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

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

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

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

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

They rocked.

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

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

Come again!  We’re waiting for you!  

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

We are having a cozy day at home, just the six of us.  We’re cuddling in, eating yummy food, playing with toys,sipping coffee.  It’s perfect.

Today, on this glorious day, I have just one Christmas wish.  Today I have a wish that all of our Boys at Romaniv would be truly seen.  I have a wish that they would be seen by many as the beautiful souls that they are.

When I first met our Boys all I could see was their outward appearance.  I saw the filth, the snot, the vomit, the disabilities, the deformities.  I smelled the stench.  My ears were full of the awkward noises.  I knew God had called us to give our lives to these Boys, so I prayed that He would help me to see/smell/hear past all that.

And He did!

That was then.  Now, when I see our Boys I see Boris, Slavik, Yaroslav, Misha, Valera, Orhan, Irakli, Ivan, Dima, Andrei, Seriozha, Vova, Zhenya, Vitya, Vladik, Ilya, and Danya.  I see friends.  I see my babies.  I see my treasures.  When I hear the awkward noises they mean something to me.  They are cries of joy or yells of anger or first babbles or moments of sadness and pain.  They are not inappropriate noises now.  They are communication.  They are voices I love.  I’m not gonna lie, I still smell the stench 🙂  Hehe…I’m only human…that’s for stinkin’ sure.  (pun intended)

My Christmas wish is that today you, and many many more will see our Boys as individuals worthy of dignity and love.  I know that if people will really look- past the differences and into the eyes, they will see.  They will see our Boys as they were meant to be seen; as children of God.

And if you really see, then you will never be the same. I’m changed forever for having known them.

So, will you take a Christmas moment and meet my friends?  You won’t be sorry.  🙂

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gTj4vDOEbEE]

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YzJGaFq6SKI&w=560&h=315]

Welcome December! How did that happen? November was like two seconds long. I was planning to do a Thanksgiving post, but then we lost electricity for 5 days, and then we had Thanksgiving, and then the next day Addy and left for Switzerland!

I have a lot to be thankful for. Even more so after this weekend. Oh God, why are you so good to us??? Wow.

I might have told you before about our Switzerland connection, but just in case I didn’t, or you forgot, I’ll sum it up real quick like.

Many moons ago, in my former American life, I loved a little boy in Ukraine. My friends and I desperately wanted to find this little boy a family because he resided in an institution much like Romaniv and we knew he needed out. A few friends and I decided we would organize a day dedicated to this precious boy (who now lives with a wonderful family in Texas!!!) and try to get as many people fundraising for him on one day as we could. Adoption is expensive and many times if the money obstacle is removed, it makes adoption more possible.

Well, as we were fundraising in Oregon a woman in Switzerland, Sandra, contacted me by email and told me that she too was fundraising for the very same boy! She desperately prayed that he would find a family, and our friendship grew as we advocated for our sweet boy.

Once we knew we were moving to Ukraine, Sandra chimed in and said if we ever made it over to Switzerland we should share at her church in Lucerne. We highly doubted we would make it to Switzerland, but thought the gesture was nice. Well, God knew better. It turned out that last January we needed to go to Switzerland to get our Ukrainian visas and we got to visit Sandra, her family, and her church.

The International Church of Lucerne embraced right from the get-go. They fell in love with our Boys and God broke their hearts. They began to support us in prayer and with some finances. I can not express to you how warm and loving is this awesome community of believers. They are the real deal and I can’t believe we get the honor to partner with them.

Jed went to Switzerland in September for a family wedding and got to visit our friends in Lucerne. He told them of our need for a van to transport volunteers to and from Romaniv, and right there on the spot they decided to do a Thanksgiving fundraiser to buy a van for Wide Awake. Awesome.

So, this past weekend was the fundraiser and holy moly, I guess I set my expectations just a wee bit too low. God blew my itty bitty expectations out of the water. What a generous, loving, beautiful community we found in the International Church of Lucerne. In one weekend they donated thousands of Swiss Francs. THOUSANDS. Those thousands, in addition to gifts from their body given to Jed in September will buy us a van. Need met in an instant.

Blown away, humbled, joyful, tearful, THANKFUL.

