and treating him as such. For example, it was recently suggested by an orthopedic surgeon that we just amputate his foot rather than try to do corrective surgery! Bmo also struggles with severe gastrointestinal issues that need intervention. For years we have wanted to more deeply address these issues, but we knew we would need more time abroad than a summer trip to the US to truly help him heal. Vlad also has some medical issues that are not able to be addressed well in our city in Ukraine. 

That all brings us to the big change up ahead. After much prayer and seeking wise counsel, we have decided that it’s time for us to all be together as a family. Kim, Hava, Evie, and Vlad will be relocating to be with us in Oregon at the end of the summer and we are feverishly working to find a way for our son, Boris (AKA Bmo), to come with us. There are currently some legal barriers to Bmo staying in the US as he is not a US citizen, but in our minds, his presence is non-negotiable. He is a part of our family and he has to be with us. Our need to be together in the States as a family gives us the opportunity to seek medical care and rehabilitation for Boris, Vlad, and Seth- the first three boys that God brought into our family so many years ago.  

This is not a sneaky way of breaking the news that the Johnsons are transitioning back to the States permanently. Our home and community is in Ukraine. We plan to live out our days on the Homestead in Ukraine with our people. This is a temporary solution to give our boys long-term health and the best chance of bright and full futures.

The homestead in Ukraine continues to thrive. Masha, our new Executive Director who has been transitioning into this role for the past few years, is doing a fabulous job leading the mission and developing our work and our voice in the wider community. The new house-building project you funded is rapidly taking shape, and our Ukrainian fundraising team is on track to raise 10% of this year’s annual budget for Dim Hidnosti. Our other boys all live with wonderful Ukrainian families and they are loved, safe, and on their paths of healing. It’s an exciting time in the life of our work on the ground in Ukraine. It’s painful for us because life on the Homestead with our team and with our boys is our heart, but we really feel God asking us to say YES to this next step of finding health and healing for three of our boys in the US. Saying YES to the next thing has been our strategy all these years and were aren’t about to change the strategy now, just because the YES looks different than we imagined. God has been faithful for more than a decade now and we know we can trust him. 

The amazing Wide Awake community has walked with us through times of moving, adoption, guardianship, building, war, refugee life, resettling, and the current exciting time of growth for the team in Ukraine. This next YES is a pivot for us that we honestly didn’t see coming and we can’t make this transition without your ongoing support. Here is a list of ways you can support the vision of thriving families for our boys:

1. We need a doctor and medical institution to agree to oversee Boris’s medical care and rehabilitation as a charity case so we can request a visa for his travel to the US. If you know a gastroenterologist, a foot and ankle surgeon, an orthopedic surgeon, or a general practitioner who might be willing to help our Bmo free of charge, please let us know and we can get you the pertinent information about his health needs.

2. We are looking for a home in Oregon with four bedrooms and not too many stairs.

3. We need the finances to relocate the Johnson’s home base back to the US for this season and cover the costs of living in America, which as you can imagine are quite a bit higher than in Ukraine.

4.  We need the finances for increased travel for Kim and I so we can take turns making regular trips back to Ukraine to support the team. They can run the day-to-day work in Ukraine without us, but they still need our presence. We have to make traveling to the Homestead a priority while we are away. 

If you have any questions or would like to know more please email me at jjohnson@wideawakeinternational.org and I will be sure to get back to you. Thank you for continuing to walk this journey with us as we say YES to the next thing God is asking of us. 

Today’s newsletter is brought to you by Christiana ❤️

Carpe Diem… Carpe Carpathians! 

Well ya’ll, we have returned from the Carpathian Mountains, our first team trip/retreat since the start of the full-scale war. And for me, my first team trip ever! There were a lot of reasons that it didn’t make sense to travel the last few years (starting with everyone just being grateful to be back home after their time as refugees in Germany… no one wanted to go ANYWHERE). But we also want to live our lives as normally as possible, and the time felt right. We were ready to pack up our boys and team and make the 7 hour trek to the region of the Carpathian mountains that stretches across southwestern Ukraine. (Okay, it actually took us 11 hours on the way there once you factor in all of the bathroom breaks and various stops 🤣 But we managed the trip home in only 8 hours, so we were getting back in the swing of traveling with our boys) 

I’ll admit, as excited as I was to see the Carpatians for the first time, I had a bit of trepidation as I looked forward to this trip. It was the first time Yarik and Vova have slept anywhere other than their own beds since coming home from Germany. How would they handle the change? It was my first attempt at anticipating what to pack for a 6 day trip with them 😜 and figuring out how to manage Vova’s diet while traveling for more than a meal or two. Also, three of the English speakers on our team were not able to come for various reasons, so my communication landscape was going to be a bit drier than at home. (Side note: I am so spoiled/blessed to live with Dajana, who a) speaks a second language constantly when the two of us are together, which allows me to speak my native language and b) speaks Ukrainian better than me and thus regularly bridges the gap for me when I don’t fully understand something. God has been kind to me in this way and also I’m impressed by how Dajana adjusts with grace to the language needs of others) 

Anyway, the Carpathians were AMAZING. The boys did great at handling the stress of being outside their normal routines and in a new place. The team was awesome, and everyone worked together to give the boys a great vacation and other team members time to relax and have fun, too. It was good to be together in a beautiful place and just organically build our relationships with the boys and each other. My soul (and everyone else’s) got a good dose of mountains, which doesn’t seem like a big deal until you are surrounded by mountains and feel that mountain sense of awe… and we live in a totally flat place. The trip was just a gift, and I’m grateful that we were able to go. 

