Some of you may be wondering what I have been doing these last few months and why I haven’t updated my blog in a while? Well I have been busy…also I’m terrible at writing blogs so I just keep putting it off. So get ready, settle in, because this is kind of a long read, but I promise it’s worth it to read it all!
Since December 28th , 2016 I have started working at Coyote Hill Christian Children’s Home. Coyote Hill is a residential group home for children in the foster care system. I live full-time on property, I help take care of the children before and after school, weekends, and on Mondays (because they don’t go to school on Mondays!). I’m also in charge of the education center, a place where children who need extra help with their schoolwork can come to get some tutoring, that we have after school. We have about 40 children on property, ages anywhere from birth to 18. As you can see I have my hands full, but I LOVE it!
Back in October when I chose not to leave on the Race there was a lot of feelings going through me; sadness, hurt, anxiety, and fear but also peace. When I started looking at what would happen if I didn’t leave in October vs. if I left right then, the list of positives for staying kept getting bigger and bigger:
List of positives and negatives if I left in October:
Positives-
- I got to go on the Race
- I would be letting my team and squad mates down
- I wouldn’t have to explain to my supporters that I wasn’t going
- I wouldn’t have to go back on my word (i.e. my friends that I had told that I was leaving I wouldn’t have to tell them it wasn’t happening)
Negatives-
- Since the doctors still didn’t know what was wrong with me I could end up having to come back to the states to have surgery
- Being miserably sick in another country
- Miss Ashleigh’s wedding
- Miss the birth of my niece
- Not be a part of my parents selling, moving, and buying a house
- I was letting my team and squad down
- I felt like I had lied to my friends because I wasn’t going to leave in October
List of Positives and Negatives if I deferred to a later route:
Positives-
- I had time for the doctors to figure out what was wrong with me, have surgery, and to recover from my sickness in the comfort of my own home with my family close by
- Go to Ashleigh’s wedding
- Meet my niece
- Help mom and dad sell, pack, and move into a new house
- Have a longer time to prepare for the Race
- Have a longer time to support raise
- Got to spend one last holiday season with my family
- I could defer to a later route, there were options to still go on the Race just not right now.
Negatives-
- I didn’t get to leave the country right then
- I let down my team and squad
- I did have to explain to my supporters and friends that I wasn’t leaving but that I would be leaving in the future.
As you can see the list of positives for staying is bigger than the list of negatives! Because of all of this when I made the decision to stay I immediately felt a lot of peace about my decision. And guys guess what?!? We serve an amazing God because over the last few months God has added even more things to the list of positives!
- I got to go back and work at Coyote Hill
- Attended therapy to cope with what was going on and I learned so much!
- Support Raise in different ways
- Actually get to build community with my squad!
- Got to spend the holiday season with my friends and family realizing that next year I won’t be with them
- Got to attend my best friend’s wedding
- Got to meet my niece!
- Grow closer to Christ
- And many, many more things…
Some of the many more things that God has blessed me with since I chose to stay has to do with my time at Coyote Hill. I love children, so this job is perfect for me! People often ask me what I do for Coyote Hill and it is kind of hard to explain because every day is different. Some days are really easy, filled with lots of laughter and fun. Other days are exhausting, filled with children being verbally and physically aggressive. Most of my days are spent being an extra parent in the homes, assisting our house parents, hanging out playing games with the kids, cooking dinner, and getting kids ready for bed. Sometimes this includes transporting children to and from work, visits with family, and therapy. While all of this is going on we look for opportunities to bring Jesus into our everyday lives. So, if I’m cooking breakfast with the kids and we are using mustard seed, this is a great time to talk about Matthew 17. Or if our kids are talking with us about their week and they bring up something we talked about at church that week we will spend a couple extra minutes discussing that.
Because we serve an amazing God, whenever work becomes stressful or difficult and it is hard to remember why I am here, and I feel like I am making no progress with my children, God shows up in big ways! Some of my best moments at Coyote Hill came after moments like this. You have to look for the Joy in the little things.
