Out of Chaos

Let me give you a taste of what is like to live in our home.

Every morning Abby and I wake up to either Jackie or Jeanette pounding on our bedroom door screaming "Carrie Mummy! Abby Mummy! Victoria/Naomi/Jackie/Jeanette beating! She beating Sister!" When they say "beating" they really mean light slap, but you get the picture. I tumble out of bed and open the door to find two of our four blind children running around full speed in their pajamas tripping over their sisters and knocking each other over. They're completely over stimulated and it's only 7:30 in the morning. I often times find Rebekah standing in the middle of her bedroom crying because she needs help with her school uniform and she doesn't yet know any better way to communicate. Naomi is always busy hiding her sisters' shoes and underwear all over the house, while Heidi and Angel are covered head to toe in the rice they were supposed to eat for breakfast. All the beds reek of pee as we discover that over half our girls wet the bed. All of the girls' school shoes have somehow disappeared since the night before, and no one can find the correct school uniform. The bus is running twenty minutes late, but that's ok because someone just peed all over the floor on their way to the bathroom. 

It is utter chaos.

That's the beauty of it. Out of all the chaos, our girls are finding new life. They are discovering life in Jesus. They are discovering what it's like to have a family and parents who love them. A few of them are discovering this for the first time. 

Back when I started this blog I called it Life is Being Found. It is a reference to one of my favorite songs, Beautiful Things by Gungor. The lyric I identify most with says "Out of chaos, life is being found in You."

How true that is. Life is chaotic. Especially life as a foster mother to twelve children with disabilities in India. Out of all our chaos life is being found. True life in Jesus is being found. 

Every night Abby and I put our girls to sleep bedroom by bedroom. Our preteen girls have the latest bedtime, so we make it to them last. Phoebe is always bursting with excitement to lead us in a nighttime prayer. She prays to our God in her native language and it is the most beautiful thing I have ever heard. This eleven year old girl really loves the Lord and yearns to be close with Him. Not only that, but she is eager to make sure her sisters do the same. She encourages Victoria, Paula, and Stephanie to take turns praying as well. Phoebe loves leading her younger sisters in worship songs. She is bursting with love for Jesus and she can't wait to share it with everyone she meets. 

Esther shines with a love and light that can only be from God. She has this radiating smile that you can't look at without seeing Jesus. Esther is full of so much joy.

Heidi, Chelsea, and Angel love to sing a new children's worship song I taught them a few weeks ago. The chorus says "I'll do my best, I'll do my best WHOA! I'll do my best for You. Woo woo woo!" During the WHOA! We throw our arms out to the side and our bodies swing like we're being knocked over by a wave. The girls giggle hysterically and I think about how God's love is just like that. 

The love the Lord pours out upon me knocks me over like a wave every day. Every day I wake up to complete chaos and His love astounds me. I walk out of my bedroom and am bombarded by twelve screaming girls. And it's in those moments that I feel His love most heavily. How lucky am I that God chose ME of all people to live this life? How blessed am I to get to love these twelve amazing girls and be on this amazing journey with the Lord? I'm not worthy of His love. I'm really not. I'm just as messed up as the next person. Even as I live this life in India, I struggle with just as much sin as I did in America. My life is so chaotic. But I am finding life in Jesus. His love overwhelms me and knocks me off my feet. It's amazing. His love for me is amazing. His love for my girls is astounding. I am so overjoyed that life is being found in Jesus.

Here we stand, our hearts are Yours. Not our will but Yours be done.

Cheaper By The Dozen

It's time for my big announcement! I am now a foster mom to 12 girls!

Many of you all have seen me post on Facebook about my friend Abby who is coming to SCH to foster. Abby and I have been praying for a couple months about bringing our girls together and co-fostering. We really felt like this was what God was leading us to, so we spoke with our director and she was all for it! 

We are living on the entire top floor of our building, Faith Home. We decided to call our home the "House of Joyful Noise" which is fitting for our spunky twelve. The top floor is set up in two apartments which I turned into one giant home this week! We have four bedrooms. Abby and I share a bedroom (with AIR CONDITIONING - Hallelujah for that!). We are in the back apartment with our littlest girls in the other bedroom - Heidi, Angel, Chelsea, Jackie, and Naomi. The older girls live in the two bedrooms in the front. Jeanette, Esther, and Rebekah share a room and Paula, Stephanie, Phoebe, and Victoria share the other. I set the back apartment up to be a living room and GIANT play room! (Pictures to come!) The front apartment contains our dining area and we are turning that living room into a school room where out older girls can work on homework every evening. 