1. Vlad, Nina, her daughter Evangelina and son Seriozha, Ruslan, & Evie 2. Anton 3. Maxim & Natasha  4. Ruslan & Jed 5. Dem’yan (repping his Dim Hidnosti shirt which reads “Dim Hidnosti/House of Dignity, a place where the heart is at home”)  6. Vlad 7. Lesya, Anton, Valya, Vlad, Tonya, Vova, Yarik, Ezra, Masha, Christiana  8. Vlad, Tanya, Anton, Maxim, Ruslan, Valya, Evangelina, Evie, Vova, Christiana, Nina, Seriozha, Lesya, Yarik

From my perspective, here were a few highlights of the trip: Our friend Maxim, whose mother has asked Jed to become his guardian after she passes away/is unable to care for him, came with us on the trip, and his mother was able to come too! She is elderly and had never visited these beautiful mountains in her own country, and said it was a dream of hers to see them before she died. Being able to include them both was such a joy.  We took the boys on a trip to a ski resort town, where they rode up a ski lift to the top of the mountain. For most of them, hiking would be neither accessible nor particularly enjoyable, so this was a perfect way for them to experience nature and have their own mountaintop experience. Also, riding a ski lift was it’s own exciting activity for the physical thrill seekers in our crew… and a chance for some others to be brave 😉 Everyone who went up loved being on top of the mountain. The pool at the hotel became our natural gathering point. While we rotated between being officially with the boys or free each day, I loved seeing everyone gravitate towards being together when they were on the grounds of the hotel. For our team, this is their work, their livelihood. So to see in these kinds of moments that it is not just their work, but also their joy to spend time together with our boys is sweet and meaningful.  We have 4 women who’ve joined the team after their young adult children were already working for Wide Awake… so we have a growing contingent of the team around the same age whom I affectionately refer to as “the moms.” Watching them living it up on vacation was so fun, and often hilarious. I’ve seen some of them get in the pool with our boys before, but watching them excitedly go down the hotel slip-n-slide on their day off (or host parties in their rooms after the boys were asleep, or go swimming in the canyon, etc.) was another level.  I can’t resist a little psychology moment: the moderate stress for the boys of being away from home and doing new things out of their normal routine is perfect for where all of our guys are at right now in their healing journeys. All of them have been home and stable long enough that this was a “just right” level of challenge to stretch them in healthy ways. To experience that stress surrounded by people who know and love them, then to experience coming back home, is truly therapeutic. 

1. Valya and her son, Maxim (Valya is not a smiler, so it’s difficult to know when she is having a great time 😉) 2. Our team members Valya and Natasha. (I’m telling you, the moms were living their best lives. Yes, that is a medal for summiting the mountain) 3. Vlad, Yarik, & Jed on the ski lift 4. Nina, Maxim, Natasha, Seriozha, Andriy, Anton, Valya, Tanya, Vova, Irina, Boris, Valya, Vlad 5. I can’t even see who all is together by the pool. A lot of us 🤷‍♀️ 6. Ruslan 7. Lesya & Ruslan (side note: it was super sweet seeing Ruslan with Lesya. They’ve known each other for years, but there is a subtle shift in how Ruslan relates to Max & Lesya now that they are his house parents)  8. Anton & Nina

My summary review of our trip: 10/10 would do again 😉
Wishing you sunny and peaceful skies,
Christiana

BeLOVE[d] 🇺🇦

Hi Friends!

I apologize for the spotty newsletter coverage over the past month. Things have been [more than a little] unusual for our family and it’s been difficult to gather our thoughts and send them out to you. But I hate leaving you hanging, so today I’ll give you an update and then hopefully we’ll be able to return to our regularly scheduled newsletters. 🙃

As I wrote in the blog last October, it’s gotten harder and harder over the years to parse out what to share with you when it comes to our family. Not the big, Wide Awake Family, but our Johnson family. This story all started with our adoption journey waaaaay back in 2011, but then over the past 12 years, only by the grace and power of God, has transformed into a story of redemption that involves a whole team, 2 organizations, our precious boys, and way too many animals. I’m aware that there are many of you that read about our work, pray for the work, and financially support the work but have never met Jed or me. To you, this isn’t the story of the Johnson Family, this is just Wide Awake. But I also know that there are many of you who have known us personally since the beginning, and the story of Wide Awake, to you, is intricately entwined with the story of our nuclear family. And for those of you who know us, or have “known us” through blogs for many years, I know you have some questions. “What is going on with Jed and Kim????” Today, I will attempt to answer those questions with as much openness as possible, while still maintaining the dignity of all involved.  

