It’s been a long time since I’ve talked about Romaniv in this space! Sadly, that’s because it’s been so long since we’ve been able to regularly spend time there with our boys.

Every year, usually sometime during January and February, Romaniv shuts itself off to visitors. They call it “Quarantine”. They were doing quarantine long before it became a worldwide “thing”. 😉 It makes sense that they would do that each year. Jan/Feb is usually the peak of flu season and they want to protect the boys from people coming in with all the winter germs. So, this year, before COVID was even a thought in Ukraine, Romaniv was already in quarantine.

Then…COVID.

Romaniv was quarantined for many many months. Finally in the summer they told us we could come, but we didn’t feel good about it. We really wanted to make sure we didn’t unnecessarily expose the boys to the virus, and we just felt it wasn’t time. We decided to wait.

Then came the fall, and the realization that waiting is not going to do much good. As much as we hate to admit it, COVID isn’t going away anytime soon, and life must go on. Yes, going to visit could expose the boys to the virus, but not going is not a viable option either. Our boys need to see their friends. They need to be held and loved and safe for a few hours. There are risks to their health if we go, and risks to their mental/emotional health if we stay away. After much prayerful consideration, we felt the green light to begin visiting again.

For three weeks we tried to arrange a meeting with the staff so that we could begin visits, and by the time they were ready to meet, their region had a spike in COVID cases and they closed for another quarantine. NOOO!

All that to say, we still haven’t been able to visit. But, we are waiting (not so) patiently, and as soon as quarantine is lifted, we’ll be there.

One big development that happened in the late summer is that all the boys at Romaniv under the age of 18 were transferred out, to a different institution in Teteriv, and several new adults were transferred in to Romaniv. Those changes came about so the institution could be renamed and reclassified. It has always been called “Romaniv Children’s Home”, even though there were very few actual children there. Out of more than 80 boys, only 5 were legal minors at the time of the proposed name change. Once those 5 were moved out, the institution could be renamed and reclassified. So, “technically” it’s not an orphanage anymore, but we all know that changes nothing. It is still a dark place full of precious souls who desperately need to know the love of family, so a name change makes no difference to us.

We have yet to learn if the move to Teteriv has been beneficial or detrimental to the 5 young ones who were transferred. It’s hard to imagine things could be much worse than they were at Romaniv, although we know that any change is stressful for our boys- even if it’s good change. We don’t have any relationship with the administration there, so we have not attempted a visit yet. Also, all the orphanages are currently quarantined. Sasha, the boy who we hope will be first to live in the duplex was among the 5 that were transferred. Soon Jed will have legal guardianship of him, and then he will have a legal right to visit him at Teteriv. We are hopeful that will help open doors for us to see the other 4 of our boys who were transferred along with Sasha. That reminds me that I need to write a post about Sasha! I’ll do it next week. 🙂

So, while the doors to Romaniv are closed to us, we will keep on keepin’ on here. Our team will keep loving our boys who are already free, and our builders will keep working hard to create a place of beauty for the ones who will soon know freedom.

Would you please join us in praying for our boys at Romaniv and at Teteriv? Pray that God would be so very near to them and that he would bring peace to their hearts. Pray for their safety and health, and that the COVID situation will improve in Ukraine, so that it will be safe for us to visit them again soon.

I promise to keep you updated whenever there is an update to give!

We made this video to share with the student body more about our work here in Ukraine. 🙂

It’s hard to imagine that I started writing on this blog more than 9 years ago. It feels like not long ago, but it also feels like 5 lifetimes ago. Back in those days, Seth was our foster baby and we were hoping to adopt from Ukraine. We had 4 small kids, owned a house, worked our jobs. We had a pretty typical American life.

Now, 9 years later we have 6 kids, plus 3 adults under our guardianship. (Also a dog, 2 cats, 14 chickens, 2 bunnies…and a partridge in a pear tree) We live in a village in Ukraine and our life is kind of the opposite of typical- by American and Ukrainian standards. We’re some kind of strange, no matter how you look at it. 🙂

When I started this blog we had no intention of moving to Ukraine and I started it just as a way to get the word out about our adoption. Then when the tides turned and we ended up started Wide Awake International and moving to Ukraine, the blog remained a great way to communicate. When I felt inspired, I wrote. When I had nothing to say, or when times were particularly rough, I was more quiet (hence the “more quiet” of the past year or so). It was easier to post on social media during those times, because social media posts didn’t require the “inspiration” that I’ve always felt the blog deserved. So, the blog has kind of fallen a bit along the wayside.