I've been a single foster mom to 12 for a little over 24 hours now, and let me tell you. It is HARD. I absolutely cannot wait until Abby gets here this week! On Monday night I am riding an overnight bus to Hyderabad so I can pick Abby up at the airport early Wednesday morning. On Thursday night Abby and I will be traveling back to Ongole and begin this wonderful fostering adventure together! 

These are my six who I've been fostering the past two months. Paula, Angel, Stephanie, Naomi, Chelsea, and Heidi. I'm excited to introduce you to my six new beautiful foster daughters!! Meet Phoebe, Victoria, Jackie, Rebekah, Jeanette, and Esther. 

Phoebe is completely blind and the smartest girl I have ever met. This girl can solve entire 25 piece puzzles completely on her own! She speaks really good English and loves to sit around and talk with me. She is really pretty mature for her age, and is a wonderful big sister to all our little ones! Phoebe is Stephanie's best friend and I couldn't be happier that they are now living together. Today I caught the two of them sitting on the couch jabbering away is rapid Telugu, which is something I have never heard Steph do with anyone! I'm really excited to see how great this will be for both of them.

Victoria is mostly blind (she has about 10% of her vision), and she is one of the most energetic girls I have ever met. Her smile is one of my all time favorites! Victoria is spunky, goofy, and absolutely wild. She has really surprised me since moving in though. When I met Victoria last summer, she bounced off the walls and was completely out of control. Sometimes she's still like that, but then last night she sat down with Phoebe and I and had a really serious conversation. This girl is really starting to grow up and I am so proud of her!

Jackie is my spunky five year old with some hand and feet differences. She was born with a deformity causing each of her hands to only have one finger and causing each of her feet to have only one toe. Jackie amazes me with what she can do with those two little fingers! She has learned how to write, draw, eat, hold utensils, you name it! Jackie's English is actually really good and she loves to strike up conversations with volunteers. This little ball of spunk cracks me up, and she might love the TV more than anyone else I know! :)

Rebekah has Apert's Syndrome which makes her look a little different. It also causes an intellectual disability, but as you know that doesn't make her any different than anyone else! Rebekah is wonderful, energetic, and crazy. A recent volunteer described her by saying, "I just love her. She's just like me - a hot mess." Rebekah really is a little hot mess! She is all over the place, all the time. But she is oh so loving. Last night Rebekah was a little scared being in our new home. So I curled up next to her in bed and rubbed her back as she fell asleep in my arms. I'm really excited to see how much Rebekah will grow in the coming months as Abby and I begin to really invest in her!

Jeanette is completely blind and 110% our wild child! She has a beautiful prosthetic eye. Jeanette is completely fearless. This girl can't see a thing, but that doesn't stop her from running around full speed with her arms stretched out in front of her! Jeanette spends a big chuck of her time wrapped around my waist ready for an adventure! Jeanette is full of energy and spunk! I love her and can't wait to see her learn to use her guide cane and become more independent without crashing into things! 

Esther has a mild form of cerebral palsy and an intellectual disability. She is so full of joy, excitement, and life! Esther was by far the most excited about moving in with us (which is saying a lot because all the girls were ecstatic!) When I went to pick them up from their old apartment Esther was jumping up and down screaming "YAY YAY YAY YAY!!!!!!" She is for sure a cutie pie and brings so much joy and life into our home!

So there you have it! I am a mama to twelve of the most amazing girls on the planet and I love it! In a few days our family will be complete with Abby mama, and we will be a wonderful and happy family of 14! :) 

"This day is holy of our Lord. Do not grieve, for the joy of the Lord is your strength." Nehemiah 8:10

Meet Stephanie

Stephanie is the oldest girl in my home, but she is also the most overlooked. If you were to walk into my apartment Leah would bombard you immediately while screaming some exciting Hindi phrase. After you got past her, my three little ones would be jumping towards your waist and reaching for your hand. Chelsea would scream "HI!!!" (It's the only English word my 3 year old knows, so naturally she uses it ALL THE TIME.) Heidi would give you a look so full of attitude that you would probably start to laugh, and Angel would drag you towards the kitchen to see if you can reach the cookies she's been trying to sneak all day. Then you would see Naomi who is a little timid at first, but now that she's seen the other girls interact with you, she has probably decided that you're ok. She'll come up and hold your hand and really be content doing anything as long as she can cuddle up next to you. Paula will dazzle you with her award winning smile and really capture your heart. She will just be so excited that you are there to see her and be by her side. Then once you make it past the other six, you'll see beautiful Stephanie sitting in a chair patiently awaiting for you to say hi.