As many of you know, our story of orphan care and adoption didn’t begin in Ukraine. When we were still living in the US we were foster parents of medically fragile infants for several years. Our last foster baby, Seth, eventually became our son. We brought Seth home from the hospital as a newborn and the story of his adoption was just one miracle after another. God made it very clear back then that he wanted Seth to be a part of our family and moved mountains to make it happen. He was and is our precious baby whom we love fiercely. 

Seth is okay with me sharing his story, so I share today with his blessing, FYI. 
Our Seth was born addicted to methamphetamine and his road has not been an easy one. We moved to Ukraine when he was only 3 years old, so at that point we still didn’t really know how his would be affected by the methamphetamine, because three year olds are three year olds…if you know what I mean. 😆 He had his struggles, but seemed to be developing pretty typically. 

Once Seth hit school age his struggles became more apparent, and then as he has grown, his struggles have grown. The older and bigger he gets, the more his behaviors affect him and others around him. We tried many, many methods of helping him to be successful in Ukrainian school with very little success. The educational standards in Ukraine are extremely high and there is no formal special ed programs or support, so if you need additional help or need to learn in a different way, there is no real help to be found. So school was a huge stress, but then home life also became more and more difficult and unsustainable. I won’t share details, because it’s very personal to our family, but it came to a point last winter when we understood that the help Seth needed was not to be found in Ukraine. Believe you me, we tried EVERYTHING. We are used to beating down every door to find help for our boys, but for someone like Seth, true help is nowhere to be found. 

Last winter we made the truly agonizing decision that after our Christmas visit Seth needed to stay in the US for a season so we could find help and support for him, not only for his sake, but for the sake of the rest of the family. So Jed and Seth stayed in Oregon, we enrolled him in school and began to seek out help from doctors and from adoption support services. As I’m sure you can imagine, there are no “quick” answers. and finding the right supports for Seth and our family has been and is, a time-intensive endeavor. So, this summer we had to make the difficult decision to continue on with Seth in the US for at least another semester of school. I’m here with him now in Oregon, getting housing all set up, enrolling him in school, and getting other supports in place, while Jed is in Ukraine with our other kids. At the end of August we will trade places- Jed will be here with Seth and I  will return to the Homestead. 

These decisions have not been made lightly, but have been made with many tears and sleepless nights. We are legally bound to our boys in Ukraine and our entire life is there, on the Homestead with our team and boys. It is not possible for our entire Johnson family to relocate to the US and leave our boys in Ukraine. We are their guardians. At the same time, Seth needs help that can’t be found in Ukraine. So, what are we to do? The only thing to do is divide and conquer. 

Jed and I have grieved so much over these past months. We have grieved that our life has come to this: that we have to live on opposite sides of the world during a time of war. We have grieved the loss of our ideal of family life. We have cried over Seth and begged God to heal his heart and mind. We have felt loss like we could have never imagined, and like I can’t even begin to describe. 

When I came to the US with Seth three weeks ago I felt completely hopeless. I felt like the lowest of the low. I felt forgotten and forsaken by the Lord and completely alone in my grief. But this time away has been a bit of a balm to my soul. God has provided wonderful housing for us. He has allowed Seth to be enrolled in a high school where my friend works who has always loved Seth. He has brought professionals along to encourage me and validate our struggle. I have been reminded to be thankful that we have the opportunity and capability to travel with Seth to where help can be found. Yes, it is extremely hard for Jed and I to be separated, but God is sustaining us. When we moved to Ukraine we went there to take people with disabilities out of institutions. Now we have come to the US with Seth in order to keep him out of an institutional setting. He is our child, our baby, and he needs our love now like never before. God gave him to us, so we will say YES and move forward, one step in front of the other. 

In the meantime, our amazing team keeps the work going and flourishing in Ukraine. Jed and I take turns at the helm on the Homestead, but our crew there gets the work done with amazing dignity, love, and hope. All is well, the work goes on, and our boys are thriving. 

Please keep our family in your prayers when you remember us. And please pray for our Seth. Pray that nothing would stand in the way of him becoming the man he was created to be. Pray for healing in his mind and heart. 

Thank you so much for loving us and our boys. Thank you for standing with us through all the storms that have come our way. If you have any questions or concerns we are happy to talk, so go ahead and ask away. ❤️

Wishing you sunny and peaceful skies,

Kim 🇺🇦

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Baby Lia Update

Remember our sweet Lia who was born at 28 weeks? Nina and Ruslan, her parents, are on our team. I’m writing today to ask you to pray for our sweet baby. She has always struggled with feeding, but in recent weeks has become nearly impossible to feed. Nina has resorted to feeding her with syringe. Supports in our city are super minimal for a baby like Lia, so Nina feels she has to tackle this all on her own. She is frustrated, tired, and worried for her baby girl. 