Jed kinda kicked me out the door by sending me on this trip to Switzerland. He knew I needed a breather and a time of refreshment for my spirit. I felt nervous, and unsure, but excited to go. I brought Addy with me, and thought if nothing else it would be a special time for the two of us together.

It was that, and so much more.

Many of you have donated and donated and donated to this cause. Many people have given thousands of dollars to help improve the lives of our Boys. Many people gave before we moved, and many more people have given since. We are thankful for every single cent, and for every single bit of love that goes along with the cents. THANK YOU!! Because of the distance, all that communicating and giving is done online. Yay for internet! This was different though, because this was the first time I had seen a group of people, in the flesh, get behind this cause and get behind our Boys like this since we moved to Ukraine. It’s different now that our Boys aren’t just an idea or a passion. They are our friends and our loved ones. When I share about them now it’s with a knowing that comes from hours spent together. Watching strangers work hard to prepare and then pull off an event like this just for our Boys, after really knowing our Boys is a whole new ballgame.

I just sat there, watching pies being auctioned off for my Boys and tears filled my eyes. How is God so good? How is it that He cares so much about our Boys and about us that He put it in the hearts of people thousands of miles away to give so generously and selflessly?

I wish so bad I could tell our Boys how much they are loved from afar. As I sat in that room on Friday night I wondered what each of the Boys would think and feel if they were surrounded by as much love as I was that night. I felt so honored, so loved- to overflowing. My spirit didn’t see that coming. 🙂

To the International Church of Lucerne- your love and care for our family and our Boys is absolutely amazing. You tell us that you love and you care, and we believe it. Not just because of the money (which of course we couldn’t appreciate more!) but because of your warm hearts and open arms. Your love is evident on your faces and we are just so thankful that God has brought our lives together. Thank you from the bottom of our hearts for every bit of generosity poured out last weekend and in the months since we met. You have made a difference.

So, there’s my Thanksgiving post. I’m not sure I’ve ever had a Thanksgiving where it hit home more. Praise God, it’s time to go van shopping!! Yeehaw!

PS: Addy and I also got to spend some very special time with family. Brett and Rachel just got married and it was such a joy to be with them. Serious balm for my soul. Brett and Rachel, we love you and are so proud of you. Addy and I loved and savored every single minute with you. Ukraine is waiting for you!!! 😉

November is a good month.  We have two family birthdays, it’s Thanksgiving, the holiday season begins, the weather is cozy, and it’s National Adoption Month!  Did you know?  Have you heard?  There is a whole month designated for sharing about the plight of orphans and the blessing of adoption.  Yep, that sounds just about perfect to me.

We’ve been sitting on some important information for a few months now, considering how, when, and where we would share our hearts.  Well, now is the time, and here is the place.  After all, it is National Adoption Month!

With a bit of fear and trembling I’m going to share, and then I’m going to ask you to prayerfully respond.  There are many different great responses, and your response will likely be different than mine.  For the sake of our Boys, every response is important.

The work we do, and Mission to Ukraine has done for many years at Romaniv is important and necessary.  It is life-altering for our Boys.  Boys who were once strangers who flinched at touch and cowered from any human interaction are now dear loved ones who come scooting and crawling and hobbling as soon as they hear our voices.  One boy who used to avoid eye contact at all costs now seeks out our gaze and will sit forehead to forehead with Jed as the guitar is played- just looking into Jed’s eyes. No words, just a look.  It is enough for us to see that God is doing miracles.

And yet.

No work we do could ever be more beneficial than a family.

No treatment could ever be as effective as the love of a family.

No weighted vest could be more comforting than a mother’s arms.

No helmet could offer better protection than a father’s embrace. 

This work we do is a stopgap.  It is the next best thing possible in this situation.  But it is not a family, and it is not nearly enough.  There is no future for our Boys here.  Even if our dreams come true and we build group homes where they can be loved and cared for, it still won’t hold a candle to a life spent as part of a loving family.  There are nannies at Romaniv that do care for the Boys deeply, but they face an impossible task.  How can 2 nannies care for more than 20 boys with severe disabilities and do an even satisfactory job?