But now, now it’s time for the blog to shine again. 🙂

After much consideration, prayer, and studying, we have decided that in two weeks’ time, we will stop sharing about Wide Awake on social media (Facebook and Instagram).

I think social media can be a great thing when it is used in the right way. It can even be beautiful and it can help save lives. Almost all of our boys, who now live in loving families, were found through advocacy on social media. A large number of Wide Awake supporters would have never found out about this work were it not for social media. We will always be thankful for how those platforms helped us share our dream of dignity and love with so many people.

At the same time, we find ourselves more and more at odds, personally, with what social media has become over the past couple of years. We have wanted to “pull the plug” numerous times, especially over this past year, but have felt like it was impossible to have a successful nonprofit without social media. But I guess it all comes down to how you define “success”. If we measure success by the size of our audience and the amount of applause, we may be throwing away our chance of success by leaving social media. But if we measure success by our obedience to Christ, then this is the path to ultimate success. So, this is the direction in which we will walk.

Over the next couple of weeks, I plan to share more about how we came to this decision, but I wanted to at least get the word out there so people will know where to find us online and we don’t lose any friends along the way.

Thank you for loving us and trusting us along this journey. We aren’t going anywhere, we’re just switching up the mode of communication. No need to say goodbye! If you have any questions don’t hesitate to comment or send us a message below.

BeLOVE[d]

In the last blog post “A Call to a Small Life” we hinted at the soon-to-be-revealed job descriptions. The time is come!

Below is the Role Description for “Live-In Assistants” for the new duplex.

We are actively seeking individuals, couples, or families to live in community with us, our boys, and the ones we have yet to bring out of the institution. We are looking for a commitment of at least one year after a successful 90-day trial period. An openness to a longer commitment would be amazing, but is not required.

We are seeking foreigners and Ukrainians to grow this community together. 

Because of the nature of this work and the experience we have had thus far with the deinstitutionalization of our boys, we are not currently open to families with small children living in the home. If you have small children and are interested in joining our team we definitely have a need for “Live-Out” assistants as well. So, please inquire by email if that interests you. kjohnson@wideawakeinternational.org 

____________________________________

Live-In Assistant Job Description

Live-In Assistants are people who choose to live in a Wide Awake International home with adults who have intellectual and possibly physical disabilities, the “core members” of the community. Assistants share life, laughter, and friendship with the core members. Assistants provide skilled direct care supports to core members, ensure their safety and well-being, and support their integrated participation in all aspects of daily life. They are committed to mutual relationships with core members and other assistants in which all parties are recognized as having something to share with the others.

Live-In assistants participate in community prayer, retreats, trainings and celebrations.

To apply:

• Please read the job description and qualifications below

• Contact Kim Johnson for an application at kjohnson@wideawakeinternational.org

Live-In Caregiving Assistant Purpose: Assistants accompany and assist core members in their activities of daily life: creating home and supporting core members in sharing their gifts within the house and the larger community.

Responsibilities relating to:

Community Development

• Uphold and share the vision and hope of the community and maintain the simple life style of the community

• Help extend warm welcome to visitors, including community members, families, neighbors, and merchants

• Encourage households members to develop and nurture friendships within, and especially outside the community

• Attend team and community meetings, community nights, and community activities.

• Help plan celebrations for birthdays, anniversaries, and days of special importance to household members

• Accept community mentoring from more experienced community members

Core Members 

• Develop caring and loving interpersonal relationships. The most important aspect of the “living with” spirit of Wide Awake is that of fostering relationships.This area calls forth both the assistant and the core member in their personal growth, as well as the growth of the community. It is a process of discovering one’s own gifts and helping the other to find theirs.

• Carry out core member training programs where applicable and teach skills needed to be learned (personal hygiene, personal appearance, laundry, room management, household cleaning, cooking, budgeting, job skills, shopping skills, appropriate behavior)

• Help core members to look at alternatives, anticipate consequences, make decisions, and accept responsibility for their actions

• Listen to and respect the desires of the core members.