Please pray for a wise, caring doctor to help Lia and for wisdom and patience for Nina and Ruslan. We love our little Lia so much and it hurts to watch her suffer. Please pray for complete wholeness for her little body. Thank you! 🥰

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New Property Renovation 💪

We recently purchased a neighboring house with land and need to renovate it to make it livable for our Ruslan and his house parents, Max and Lesya. 

Here’s the list of what needs to be done to get the house move-in ready:
– New sub-floor and flooring
– New roof and bedroom on the second floor
– Plumbing: water and sewer
– Electrical: wires, outlets, lighting
– Heating
– Interior walls
– Bathroom
– Kitchen
– Appliances
– Furniture 

The goal is $60,000 to get the family moved on to the homestead. 
If you would like to help build Ruslan’s home, please consider making a donation by clicking the link below.

Thank you for your partnership!

Yesterday was an absolute momentous day in Wide Awake/Dim Hidnosti history; the turning of a page, the beginning of a new chapter. A part of the story that seemed like a pipe dream all those years ago has become a reality and we are all in celebration mode because of it.

Yesterday Oleg was granted legal guardianship of Sasha by the court, and in that decision Oleg and Masha have legally committed their lives to Sasha, “till death do us part”. In reality, the court was simply recognizing the position of their hearts for more than a year now, but the legal binding of it is a weight that they have not carried before. It’s one thing to live as houseparents, but it’s another thing to legally bind yourselves to one of our boys for life. Now with joy Oleg and Masha pick up that weight of responsibility and continue forward along the path of bringing hope, love, and dignity to our boys. Jed and I couldn’t be more proud of them or more honored to walk this journey alongside them. ❤️

Masha and Oleg started the guardianship process almost exactly a year ago, hoping for a quick, speed-bump free process. Well, we live in Ukraine, so those hopes were squashed quite quickly. 😂 We live in the land of perpetual speed bumps and literal potholes. Court was supposed to happen last month and the three of us, Oleg, Masha, and I went to the courthouse as planned, but once there were notified that the judge was unavailable and they would have to reschedule. So yesterday we went to the courthouse with plenty of nerves and hopes that at least SOMETHING would happen and we wouldn’t just be put off again. Masha is pregnant and baby (their first) is due on June 15th, so we were all hoping to have the guardianship question resolved before the birth.

Our lawyer, who is actually a faithful Dim Hidnosti volunteer, spent a lot of time prepping Oleg for the hearing. There are often cases these days of men trying to gain guardianship of someone with a disability in order to escape military service, so the courts are quite suspicious of anyone coming with a guardianship case. Our lawyer advised us that it could be difficult and we should expect suspicion and hard questions. We understood the hesitation of the courts, but also felt a bit frustrated that we just want to do something good and right, and to have it met with suspicion would likely feel a bit sad and defeating. But we also really tried to just trust God that Sasha and Oleg’s lives are in his hands and prayed that His will would be done.

One of the differences with the legal system here is that jurors serve regularly for a certain period of time with a certain judge on every case. Beсause of that, the attorneys know the jurors ahead of time and become familiar with their perspectives on certain types of cases. Our lawyer was quite concerned about one of the jurors that would be on our case. He warned Oleg about her, the secretaries warned us about her…she was to be feared. Apparently her son serves in the military and she is very suspicious about and hard on anyone whose case outcome would include exemption from military service. Again, I understand her perspective for sure, but we knew military exemption was not Oleg’s ultimate goal in pursuing guardianship of Sasha, so we prayed that the truth would win and her heart would be soft.

So yesterday we arrived at the courthouse with plenty of time to spare and our lawyer gave Oleg some last minute instructions. Then we waited. And waited some more. We waited for an hour before anything happened- plenty of times for our nerves to fry. 😁 Then the judge came out, called the jurors into his office, they talked for 10 minutes or so, and came out of his office with a decision of YES! They didn’t even have a hearing and they didn’t even ask Oleg any questions. We were shocked and a little dumbfounded. Seriously??? Just like that???? What the heck even? But okay, if you say so! It was amazingly fast and hassle-free (read between the lines…not your usual Ukrainian government experience).