Stephanie is estimated to be 13, although personally I think she might be around a year older. She is blind and probably due to her past before coming to SCH, she is extremely quiet and timid. She is a really smart girl who understands English really well and can speak quite a bit. You wouldn't know that unless you spent a lot of time around her though. She doesn't talk very much and it is extremely rare for her to speak unless she is spoken to. She is afraid to lead herself around most of the time. She will usually just stand and wait for someone to lead her, even if it is small distances within our apartment. Normally she won't engage herself in what others are doing and seems to be pretty content just sitting there in her own little world.

Stephanie is normally defined by everything I just said. Other foster moms, volunteers, staff members, and me before I became her foster mom usually describe her as a happy and quiet girl who probably has some self confidence issues due to whatever her past may be. But she is so much more.

Stephanie is a young teenage girl who loves to music. She loves when I sing to her (which is saying something because I am far from a pretty singer); she loves when I play music in the apartment; she loves to sing songs along with me. Her favorite song to sing in English is Jesus Loves Me which she always requests when I ask her what she would like to sing.

Stephanie is amazing. Lately as I have been trying to teach her new things, she has gone above and beyond and learned them in a matter of minutes. A couple weeks ago I worked with her on pushing the little ones in the baby swing that hangs in our living room. I started by standing behind her with my hands over hers working on pushing the swing forward and bracing for when it came back. After awhile I had her try it on her own and the first few times she didn't really get it. She would catch the swing and kind of walk back and forth with it. But we kept working and honestly I thought it would probably be something we would need to work on for several weeks before she fully grasped the concept and built up enough courage to let go and have a 4 year old in a swing flying at her that she couldn't see. But she surprised me.

This was after just 20 minutes of pushing the girls! She began pushing them on her own! And as you can tell, she is SO happy. This girl amazes me. She is becoming SUCH a different person than she was even just a month ago. She is really starting to come out of her shell and try new things. She is gaining so much self confidence each day, and I am so proud of her.

Yesterday I started working with her on using her guide cane. This was the very first time I had introduced her to it, so naturally I expected our lesson not to get much further than just learning how to hold it. Stephanie surprised me once again! We spent around two hours up on our roof practicing and by the end of our time she was walking all the way across the roof by herself!

We began by learning how to the hold the cane. I was doing hand over hand with her as she learned how the cane felt. Then we began walking slowly with the tip of the cane touching the ground. I showed her how if felt when the cane bumped into objects, then we learned how to go around them. Within the first hour Stephanie was walking by herself, but I was still beside her and giving her many verbal directions.

Then she began to surprise me! Paula was also on the roof in her wheelchair. She has a long way to go in building up strength to wheel herself around all day. Imagine living 12 years of your life without a wheelchair then having to learn to use it all at once! It's a completely new way of life. So I took a break with Steph and began working with Paula. I kind of expected Steph to just stand there until I came back to her, because well that's normally just what she does. Once again, she amazed me. She continued to walk around independently with her cane! I wasn't even prompting her. She was so excited to be able to explore on her own! The joy on her face was absolutely radiant as you can see in these photos! 

After I finished working with Paula, I came back to Steph and decided to try something new. I told her I was going to walk to the other end of the roof and start talking to her. I wanted her to follow the sound of my voice and find me on her own. I cried as she walked across the roof completely independently for the very first time. The smile on her face lit up the world and joy was overflowing from her. My girl did it. She did something that so many had deemed impossible for her. 

We worked for another hour as Steph walked to me independently again and again. She went around obstacles and walked to the sound of my voice with a smile on her face. I cannot express to you all how proud I am of her. Stephanie is the most amazing thirteen year old I have ever met. She has been through so much in her life that I cannot even imagine. She's grown up in a place that rejects her and sees her as worthless. She's spent the majority of her life just sitting around because no one ever saw the need to invest in her and help bring her life. She is overcoming all of that. I wish everyone who's ever written her off could see her now. I wish they could see the beautiful and amazing young woman she is becoming. 

Stephanie is AMAZING. I am so proud to be her mama.