Home Management/Administration

• Assume responsibility for the health, safety, and care of core members

• Do assigned housekeeping chores and take initiative to keep house (inside and out) clean and in repair. Assist core members with their chores if needed. Aid in motivating core members to complete needed tasks

• Plan and prepare balanced meals. Assist core members to help cook and prepare meals.

• Maintain and operates house vehicles in a safe manner

• Maintain accurate financial records of core member and house money

• Be conscious of budgeting and keep within house and community budgets

• Take initiative, be resourceful and creative, think out problems, be willing to use own judgment when deemed necessary

Spiritual Life

• Support the community and carry in prayer the homes, each member of the community, their families, friends, and concerns

• Maintain and respect the home as a Christian home in terms of values and prayer. Encourage prayer in the home and in the community with assistants and core members.

• Respect days of worship. Attend with core members their choice and place of worship.

• Share faith life with the community. Be responsible for communicating needs and meeting personal worship needs.

Qualifications

• Interest in living in a faith community founded on the Beatitudes (Matthew 5)

• Minimum age of 18 years

• Desire to work with individuals with disabilities (Experience with people with disabilities is not a requirement)

• Creativity, flexibility, attention to detail, and ability to organize time

• Commitment to living in the community for at least 1 year after a successful 90-day trial period

• Verbal and written communication skills

• Physical ability, with reasonable accommodation, to fulfill role responsibilities, including ability to transfer adults from wheelchairs to vehicles, beds, etc. and to lift wheelchairs into and out of vehicles

• Ability to work as part of a team

Other Details:

• Assistants are responsible for funding their own way to and from Ukraine

• After a successful 90-day trial period, assistants are responsible for the costs related to obtaining a visa and temporary residency in Ukraine. Wide Awake International will assist with the legal process in obtaining residency

• Food and lodging will be provided by Wide Awake International

• Assistants will be responsible for providing for their own toiletries, food needs beyond the community meals, and personal spending money

You can also find this role description on our website: http://wideawakeinternational.org/volunteer

Much of our language, like “assistant” and “core member”, and some wording for the role description was adopted from an organization with a lot more experience than us. Thank you, L’Arche Communities, for paving a beautiful path of dignity for us to follow.

Well this year sure flew by in a flurry! I was just looking through the 2019 blog posts to find the highlights to link here and saw that I really didn’t write a whole lot. That in itself shows what kind of year we had around here: fast and furious. 🙂

Here in our home, with Anton and Ruslan, this year has been unbelievably difficult. There have been many beautiful moments, don’t get me wrong, but the overarching feeling when I sat down and initially looked back over this year in our home was not “beautiful”, it was “stinkin’ hard and painful”. It has been a year of learning to lay down our lives and learning what this dream of deinstitutionalization really is. Of course we already had some experience with Vlad and Boris, but for many reasons it has just been exponentially harder with Anton and Ruslan. We have learned A LOT. We have changed A LOT. And we have so much to be thankful for.

I’d love to sit down and report to you the many great strides and changes that have been made in our boys, and while they have changed and made some strides, the greater changes have been made in the hearts of our family.

This year has forced us, Jed and me, to dig deep down inside ourselves and deal with our junk, ’cause Lord knows we’ve got a whole lot of it. Many times this year the way has felt so dark. We have felt hopeless, helpless and in way over our heads. We’ve learned, and are still learning, how impossible it is to do this thing of deinstitutionalization in our own strength. We’ve learned that we’ll most definitely burn out and cope in unhealthy ways when we try to do this on our own. We’ll get bitter. We’ll pick up our phones as an escape. We’ll get all judgey. We’ll lose our patience with our kids and we’ll even stop laughing.

There’s just no way around it. We either do this thing with Jesus, or we fail. That has been the big lesson of 2019: Jed and Kim without Jesus doesn’t work. Praise God for his never-ending mercy and unrelenting love toward us, and thank God for your prayers and encouragement that have sustained us in the darkest of times.

We are different people than we were at the beginning of the year, in a good way. So when I look at it that way I am filled with thankfulness for this past year of struggle. We are changed. Our kids are changed. They have grown and stepped up and matured. Our team has grown and stepped up and matured. Our team has grown in love for each other and we have learned so very much about the path that lies ahead of us. If we had never brought Ruslan and Anton into our home we would have been dreadfully unprepared for the next phases of this journey. So, praise God that his ways are higher than ours. All the tears, all the struggles with self, all the sleepless nights have been 100% worth it. I mean that.