Afterwards, Oleg was sitting at a desk there in the hallway doing some of the finalization documents with the lawyer and the jurors came out of the judge’s office. That juror that everyone was afraid of and warned us about? She came up to me with tears in her eyes and asked if she could give me a hug. Apparently she had been out to our property once (I don’t remember her at all), remembered me, and knew about our work. 🤷‍♀️ Through tears she told us how important and valuable our work is. “Not just anyone can do that work but you somehow have super strength to do it. From the bottom of my heart I wish you long life and health so you can help more and more people.” She told us that many people can go fight in the war, but not everyone can do the work that we do and do it well. That is why she wanted Oleg to be able to stay with us and become Sasha’s guardian. Can you believe that??? Not only was she not suspicious, she was moved to tears by our work and believes that what we do is super valuable for the community. Well, if God is for us who can be against us? Am I right?

A beautiful and historical day was made even more special by the way God moved the hearts of men to fulfill his plan. Oleg and Masha’s decision is a sign to all Ukrainians that this is not just a work for foreigners. This is a work that Ukrainians can and should do. Decisions like the one made by the court yesterday are the ones that will change this country for the good.

We are so immensely grateful to God for how he consistently shows us that He is for us. This work and our boys are so important to him. Nothing will stand in the way of him completing the work that he has set out to do. We are so humbled and thankful to be along for the ride. ❤️

“We are not called by God to do extraordinary things, but to do ordinary things with extraordinary love. ” ― Jean Vanier

This final Advent video is about the love of a family. It is about a love that transforms. Oleg and Masha live on the Wide Awake Homestead as the houseparents of Sasha and Anton. They have chosen a life of community and sacrificial love. The transformation and healing of our boys don’t happen in the romantic, miraculous one-time event of taking them from the institution. No, the transformation and healing happen through the safety and security that come through all the mundane, daily things of life: coffee together in the mornings, cozy winter evenings on the couch, hundreds of meals cooked and eaten together, house cleaning, and trips to the grocery store. Healing happens for our boys when they know and feel safety and when they know and feel love. They were deprived of love for so many years and it is the greatest gift we can give them. Oleg and Masha have chosen to spend their lives loving our boys and that steady, daily choice is creating beauty and redemption. In this final week of Advent, let us love with our whole selves. Let us give of ourselves to people who may never be able to repay us in the ways the world would value, and then let the love of Christ fill us all. Merry Christmas! 🌟

It’s the day after Christmas and we all feel like we need at least a day to recover from the festivities. Ha! Are you with me?

For real though, we had a wonderful time together here on the Homestead. We started the day each in our own homes; our family celebrated at home with cinnamon rolls, stockings, and gifts. Then all of us on the Homestead gathered in Side A of the ol’ duplex to spend the day together. There was so.much.food. We cooked together, gave our boys gifts, and had a few moments of relaxation. Mostly we just enjoyed being together with nowhere to be and no meetings or plans to attend to. Then in the evening, we had the crazy idea to take the boys caroling. We loaded everyone up in the vans and drove around the city for three hours, loading the boys in and out of the vans, singing, managing emotions and toileting, and giving gifts. It was a little bit insane and a lot special. I’m hesitant to say it’ll be our new tradition, but I know it meant a great deal to our team. If we’ve recovered from it by next year we might give it another go. 😂

There’s a simmering happening here in Ukraine. I definitely can’t speak for the rest of the country, but in our little corner of Ukraine, there is a palpable feeling of unrest rising. We know we lack the funding to win the war at this point. There are differing views of what a “win” would even mean and a building uncertainty that the win we are hoping for and dreaming of will ever be a reality. Air raids have once again become a daily event and the hits on Kyiv and in our region increase our vigilance once more. But the bigger stress comes from the President’s declaration that 500,000 more Ukrainian men will be conscripted into the military. Summons are being given anywhere and everywhere and the city feels tense, like everyone is holding their breath…waiting for the shoe to drop. We are all painfully aware that there are simply not enough men to fight this war. We know so, so many are dying every day to keep us safe, and many more still will. Each and every one of us knows more men must join the fight, but we hold the ones we love close to us, hoping anyone but them will be chosen.

In this moment of new uncertainty, our Ukrainian family’s faith is being tested in a new way. The question of who our lives belong to has never been more real and actual. The priorities of our hearts are being uncovered once again. What does it truly mean to entrust our lives and the lives of our family to God? What does it truly mean to hand over our whole selves to God? Each man has to decide if he will entrust his life and the life of his family to God, or if he will take matters into his own hands and try to make his own way. And each has to again come to the understanding that God never promised us physical safety. He never promised us that we would not walk through hard times. He never promised us lives of peace. But He did promise that He would never leave us or forsake us. He did promise that when we walked through the fire – He would be there with us. The invitation to surrender our lives to God is not an easy one to accept, but Jed and I have learned over the years (and are still learning) that the safest and most peaceful place to be is exactly where God has asked us to be. The best life for our children is in the place where God has called their parents. We will never ever understand the decision that Ukrainian men are making at this moment in history, and we won’t pretend to understand. But we can understand what it is to walk forward with Jesus, even when it doesn’t make sense, even when the way is unclear. God has not always called us to an easy life. These past 10 years have been filled with much heartache and many moments of pain and uncertainty, but God has never once left our sides. Again, we know we don’t understand what it feels like to be Ukrainian right now, but God’s promises do not change. So all we can do is remind our family here of what God has promised and remain close to them during this most difficult time.