Most of the boys and men at Romaniv are not legally free to be adopted.  Either their parents still maintain their parental rights, or the boys are over the age of 18 which prevents them from being adopted.  To those boys and men, we commit to doing whatever we possibly can to love them, care for them, and give them a future worth living until the day they are made whole in heaven.

Some of our Boys, though, ARE available for international adoption.  We haven’t shared this with you before for several reasons that might be hard to understand.  There are many layers to this.  We feel protective of our Boys and the work that is being done; we want to avoid any exploitation; we have a relationship to maintain with the orphanage directors that requires vigilant care.  Nothing about this is simple, so we tread lightly with steps full of prayer.  And yet, one of our Boys is not thriving.  He is wasting away before our eyes and we can’t stand by and watch without acting.  He is ill and will never thrive in an institutional setting.  He needs the best medical care.  He needs a nutrition plan.  He needs therapy of all kinds.  Most of all he needs a mommy and daddy to love him as their son- to believe in him, to fight for him, and shower him with affection.  We are compelled to act and we can’t hold off any longer.  Time is of the essence.

So I’m asking that you see our Boys.  I’m asking that you stop and see them for the treasures they are.  See their immense value.  See their precious beauty.  Consider their lives as weighty as your own and ask the Lord how you should respond to this knowledge that some of them are waiting for families.  If you follow Jesus you are called to care for the orphan in some way.  Even if you don’t believe in Jesus I bet you can agree that this is a justice issue that can not be ignored.

“Learn to do right; seek justice.
    Defend the oppressed.
Take up the cause of the fatherless;
    plead the case of the widow.” Isaiah 1:17

Maybe you are supposed to pray.  A million times thank you!  Prayer is important and essential.  Any of the progress that’s been made has only come through the power of the Holy Spirit.  Our Boys need prayer!

Maybe you are supposed to give financially to help improve the quality of life for our Boys.  Yes!  Thank you so very much!  None of this would even be happening if we didn’t have faithful financial supporters on the team.

Maybe you are supposed to adopt.  Please don’t dismiss this response.  I am confident that some of you who read this are called to respond through adoption.  Children were made for families!  Children were not made for institutions.  One hour spent at Romaniv will prove that point.  I must warn you though that any romanticism concerning the adoption of one of our Boys ends with the fuzzy feelings you may be feeling as you read this post.  It will not be romantic.  It will be a hard road and much faith will be required.  But- it will be a road worth walking.  I am confident of that.  Orphans are very important to our God and He has gone to great lengths to prove His love for these particular Boys.  He will not allow the world to forget them now, and He’s not about to forget them when they step out of Romaniv’s gates.

I was with these Boys yesterday.  I held them in my arms.  I kissed their cheeks.  I held their hands so they wouldn’t harm themselves.  They are real people.  They were created with purpose and God has good plans for them.  I can’t even imagine one of my four children living like our Boys.  I can’t imagine my Ezra, nearly 9 years old but the size of a toddler, sitting day after day rocking back and forth in his bed.  I can’t imagine him sitting and sitting and waiting and waiting for his life to begin.  I can’t imagine not going to him and taking him out of that place.  Our Boys are as real as Ezra and they are as deserving of love as he.  They were created with just as much purpose and intentionality.  They were created in the image of God and God does not make mistakes.

There you have it.  Now you know, and I now humbly ask you to respond.  I ask you to stop and pray and ask the Lord what He would have you to do.  Please pray that adoptive families would step out with boldness and faith.  Any serious inquiries can be emailed to kjohnson@wideawakeinternational.org and I would be happy to talk with you more.  If you have questions about what adopting an institutionalized child looks like in real life I can connect you with adoptive parents who have walked that path.

Please share this post and give our Boys a voice this month.  Thank you!

“Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute.” Proverbs 31:8

So yesterday was basically amazing.

We had the extreme honor and pleasure of meeting with a woman in Kyiv who has worked for twenty years to provide rights for, and secure the rights of people with disabilities.  She and her team have worked tirelessly to rewrite laws and create legislation and lobby for the ones we love.  This incredible woman was fighting for our Boys before we even had a clue they existed.  This incredible woman deserves a standing ovation.

As a mother of an adult son with disabilities she recognized the holes in the social system of Ukraine.  She saw how her own son would fall between those cracks.  She knew the value of his life and decided to do something about it.