When you look outside our home at the other parts of this Wide Awake machine there are no shortage of miracles. 🙂

In January we sent out desperate plea for our “Preston” to be adopted. The government was threatening to send him back to the institution if he did not have a committed family by summer. A family pretty quickly stepped forward and they met Preston on Christmas Eve. 🙂 Christmas Day at our house was spent with Preston and his new family getting to know each other. Praise God for his love for our sweet boy.

Preston with his new daddy on Christmas Day

In July we sent out another desperate plea for our “Aaron” to be adopted. He was the last boy at Romaniv available for adoption and was going to age out at the end of the year, making him forever unadoptable. That same day, as the post was being written, an adoptive family was at Romaniv for another boy (“Kayden”) and they also fell in love with Aaron. They ended up adding him to their adoption and had court for him on December 18th. Aaron is legally an orphan no more, saved at the very last minute by an AMAZING family. He’ll go home to them in January. Praise God for his pursuit of the ones left behind and forgotten for so many years. This is such a huge miracle!!!

Aaron will go home with his new family in January!

Kayden was adopted in the fall by the same family. Look at him on his first day of school!

If those adoptions were the only thing that happened this year it would be enough to be a miraculous year, but let’s not forget the ginormous building right outside our back door. Ha!

Thanks to the generosity of donors, the next Wide Awake home is well on it’s way to completion. The roof is on and the windows and doors are in. We are looking at a completion date of late spring, early summer. It’s amazing!!!  (and did I mention, huge?)

The house is a duplex, so it has the capacity to be a forever home for 8 of our friends from Romaniv- four on each side, plus the people who will live there with them.

We are still searching for who will live in the duplex with our boys, so if this is something that your heart can’t let go of, please contact us and we can begin a conversation. I promise we are great neighbors. 😉

As we end the year I want to say thank you to this Wide Awake community for being such a wonderful source of encouragement and support to us and our team. In the good times you have celebrated with us, and in the hard times you have encouraged us, trusted us, and lifted our arms, encouraging us to press on, and reminding us of our why. We thank God for you and look forward to the growth that will happen in 2020!

BeLOVE[d]

The roof is going up on the next home for our boys and I realize that I haven’t written a lick about it! In fact, if you follow this blog much you may have noticed that I haven’t been actually writing about much of anything at all. It’s been silent here on the blog, but that silence doesn’t reflect what has actually been happening here in Ukraine. It has been busy here, as usual. 🙂

We have room on our property for our current home, plus 2 duplexes. The plan is for each side of each duplex to have space for 4 boys/men from the institution, plus space upstairs for the people who will be their family.

The first duplex is well underway and it is HUGE!!! I’m kinda jealous and wish I was going to live in it! The homes are going to be fabulous. We’ve learned some lessons from our current home setup and have designed to meet those needs in the plans for the duplexes. For instance, the duplexes will have toilets separate from showers, more toilets, a “family space” upstairs for the family who will live in the home and for guests, a separate bedroom for each boy, and a lockable pantry in the kitchen that will also house the refrigerator. The homes will all be fully accessible and up to ADA standards. Not to mention, they’re just going to be flat-out GORGEOUS! So many windows, so much natural wood, so much light. So much excitement!!!

We are hoping to keep a steady pace on the build so that the first duplex will be completed in the late spring or early summer. We need another $30,000 to complete the project. In the meantime, we are praying about which boys will live in the first homes and figuring out the process for securing guardianship of them. If we take anyone under the age of 18 everything is done differently than if we take adults, so there will be a learning curve there. Also, most of the boys under the age of 18 have parents, so we will need to work alongside them to see what supports could be put in place for reunification, and if that is not possible, then we need to make a plan for how we can work alongside the parents in caring for the boys here at the Homestead. So much to consider! Right now the plan is that one side of the duplex will be for children (under the age of 18) and the other side will be for adults. The current children at the institution are all 13 or 14 years old, but developmentally much younger.

Our focus in choosing boys at this point is pretty much zeroed in on the Isolation Hall. The boys and men there have significant medical needs that will never be addressed properly in the Institution. They are the ones our work has pretty much centered around in the last 5 years with our interns and our volunteer teams, so it makes sense for us to put our attention there, in the beginning. But of course, we are very open to God’s leading in this. We need so much wisdom and clarity!