In this Christmas season, when it feels that in some areas of life, hope is lost, we choose to lift our heads.

I lift up my eyes to the mountains—
    where does my help come from?
My help comes from the Lord,
    the Maker of heaven and earth.

Psalm 121:1,2

Friends, if we are followers of Jesus our lives are not our own. Everything we have, all that we are, we can give to Him. He is faithful. We can place our hope and our faith in Him- not because He is safe, but because He is good. Comfort and safety are not the final goal. He is our goal. He is our prize. A life given to Him is the only life truly worth living.

If you lack hope this Christmas season, lift up your head. Just look at how much God loves our boys, that He would gather this whole team here on the Homestead to pluck them out of obscurity and bring them into the love of a family. Not because they did anything special, but just because he loves them so very much. His love for you is the same. You can count on Him.

Merry Christmas from Ukraine. Thank you for supporting us and loving us along this journey. Thank you for continuing to stand with us and for praying for us. We appreciate you and pray the hope of Jesus fills your heart this day. ❤️

Last week Ruslan and Jed returned home to us at long, long last. Oh, the sweet relief and joy of having them safe and sound, back in our arms. Annnnnnd they brought home with them our dear Christiana! Christiana is a friend of ours and of Wide Awake/Dim Hidnosti for many years. Her dream (and ours) was that once she finished grad school she would come spend a longer period of time here with us as a house parent, living with the boys. At long last, she finished and now she is here! It still doesn’t feel quite real that she’ll be with us for a full two years. I think we all feel a bit of the “pinch me” feelings. 🙂

Now that Jed is home and Christiana is here we really do have what we have always dreamed of. We have our boys living in our beautiful homes and we have amazing house parents living with them, building family. And a huge bonus is that all of us living here on the Homestead truly love and like each other! What we have is something special and right now I’m really feelin’ all the feels about it.

Dajana and Christiana love the boys and are feeling inspired to finally make Side A of the duplex a real home. Just in time for the coziness of the holidays, too! Dajana has such a calm, intuitive way with the boys that you would never know this work was absolutely, completely new to her just a few short months ago. She’s a natural and I’m pretty sure she’s happily surprised by that. 🙂 Christiana is new to us but is already thoughtfully considering how she can create meaningful time with the boys in the evenings when it’s family time. I love that! Oleg and Masha have done a really great job of making Side B into a true home for Anton and Sasha. They are dream house parents and are an example to us all of how to live life not just physically “with” the boys, but to really and truly live with them. To invite them into family, to look at them as equals, and to consider their wants and desires as humans in this world. I, for one, am inspired by them all the time.

What we have together here on the Homestead is a living, breathing, loving community and I feel so honored to be a part of it. Masha recently wrote her thoughts about community life on our team’s Instagram and Facebook pages and what she wrote was so beautiful it made me a little teary. Here’s the translation (Just a reminder, “Dim Hidnosti” translated “Dignity Home” or “House of Dignity” is the Ukrainian arm of Wide Awake. It is the name of Wide Awake’s work that is done here in Ukraine, simply because “Wide Awake” doesn’t translate well into Ukrainian) :

Life in Community
“In this era of individualism, people have begun to lose their sense of community and interdependence with others❌. In a society where no one owes anyone anything, unfortunately, there is very little room left for creating a community where all move in the same direction.

But do people need community now?
As we have already verified over the past year and a half – community, for us, is a huge driving force💪! Without community in various forms of its existence, it would not be possible to achieve goals for the benefit of society. Therefore, the development of local communities right now is very important for the further development of our country.

In a society where ‘no one owes anyone anything’, deinstitutionalization, saving children and adults from institutions, would not be possible. If ‘I don’t owe anyone anything’, then the innocent suffer. People remain defenseless at the hands of the institutional system and there is no one to help them 💔. Would we want such a fate for ourselves, our children, our relatives? Then why should others be condemned to loneliness and a life without a family? We cannot choose to exist only for ourselves – we simply do not have the right to do so while there is such injustice in the world. We must act, join local communities that are already helping people, or create them ourselves 🙌🏻

Would it be possible for the ‘House of Dignity’ (Dim Hidnosti) to exist without community? We can say with confidence: NO. Only in community and unity is it possible to achieve the goal we have set for ourselves – to give dignity, hope, and love to people with disabilities ❤️‍🩹.
The community of Dim Hidnosti is protection, support, and family for the men with disabilities who live with us. Moreover, we are their only family forever.