As Ukraine attempts to move toward European Standards of Care for institutionalized children and adults it has become obvious that the current model of care can not continue “as is”.  Major overhauls must happen.  Major change must come.  And it will have to be MAJOR.

Before we moved here we told people that the whole social system here in Ukraine would have to change in order for the dreams God has given us to come about.  We dream of community living for people of all abilities where they are not isolated, but are active members of society.  We dream of homes where children are not confined to their beds, but they are truly living and thriving, surrounded by loving support for all their days.  Those dreams are legally impossible with the current system.  BUT, change is coming.  We don’t know when (but we do know it will be soon), we don’t now how, but now we know the people who have been dreaming this dream long before we arrived.

Timing is everything.  The harvest is so ripe.  How can we honor those who have gone before us? How can we thank them enough for their tireless, unrecognized efforts?  It’s truly humbling and so encouraging!  I mean, think about this: we knew at some point we would have to hire a legal team to dig in to, and fight to change the laws here concerning people with disabilities.  Then yesterday we learned that there are people here already doing that- and with much success!

There is much, much work to be done, and many battles yet to be fought, but we are not alone. We are a teeny-tiny piece of a great big puzzle here in Ukraine.  There are others who care, and it is personal to them.  We met one of them yesterday.

I’m a concrete thinker.  I like to know what to do next.  All these policies and plans and multi-year projects are nearly impossible for me to wrap my brain around.  But, in our meeting we were given a solid next step to work toward.  We learned that it is important to register Wide Awake International as an NGO here in Ukraine.  That will be to our benefit once the big changes start to take place.  So, we’ll get working on that right away.

In the meantime we’ll keep in touch with our new contact in Kyiv, and faithfully serve the Boys God has put right in front of us.  It’s more and more obvious as time goes by that this is the exact place we are supposed to be at this exact time in history.  Because of that we can rest.  Even though Ukraine is at war and the task before us seems insurmountable, we can be confident that God is truly in control.  Yay for that!!!!  Thank you all for your continued prayers and support.  You are making a difference in many lives!

The photos are from last week at Romaniv.  Little Ilya was cracking us up with his absolute love for music.  It really helps him to regulate.  He even tried to climb inside the guitar!  Don’t miss him on Jed’s lap in the pics.  Hilarious and awesome.  

Oh guys, today was a good day.  I think you’re going to be pretty excited about today.  I know I’m excited.  Maybe that’s why it’s 12:52am and I’m still awake and just crazy enough to start writing a blog post.  Forgive the late-night typos and the lack of pictures, this news just can’t wait.

About a month ago I shared with you about our two newest additions to the Isolation Building.  I wrote about it here: http://wideawakefamily.com/2014/07/04/it-just-keeps-getting-better/  Our two new little guys (the “Littles”) are teeny tiny and we knew they would need a lot of extra support to be able to thrive.  Right before we left for camp in July we brought a bunch of supplies to Romaniv to help the nannies care for them more easily.  We left for camp unsure of how they would do at Romaniv, in their new environment, but hopeful.

Last Friday we finally made it back to Romaniv after three awesome weeks at camp.  Oh my, it felt amazing to be back with all our boys.  They were visibly happy to see us (which was a blessing all on it’s own!) and we were ecstatic to be back with them.  We missed those faces!

We could see right away that the Littles have not been thriving.  I don’t fault the institution, the nannies in the Isolation Building genuinely do care about them and do their best to meet their needs.  I fault a system that sets people up for failure.  Simply put, there is no way it is possible for 2 nannies to give 22 boys with severe disabilities the care they desperately need.  Once you add the needs of the Littles to all the others it becomes over-the-top impossible.  The Littles are still learning to eat from a spoon instead of only by bottle.  Bravo nannies for trying to teach them to take food from a spoon!  They are unable to walk, and one of them is unable to even sit, but who has the time to help them weight bear and learn to crawl and learn to grasp toys and learn to interact with their environment?  With a building full of other boys who don’t understand personal space or boundaries or how to be gentle with “babies” , how do you keep these little ones safe without keeping them in their cribs all day long?  I don’t fault the nannies.  I’m not at all sure how I would do different if I were in their shoes.

The honest truth we saw right away is that there is no way these boys could thrive without a big intervention.