One time over spring break I had one of our younger kids, who has some special needs, and the only thing that will calm him down is if we play his favorite movie. His favorite movie started out as Frozen, then he got tired of Frozen, so we moved on to Home. After Home, it was Minions. This spring break he was obsessed with Hotel Transylvania 2! Around this same time, he remembered that this summer he liked watching Shark Boy and Lava Girl. Now before I go on to tell you the rest of this story you need to understand that this kid called Hotel Transylvania the “Monster” movie and he called Shark Boy and Lava Girl the “Shark” movie. We watched these two movies so many times over spring break that one time he asked to watch the movie “Shark Monsters!” My two-year-old thought there was a movie that had Hotel Transylvania and Shark Boy and Lava Girl in it! 😉 My coworkers and I laughed about this all week long.
Another weekend at Coyote Hill the weather was really nice so we took the kids to a park and had them go on a hike with us. On the way to the park we plugged in our phones to the Aux cord and blasted music throughout the van and the kids and us screamed the lyrics in the van. Songs like “Let it go”, “Closer”, “Wrecking Ball”, and the veggie tales theme song! It’s moments like this that make the staying up late, arguing with children, the disrespect, and the everyday emotions that come with being in the foster care system all worth it. To give these kids a short amount of time where they can be normal kids and have fun means the world to me. That is why I do this job.
I also do this job to see kids be able to move on with their lives. In the past few months I have been able to see Ruth go home and Kendall and Kyle get adopted! The cool thing about this is Ruth has come back to see us a couple to times since she has left and she is actually a supporter of my World Race fund! However sometimes there is not so fun ways that our kids leave our care. Sometimes we are not able to provide our children with all of the resources they need to succeed. When this happens, we pursue other places for the child to live. This has happened different times throughout my time with Coyote Hill but the last time this happened was one of the hardest for me. Devonte had been with us for almost a year and in the past 6 months we had started to see a real change inside of him. He came in as a pretty violent, up set child. He got to the point where we were having less and less blow ups and he would even sing along to KLove with us in the car. This kid was growing to know the Lord and really enjoyed it, and was learning how to calm himself down. However, the last month he was with us his behaviors became so unsafe that we could no longer provide a safe environment for him, so he had to leave us. The week he left us was a very emotional week for all of us. We spent a lot of time crying in his room with him, giving him a lot of hugs and promising him we loved him and he was welcome to come back to us when he was better. The day he left was really difficult. He had a hard time wanting to leave his brother, also leaving us when he had so many people coming to say goodbye to him, and telling him that he was loved. The hardest part for me was realizing that the place he is going to is not a Christian environment. That breaks my heart, all I can hope is that the effort and work we put into him, and all of the things he learned at church and in our home, he will carry with him and when life gets tough he will be able to recall upon those things.
The other reason that week was so hard for us was because we also had to say goodbye to one of our house parents. Our house parents are the people who live at the house and take care of the children fulltime. They are a Christian married couple who have the passion, training, and capability to do this job fulltime for at least a year. Brandon and Lauren Brown, had been with us for a year and half. I was here when they started and I have been with them through majority of their time here, they were also only 6 months older than me, and had recently had a beautiful baby boy. It was really hard to say goodbye to them because they did their job so well, we had so many moments and memories together (someday ask me about the lizards), they have blessed me so much, and they poured so much of themselves into our children. But it was time for them to leave because Brandon had to start a graduate to start his grad program. Saying goodbye to them including baby Zeke was really difficult but I am so glad that I was able to be here for that!
So even though it was very painful and emotionally to not leave in October, God had way better things in store for me! There was so much beautiful, joyful blessings that has come out of me staying. And I am excited to see what else Got has in store for me between now and when I leave in August!
If you would like to donate to this journey and see what else God has in store, please feel free to do so at the top of this blog.