Community is a calling. Not every person can choose such a life for himself, because it requires full disclosure of your personality to other members of the community 🫣. To see imperfection in yourself and others and to have the courage to forgive, recover, recognize your right to make mistakes, and give this right to others 🤝….
We appear before everyone as we are, without decorations – and there is always a risk of not being accepted or being rejected. But, is it worth taking the risk and finding out what community acceptance and love can be like and how lifelong friendships can realize and fulfill dreams? 🙌🏻

Dim Hidnosti is a place of restoration and healing, not only for our boys but also for those of us who have dedicated our lives to them.
This healing and restoration is possible when every member of our community gives their heart to the work.
We are grateful for every person who has been with us, who is with us now, and who will come to Dim Hidnosti because each has given a part of their life and heart to our boys and this community ❤️.”

The longer I am a part of this community/family God has brought together the more beautiful it becomes and the more thankful I become. Is it always an easy life, living in close community where your actions affect everyone and their actions affect you? Heck no! Sometimes it hurts. Sometimes it’s tiring. Sometimes it’s disappointing. But is it worth it? Yes, a thousand times yes. I wouldn’t give up the gift of my Dim Hidnosti family for all the world. They are God’s gift to me and there is nowhere else I would rather be.

Please don’t live life alone. Seek out community. Open your eyes, your heart, your arms, your home. I am certain there is someone who needs what you have to give and your life will be so much richer for having given. We were not meant to walk this life alone. Life together is so much more beautiful.

It’s that time of year again. I can hardly believe it! Summer flew by in a haze of peppers, pickles, puppy, and the pool. (see what I did there…hehe) For reals, it went by so fast! I’m not a mom that gets super excited about her kids returning to school. Sure, I can get more done for work when they are gone at school, but I like having them here! I love the freedom of summer. It’s bliss to not have to have them out the door super early in the morning. I’m a firm believer of letting sleeping children lie and it absolutely goes against my morals to wake my kids up bright and early each morning for school. I detest it! But, summer can’t last forever, so alas, we are crawling our way back into the swing of things.

This is our ninth year in Ukrainian school and we’ve come a long way, baby. It actually hurts my stomach to think about our first 2 or 3 years in Ukrainian school. We knew nothing, understood little, and every day was a lesson in how much we didn’t know. It’s not even just about the language (although most of it was about the language, let’s be honest) but it was also little things like, there are no school supply lists here. You just have to know what is required, and everyone knows the requirements because they never change. There are these little notebooks that the kids need for every subject with different types of lines on them. Slanted lines for the first couple of years while kids are learning to write, grid lines for math and other “mathy” type subjects, and then regular lines for other subjects. But that’s not all! All those different types of notebooks have different varieties with different numbers of pages…so you also need to know how big of a notebook to buy, depending on the grade and the subject. These are not things you ask about, these are things you just “know” because this is how it’s always been. Now it’s second nature for us and school shopping is a breeze, but man oh man, it wasn’t always that way.

Now, entering our 9th year in Ukrainian school and our 8th year in our current school, I can confidently say that we are solidly a part of the school community and our kids are just one of the crowd. They are just Hava, Seth, and Evie. They are not “The Americans” or something special and weird. I feel glad about that and proud of my kids for how far they’ve come. I’m also super thankful to God for leading us to our current school. My kids feel at home there and I know the teachers care about them. That’s not something you can find just anywhere.

So how old are the kids and which grades are they in? For those of you who have followed our family for a long time, I’ll share the deets, starting with the youngest.

Evie Joy is 5 years old and is in her last year of preschool/kindergarten. Kids start first class here when they are 6, so next year she will officially be in school. Crazy! The kindergarten is in the same building as the school and is a Montessori school. Evie loves to go there and I think it’s a wonderful environment for her. It has been a huge blessing to us to have her there.

Seth is 13 and is in 7th class. Seventh class is when they begin algebra, geometry, physics, and chemistry, so that’s a bit intimidating! Seth has an individual learning plan because of his diagnoses, and the class has an aide available for when he needs extra help. Last year he had his best year yet, so we are hopeful that this year will also go well. He has some good friends at school and socially he doesn’t struggle at all. He is the football star of his class, so as you can imagine, PE is his current reason for getting up each day. 🙂

Havalah is 14 and in 8th class. She doesn’t love school, but is smart and generally does really well. She has some good friends at school and feels her place there. She’s also really involved in our church and the youth group there. She’s doing great and is growing into a wonderful, beautiful person.

Ezra is 17 and will be a senior!! He is currently finishing up his last little bit of junior year work online and will start senior work in October. Our time in Germany really messed up his schooling trajectory, poor guy. But we are hopeful that with a lighter senior year he will be able to graduate next summer. He is doing an American program online so he can get a US diploma. Ezra is also working as an intern for Dim Hidnosti (the Ukrainian arm of Wide Awake) and is on the church youth group lead team, so he keeps quite busy. The kid is never home, I swear. But, when I do see him he is a delight. 🙂 I’m super proud of the man he is and is becoming.