The elephant in the room of this whole project is the question of who will live in the duplex with the boys?

Yeah, that’s a good question. And the answer right now is…we have no idea.

We are currently working on a job description and ministry description because the time has come to look in earnest for who will join us in this work. We need people who will live in the duplexes with the boys like we do in our home, and we also need people who will live off-site and come in as daily help to the Wide Awake machine (Romaniv work, administrative help, in-home helpers, Special Wednesday helpers…the list goes on and on). It’s just gotten to the point where if we don’t bring more help in the growth will have to slow, or even stop, and we don’t want that to happen. Our boys need OUT.

Our dream is that a blend of Ukrainians and foreigners would work together to care for our boys. Ukrainians are the obvious choice. They have the language, know the culture, and already live here. But at the same time, we see the benefit of outsiders coming in to join as well. Westerners come into this with different eyes and a different perspective. Ukrainians have been raised to see people with disabilities in one way, and an outside perspective is just really, really helpful- especially when you’re fighting for change in a culture that, historically, does not accept or recognize our boys as valuable.

Another benefit to outsiders coming in would be friendship for us. 🙂 We have a Ukrainian team that we love so much. They are our family here and I don’t know where we would be without them and their friendship. We also long for friendship with people in our native tongue. We long for relationship with people who understand where we come from and who can understand us fully. It is a deep desire and need for us, personally, if this work and life is to be sustainable for the long haul.

So, here’s to hoping and praying that if we build it…they will come!

We have no doubt that God has the right people in mind to help on this journey. He has provided the land, the funds to build the home, and the boys to fill it. There’s just no way it’s going to sit empty because of a lack of helpers. So, we pray and begin to actively seek out who those helpers might be.

If this strikes a chord with you and you find that it’s something you just can’t let go, can’t forget, let’s talk. It’s certainly not a romantic call, but it’s an important one. I can promise a YES to this work will never leave you bored. Hehe.

To all who have given to help make this duplex a reality- THANK YOU! It’s really happening! Thank you for believing in this dream and in this work. We can’t wait to fill it to the brim with life and love.

I remember the first time Jed and I ever visited Romaniv. It was in the spring of 2012 and we were in Ukraine just checking out what God had for us here. We thought we wanted to work with institutionalized people here, but we had never even been here! We knew zero language, pretty much zero about the culture and had never stepped foot in an institution. We were clueless, but we just wanted to follow Jesus and we knew He had something for us in Ukraine.

I remember we walked into Romaniv and were instantly surrounded by men. They were grabbing my hair, stroking our arms, taking our hands. The smells and sounds were completely overwhelming. But I distinctly remember catching Jed’s eye though the mob and both of us having this sense like “Yep, this is it. This is where we’re supposed to be.” We didn’t necessarily know that Romaniv was the place for us to be, but we definitely knew that we were supposed to be in close proximity and close relationship with the vulnerable and the broken.

Fast-forward 7 years and here we are, livin’ the dream in our Ukrainian village. 🙂

For the past couple of years my focus has had to be less and less on Romaniv, and the boys in the institution, and more and more here, at the Homestead with the boys in our home. I went to Romaniv at least once a week from the time we moved here until the fall of 2017 when I was more advanced in my (surprise!) pregnancy with Evie and it just didn’t feel safe to be there with a big belly. Plus, the terrible roads made my uterus very unhappy. 😉 I have visited some, over the past two years, but it has been infrequent and the visits have been too short for my liking.

Then after Evie was born I still really couldn’t be at Romaniv because she was nursing and I couldn’t leave her for long enough periods of time to get there and back and to be able to have any time with the boys. We had Boris with us too, and I was simply needed at home. Then enter Ruslan and Anton and our lives were turned completely on their heads. Suffice to say, We’ve been rather busy. Oy.

During that time while I’ve been absent our awesome interns and our wonderful Vika have been serving as faithfully as ever, loving and serving the boys. Of course Jed has gone too, as time has allowed.

We always knew that the more boys we brought here, to the Homestead, the more our attention would need to shift toward home. There is just no way to be in both places at once. But man, we have missed our boys. We knew they were being well-loved by our team, but we have missed our friends.