So, we went home last Friday and asked God how Wide Awake could or should intervene.

The thing is, we will be at a language intensive for the next bit and won’t be able to be at Romaniv for 3 weeks.  We couldn’t help but feel a desperation to help before we leave, and on Tuesday Jed and I met with the orphanage’s Assistant Director (who came in on his vacation) to see what that help could look like.

I can’t brag enough about this orphanage administration.  They are so open to help and to new ideas and we are beyond thankful for that.  They genuinely care about the boys and they really do want to improve their lives.  They know they need help and they don’t turn it away when it’s offered.  Thanks to those who have served them faithfully for years, we get to see the fruit that is cooperation and trust and encouragement.  It’s awesome.

In our meeting the Assistant Director was super open to our ideas.  He said “You know our boys.  If you have ideas to make their lives better we will do our best to help you reach those goals.”  Praise God.

We presented the idea of Wide Awake International hiring an extra nanny to care specifically for the Littles for the next three weeks while we are away.  The purpose of the nanny would be:

1.  To feed the boys the way they need to be fed so that they are able to keep down the nutrition they work so hard to take in.  They both have reflux and one of them is still very lacking in the oral skills needed to eat safely from a spoon.  Feeding them properly takes a long time and the regular nannies just don’t have that time with their normal workload.

2.  To provide therapeutic interventions that will help the boys build strength and motor skills- both gross and fine.  They need to bear weight on their legs and arms.  They need to learn to crawl.  They need to learn to grasp toys.  They need to have tummy time and neck control….and and and….  🙂  Any attention to their bodies, any play will help them come closer to achieving those goals.

3.  To love.  These little ones live confined to their beds.  Oh how they would thrive with time and attention and physical touch.  Oh how they would thrive with a walk in a stroller, to feel the sun on their faces.  Oh how they would thrive when being held, just for the sake of being held.

The Assistant Director liked the idea.  He presented it to the Director who liked the idea,

Annnnnnddddd….today we met our nanny!  Wahooooooo!

She is a kind, gentle woman who seems to be just the right fit.  We pray it is so.  She was visibly touched when she first met the boys and she was open to all our instructions and ideas.  Today we discussed our ideas for working with the boys’ bodies and how we would like them to be fed.  If she implements these ideas we won’t help but see improvement. Improvement in their overall well-being is inevitable.  🙂

Our Wide Awake nanny will work from 8-5, Monday through Friday (with possible some time on Saturdays) and her main focus will be the Littles.  If they are sleeping she can help out some with the others, but we were very clear about our expectations that she focus on the Littles.  We really want to see how they improve and how they respond to this care, so as much as we love all our other boys, we need our nanny to be pretty focused.  The Little’s room is like the ICU of Romaniv.  Yes, all the other patients in a hospital need care, but the ones in ICU need special attention for some time.  So it is with them.

Want to know something really awesome that’s like icing on the cake?  There’s this awesome kid in Portland, Oregon.  His name is Athen.  God really gave Athen a big heart for our Boys. He loves them and for the past several months he’s been working hard to raise money to help them.  He’s done a pancake breakfast and raffles and t-shirt sales.  He made bracelets and sold them during school lunch.  He worked hard.  On Monday, the day before Jed and I met at Romaniv to present our idea about the nanny, Athen gave us his total from his fundraisers:  $820.  SHUT UP!!!!!  So, not only did we have a really cool idea to present to the orphanage administration, but we had a big chunk of money to pay the bill for the idea (plus some!).  Too stinkin’ awesome.  Really.

When we get back from our language course we will see how it went with our nanny and at that point we will talk with the directors about a more long-term plan for improving the Littles’ health and well-being.  The rest of the money Athen raised will be put to good use at that time.  I’m confident of that!

So, there you have it!  Now is that good news or what?  How amazing that God sees and He knows our Littles.  He loves them so much that He moved the heart of a boy across the world who didn’t even know them to work his tail off so they could have a nanny just for them.  He loves them so much that He opened the hearts of the Directors to come to work on their vacation to find a nanny and sign papers and talk business and money and schedules.  He loves them so much that He moved the heart of a kind woman to love them and serve them for these next three weeks.

Oh how He loves us!  Woohoooooooo!