Addie is 19 and just began her first college classes this week! My baby is all grown up. Addie is living in Montana with Jed’s parents and is starting the pre-nursing program at a community college there. She’s working as a barista and is excited to finally begin her journey to becoming an RN. She’s wanted this for a long time. Since moving to the US in the spring she got her driver’s license, her CNA license, and her first real job. I’m so happy for her and proud of her and all the adulting she’s having to do with her parents so far away. We are really thankful that she is with Jed’s parents and has other extended family nearby to support her. She is not alone and that calms my heart a lot.

Vlad is 23(!) and is living with my parents in Oregon. He has been with them for a little over a year now and is doing really well. We left him there after our visit last summer so that he could get his teeth treated by an orthodontist. He has braces and his teeth have changed so much! This week he will have 8 teeth pulled and then I think we will see even more progress. Vlad works 2 days a week at a company that employs people with disabilities. He does landscaping and they told my mom he is their star employee. No one is surprised by that, right? Ha! Vlad loves to work like no one I’ve ever seen. He’s proud to earn his own money is thriving there with my parents. He recently got baptized at church and that was a big step for him. He’s spent the last few weeks with Jed and Ruslan in California and it has been a really special time for them all.

So, that’s the lowdown with our kids. This is the beginning of the second school year during the full-scale war and true to form, there was an air raid and they had to go down to the bomb shelter on the first day of classes. It’s routine now and no one is particularly bothered by it, but it’s always a reminder of the difficult and crazy time we are living through. I’m just thankful our school has a functioning bomb shelter so our kids are able to study in person.

Thanks for loving our family through all the years. Many of you have been with us from the very beginning when our kids understood nothing I was often wondering if we’d made the biggest mistake of our lives. Whew. We’ve all come a long way. Thanks for sticking with us!

Oh my goodness, have I got a doozy for you today. I was trying to think of a clever title, but decided to just go with the obvious. You are seriously not going to believe this story, but I promise it’s true.

I’m not sure if you know this, but we have a team of builders who live here and do all the constant building and repairing on our property. They built the duplex and are now finishing up the barn and making accessible walkways around the property. We have a goal that all the construction on the Homestead will be done in the next three years and won’t that be a grand day! But until then, our building team of 5 men is a constant fixture on the Homestead. During the week they live in the old house at the front of the property and on the weekends they go home to their village about 50km away. They don’t have a ton of interaction with our boys, but they are always kind to them and the boys know them.

So, a few weeks ago one of the builders, a young guy named Vadim, was cleaning out the boiler room of the duplex. The duplex is heated with a wood boiler and every Friday one of the builders cleans it out. In the boiler room was a box of recycled documents from our office set aside to be burned. Vadim saw on the top of the pile of documents a copy of our Yaroslav’s passport and noticed that Yarik’s last name and patronymic were the same as his girlfriend’s. He snapped a photo of the document with his phone and texted his girlfriend, Vlada. “Hey look, this guy has your same last name. Weird, right?” (It’s not a common last name) Vlada looked at the name and birthdate and was shocked to put two and two together: Yaroslav is her long lost brother. I.Kid.You.Not. The girlfriend of our builder is Yaroslav’s sister!!! What the heck even??? It’s like a Hallmark movie!

This is how it all went down. When Yarik was small and it was discovered that he had a disability his mother put him in an institution. He is 8 years older than Vlada and she never met him, but she always knew she had an older brother with a disability. Yarik and Vlada’s mother was/is an alcoholic and her parental rights were removed when Vlada was small and Vlada was placed in an orphanage. She was typically developing, so she was not placed with Yaroslav. When she was 4 years old she was adopted by a good, loving family. Vlada always remembered she had a brother and when she was a teenager she decided to try to find him. She contacted her birth mother and was told that Yaroslav had died. She was too late. We don’t know why the mother told her that because we all know that Yarik is very much alive and well with us here on the Homestead. Imagine Vlada’s surprise when she got that text from her boyfriend! Ha!

The discovery about the relationship was made on a Friday afternoon and that very Sunday Vadim and Vlada showed up here on the Homestead. She just couldn’t wait to meet her long lost brother. Over the past month Vlada has visited Yarik here several times. She comes just to be with him, to sit with him, to get to know him. We don’t know if Yaroslav understands what a sister is, but he 100% understands that Vlada is someone special in his life. He asks for her almost every day and cries when she leaves to go home. He showers her with kisses and basks in her attention. He understands that she is there just for him and he adores her. For our Yarik, who’s need for love and attention is like a bottomless pit, Vlada’s presence in his life is a most beautiful, unexpected gift. And for Vlada to know her brother and to have a safe, warm, inviting place to build relationship with him- well, it’s just all around amazing.

Today we will celebrate Yaroslav’s 28th birthday and his sister, Vlada, will be joining us. He will be surrounded by all the people who love him: his big Wide Awake family and his very own sister. God’s love for Yarik and Vlada is just crazy big and we are thankful to be witnesses to it.

BeLOVE[d]

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