That’s why I’m so so happy to say that I’ve recently been freed up to go regularly with our interns Romaniv! Vika has been overseeing the interns for the past three years and has been a wonderful leader and mentor for them. But over the past several months she has taken more and more of the lead on caring for Preston and at this point it is better for her and for him if she is able to focus solely on caring for him until his adoptive parents arrive. We want her to be able to give her best to Preston and not feel pulled in too many directions. So, for the time being, I get the privilege of working with our interns!

Every other week I will go with them and spend the whole day with them as they work with the boys in the Isolation Hall. My role is basically to support them in any way I can. I’ll make sure they have everything they need, help liaison between them and administration, and mostly just be a supportive presence so that they know they are not alone in this difficult work. I’ve already gone twice with them and I’m JUST SO HAPPY!!!!

I’m so THANKFUL to get to spend time with the boys I love.

I’m so THANKFUL that Jed is behind this and is supporting me in this time away.

I’m so THANKFUL that Evie is a trooper and loves her brothers and sisters and daddy so much that she is okay without Mommy for a day.

A part of me that has had to lie dormant for a while is being brought back to life and it feels good and right to be there. Of course Romaniv is never going to be a comfy place or a ” nice” place to be, but it is one of the few places here in Ukraine where I feel completely myself. If you really think about it, the friendships we have there with our boys, some of the nannies, and administration are some of our oldest relationships here in Ukraine! We knew our boys before we knew our team! Sitting with them and just being with them, without distraction, without laundry to tend to or phone calls to make or meals to cook is a gift and I am not taking it for granted.

Another gift that comes with going regularly to Romaniv is that the visits renew my empathy and compassion for the guys living in our home. When I am reminded, face to face, of where our guys came from I can see with fresh eyes just how far they’ve come. When I come home from a day at Romaniv I’m so full of gratitude that Vladik, Boris, Ruslan and Anton are safe at home and not back in that place. It also renews my purpose and passion to get the others out as soon as possible.

So, expect to see more of our Romaniv boys in this space in the coming months. I bet you’ve missed them too!

I think I can rightly, without a doubt, call 2018 the biggest year of our lives. Wow. It was a doozy y’all. (Okay, I never say “y’all”, but it just felt right in the moment) 2013 and 2014 were big. We moved to Ukraine at the end of 2013 and then 2014 was our first full year here. I thought those years could never be beat- but I stand corrected. In those years, when we got overwhelmed by Ukraine and it’s differences and struggles we could just close our door and have our own little American island. When days at Romaniv were hard we could run home and love our kids and try to compartmentalize a bit. Not these days! Little America no longer exists. Romaniv has come to us. We are fully immersed and we are being changed to our core. Praise God. And….help us, God! 🙂

Boris joined our family! Technically, Boris came to us in December 2017, but you get the idea. Much of 2018 was spent integrating Boris into the family and helping him become human. Boris has changed us, challenged us, brought us to our knees and brought us more joy than we ever expected. You can read more about that journey here.

Evangeline Joy was born! Oh our sweet little Evie Joy, joy-bringer-extraordinaire, we had no idea how much we needed you. We could only see the unexpectedness of her arrival, but God foresaw the necessity of her arrival. In the darkest of moments Evie has been good medicine to the soul of every member of our family. We can not thank God enough for our sweet bundle. You can read about my Ukrainian maternity experience here and Evie’s arrival here.

Land was purchased. Praise God for our friends from the UK Vineyard and their amazing generosity! They gave a big ol’ chunk of money and we were able to purchase the property neighboring the Homestead. A road was built to access the back of our land and now we have space to build 3 duplexes for more of our precious ones who are waiting in the institution. We hope to break ground in the spring! More on that at the bottom of the post.

Summer in the USA. It was such a blessing to our hearts and such refreshment to our souls to be able to spend the summer with family and friends in Oregon. So many good memories were made and so much English was spoken. It was awesome! Ha. We also did a successful reconstructive operation on Vlad’s feet. You can see photos of the awesomeness here. 

Ruslan and Anton joined our family! This one was a biggie. I’ve tried to always be very honest with you about the journey. That honesty includes sharing part of the struggles. It’s no secret that adding Boris, Ruslan and Anton to the fam has been the hardest thing we have ever done. But I want you to know that there is plenty of joy along the journey as well. In some seasons the hard overshadows the joy, but that is when we lean in hard to Jesus and ask him to carry us. We have zero doubt that this is exactly what we were created to do with our lives, so even though many days seem dark- hope shines through. We love our guys and see them growing little by little each day- becoming more and more human. Praise God, the Redeemer of the broken. You can read more here, here and here.

What’s Next? Why, thank you for asking! We are planning to break ground for the three duplexes when everything thaws in the spring. Then, as long as the money is there, we’ll hit the building project hard. Each side of the duplexes will be a home for 4-5 of our friends from Romaniv, along with those who will be family to them. We’re talking about providing forever homes for 24-30 more of our friends! EEEEEEEEK!

We have budgeted $160,000 for each duplex. Right now we have a very generous  MATCHING GRANT from our friends and partners at Hands of Hope. They will match donations up to $80,000! Yes, that means if we meet the matching grant we will have the funds for one entire duplex!

Sooooo, if you’re looking for a place to give end-of-year donations, we will gladly accept them. 🙂 Let’s help more of our friends learn what it is to live in love and safety each day of their lives. Let’s help more of our friends to become humans after a lifetime of being treated like animals. Let’s help more of our friends experience the love of a family: brothers, sisters, mama and papa.

We’re ready for ya 2019. Let’s do this thing!

Click HERE to donate!

Thank you for your generosity. Thank you for walking this journey with us and helping to make it possible for our boys to know life. We are forever grateful.

Happy Ukrainiversary to us! Yesterday marked 5 years since the plane touched down in Kyiv and we began our new life. FIVE YEARS! Momentous. 🙂

So much has changed in the past five years it hardly feels like we are the same people that arrived in Ukraine with 12 suitcases and a guitar. For one thing, we’ve grown from a family of 6 to a family of 11. Wooooooah Nelly!

Then

Now

Last night we had plans to go out to a restaurant for a traditional Ukrainian meal, but one of our guys was having a rough one so we needed to stay in for the night. After we got the guys to bed we gathered the kids on our bed upstairs and took turns sharing something we each love about our life here in Ukraine. It was a sweet time. Many of your names were mentioned! Along this journey, we have met so many wonderful friends from all over the US and around the world.

I shared with our kids a memory of our very first day in Ukraine. It’s a memory that about sums up our first several months here.

When we arrived in Kyiv on November 13, 2013, our dear friend, Olya, came with us from the airport to Zhytomyr to spend the first couple of days with us, to help us get settled a bit. Keep in mind that we knew ZERO language and were basically clueless about everything having to do with life in Ukraine. Sure, we had visited, but let me tell you- visiting another country IS NOT the same as setting up a life there and living there. The morning after we arrived we decided to hop on the bus with our littles in tow and head to the big grocery store to get some necessities. I remember arriving at the store, hopping off the bus and Addy, 9 years old at the time, saying “It doesn’t really seem that different here!” Oh Addy, bless your heart. 😉  We wandered aimlessly through the store, jet-lagged and overwhelmed. Three-year-old Seth fell asleep in the grocery cart. We knew we needed diapers…and maybe TP? Why did we not make a list??? The kids were being super loud and all the other children in sight were silent…we were stressed and didn’t know what any of the labels on the food meant…

I remember the chaos of figuring out money at the checkout and Jed vowing never to go the store again with all 4 kids. I’m pretty sure that at that time we felt like 4 kids were waaaaaay too many. Little did we know what the future held! Oy.

We got home from the store with as much as we could carry and, after unpacking the bags, realized we still had no idea what to cook for dinner. I think we ended up eating a lot of oatmeal in those early days. Ha! We learned much through trial and error, and still do. But it’s actually quite encouraging to think back and realize how stupid we were then! Hehe.

Now, five years later, we can fondly look back at those beginnings and praise God for ALL the amazing things he has done. When we arrived in Ukraine the dreams we had in our hearts were not even legal. There was no legal mechanism for the deinstitutionalization of adults. We had no idea that two weeks after we arrived a revolution would begin. And as Ukraine endeavors to move toward the EU, our dream of deinstitutionalization is now a mandate. What are the odds? God is crazy good like that.

God had so many beautiful gifts waiting for us in Ukraine. Four of those gifts are currently downstairs drinking tea. 🙂 We had no idea when we first visited Romaniv that we were meeting 4 of our sons. Oh, and if you would have told me 5 years ago that we would have another baby, and that she would be born here in Ukraine, well, I probably would have spit out my coffee. Woooooooah, that was a doozy of a surprise. But, I love how God knows exactly what we need and when we need it. Our Evie blesses our hearts and brings us joy and healing every single day.

It’s funny to imagine that most of our team members were teenagers when we first moved to Ukraine. Kids! I absolutely love the team He is building here. I’m thankful that our guys are surrounded daily by people who don’t just tolerate them, but love them, champion them, and challenge them.

The days are long and often hard, but the years are quick. The greatest gift that God has given to me in these past 5 years is the gift of learning to lay myself down. Daily I’m confronted with my own weakness and my own brokenness. As we serve the broken hearts, broken minds, and broken bodies here in our home, I’m confronted with my selfishness and general ickiness of heart. I thank God that He is moving the hearts of our family from charity to compassion. He is changing us all, from the inside out.

So, here’s to 5 more years of saying YES to the next thing. Thank you to each of you who have prayed for us, encouraged us, supported us. We could never walk this journey alone. Thank you for joining us in YES!

BeLOVE[d]

Photo highlights:

My Littles, our first week in Ukraine

Our first Christmas

Boris and me, back in the day

2014

Christmas #2!

Vladik’s Day of Freedom! 2015

The day we got the keys to the Wide Awake Homestead! 2016

A biiiiiiiig work in progress

Wide Awake Homestead! 2017

Boris’ Day of Freedom! 2017

Welcome to the world Evie Joy 2018

Ruslan and Anton’s Day of Freedom! 2018

Tomorrow a big chunk of the Wide Awake Family heads to the US! We’re leavin’ on a jet plane… 🙂

It has been two years since our last visit, so it’s time. We try to visit Oregon every two years to see family, meet with our Board of Directors face to face, and spend time with our friends and supporters in the Pacific Northwest.

Another big purpose of this trip is to do reconstructive surgery on Vladik’s feet. We had planned to do the surgery when we were last in the US, but at that time Vladik was not ready for such a major procedure. He’ll be wheelchair-bound for 8 weeks after the surgery, and at that time he didn’t have the understanding or emotional maturity to not be devastated by that. Now he is so much more mature in every way. He is ready and wants the surgery. He is also getting taller and heavier and walking is getting more and more painful for him. We just need to bite the bullet and get ‘er done.

I (Kim) leave for the US tomorrow with 5 of the 6 kids. We’ll get Vladik’s pre-op stuff done, and Jed will follow in June. Ezra will stay in Ukraine this month with Jed to help him care for Boris. At the end of May Jed and Ezra will go to South Africa for the World Congress for Occupational Therapy. Jed and Olya, our friend and OT, will present the interns’ work at Romaniv to the Congress. More on that in a later post!

Evie’s going to miss her big brother this month! 

Although we successfully got Boris a visitor visa to the US, we have decided the best thing for Boris is to stay home at the Homestead. A trip of such magnitude would be very difficult for him. He thrives on routine and familiar surroundings, and there will be nothing routine or familiar about our summer in the US. It is so hard for us to leave him. I shed quite a few tears over it, knowing that he wouldn’t fully understand where we all went. 🙁 But at the same, I realize that it would not be kind to bring him along. Our hearts are officially at home in two places and there’s just nothing easy about that. Seriozha (Jed’s assistant) and his wife, Romana, will live at the Homestead with Boris for the summer so he can be in his home with all his favorite things. If you could pray for them for wisdom in caring for Boris, and also for peace in Boris’ heart while we are away, that would be so great. Thank you!

Side note: Boris’ visa is a 10-year multiple entry visa, so maybe we can bring him with us in a couple of years when we visit again!

So, that’s the Wide Awake summer plans. While we are traveling to and fro the team and interns will continue to visit the Boys at the institution regularly, just like always. The construction crew will work on developing the new land at the Homestead and preparing it for the next homes to be built, and Boris will be safe at home with people who love him. It’s awesome to know all the work will continue while we’re away. That leaves us the ability to focus on getting Vladik healthy, the opportunity to rest with family, the chance to connect with sponsors, and the time to dream and plan with our Board.

Gettin’ the garden ready for planting

Thank you all for your incredible love and support of our family and this work. Knowing that people are praying and sharing and giving of their hearts and finances makes all of this possible.