Life from Paula's Eyes

Hi my name is Paula!

I am thirteen years old. My favorite thing to do is laugh, especially when other people aren't happy. I like when people are happy.

I have cerebral palsy.

I spent the first twelve years of my life crawling around. I got a wheelchair a few months ago. The wheelchair is great for going on walks down the street. I really like racing my sisters on their bikes. But I don't really see why I have to stay in my wheelchair at home. Crawling is so much easier. My moms say it's because I can get around easier. Apparently people like me are happier in wheelchairs. Well they must be crazy because it just seems like a lot of hard work to me. 

I have lived at SCH for a long time. For a bunch of years I didn't have a foster mom. Then I got one about a year ago. Since then I've had a few different ones. I've lived with a whole bunch of different girls, but I really like the sisters I have now. Carrie and Abby are my foster moms now. They're ok I guess. I really like to laugh and sing with them, but I can't stand when they tell me what to do! I am thirteen years old. They just don't get me. They are too old I guess.

I have eleven sisters now. I really like being a big sister to Chelsea, Heidi, Angel, and Jackie. Some of my other sisters annoy me, but mostly I like being one of the oldest. Phoebe moved in a few weeks ago and I have a lot of fun with her. 

I really like to dance! Except when too many people start looking I get embarrassed. What if they think I'm a bad dancer? Usually I just laugh at myself so everyone knows it's a joke. I like when we're all on the same page about these sorts of things. 

I have to do this thing called physical therapy all the time. It's pretty much the worst thing on the face of the earth. This lady named Ruth comes and stretches out my legs then makes me crawl up the stairs and stand up by myself. It's not a lick of fun until I start singing my ABCs. Then I have a pretty good time. 

I love getting dressed up in new clothes! Carrie bought me a new half sari for my birthday. I felt like a movie star in that thing! Really I just love any cute clothes. A girl's gotta look good, am I right?

My moms keep saying I'm a total teenager these days. I don't really know what that means. They're weirdos sometimes.

Singing is pretty much my favorite thing to do. I love to sing every single song I know all in a row. That usually means I sing my ABCs, Happy Birthday, Merry Christmas, and three of my favorite Telugu songs. Sometimes my sisters tell me to stop, but singing makes me happy so I keep on anyway.

I share a bedroom with Victoria, Phoebe, and Stephanie. We love it because we stay up way later than all the little girls. Even after Carrie and Abby put us to bed we will stay up for almost an hour talking and laughing!

I love Jesus a whole lot. I've learned a lot about prayer recently and it's a pretty cool thing. Did you know Jesus actually listens to you and answers your prayers? That's pretty cool if you ask me.

I overhear a lot of people talking about me. They always say the same thing. I'm really joyful. And I guess that's true. I like to laugh a lot. Mostly I just like to make sure everyone is happy. When I see someone who isn't happy I try to cheer them up. Being sad just stinks, I'll tell ya that much.

I really do love everyone. People are always so nice and I just love when people are nice to each other.

I love being a big sister, and I love my foster moms even when they are weird. 

I think I'd probably love you too. I like when Carrie and Abby let me Skype people. Maybe you can ask them to Skype so I can meet you! I'd really like that. 

That's about it for now. I'll talk to you later. 

Duces,

Paula

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Would you consider sponsoring Paula? She needs sponsors to cover her daily needs such as food, water, rent, transportation, and medicine. You can sponsor her by clicking this link!

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

My Beautiful Birthday Girl

Isn't she just radiant? Paula's thirteenth birthday was yesterday (August 2nd)! For nearly a week before, I would Skype her from Hyderabad and Paula would scream "Happy birthday! Happy birthday Paula!" As soon as I got home on Friday morning she started singing the birthday song as she scooted towards me. The look of excitement on her face was like a child on Christmas Eve. She COULD NOT wait! 

I bought her a half saree for the birthday. We went to pick out the fabric on Friday afternoon and the SCH tailor stitched it for her! Before her party I helped her dress up and do her hair. One of our nurses here gave her a brand new pair of earrings and some girls serving here for a month bought her hair flowers! 

Before the party my friends Elise and Shawna helped me decorate the roof of our building! We hung balloons and streamers as well as a birthday collage consisting of banners and pictures of Paula! There was music playing that consisted of Paula's favorite songs. 

Paula opened two gifts from some of the short term volunteers who are at SCH right now. They got her a pair of new gold bangles and gold anklets! Let me tell you - she LOVED it! I got her cake out as we all sang Happy Birthday! Paula blew out the candles and laughed as everyone clapped for her. We all had some cake and Paula took pictures with everyone who came to her party! 

After her party, we took Paula to eat dinner at Ramya (a nice restaurant in town). The members of the team serving here helped me carry Paula and her wheelchair up steps, and into autos. I wanted the night to be all about Paula because she deserves it. 

Paula is the most joyful child I have ever known. She has faced so many hard things in her life, yet she never complains. She climbs stairs every day with a smile on her face. She sings at the top of her lungs, claps with enthusiasm, and strikes up conversations with anyone who passes. Paula is very aware of her disability, and I can tell it bothers her that she isn't as physically able as her sisters and friends. She often times get overshadowed or left behind just because she can't keep up.

Seeing the joy on her face when we did everything to serve HER specifically made me cry. Paula was SO joyful. She was absolutely radiant and glowing. Paula was beautiful, inside and out. 

Would you consider getting Paula a birthday present? Paula needs monthly sponsors. She currently doesn't have any sponsors which means all of her living expenses are being taken out of SCH's general fund. We'd like this money to be used solely for emergency medical expenses, and administrative costs. If you choose to sponsor Paula, I will personally Skype you with her! You can meet her, talk, and get to know this beautiful girl! 

Paula's sponsorship is $200 a month and $50 a month for school expenses. But you can partially sponsor her at $40 a month! I really want to see Paula get fully sponsored soon, because this radiant girl deserves it.

Happy 13th Birthday beautiful girl! It's nice to have such a joyful teenager in the house! 

Learning to Love

I've been thinking about what to write in my next blog post for several days now. So much has been happening here, and there have been endless amounts of things on my mind! I guess I'll just start by giving you all a run down of what's been going on.

We've had trouble with Paula's school. Paula has cerebral palsy, and she cannot walk. She can get around by crawling fairly well, but she still moves much slower than other children. Paula has a wheelchair which she uses at home, but her school has never allowed her to bring it. I planned on going to school with her this past Monday to advocate for her and try to convince her principal that she needed her wheelchair. Paula's incredibly motivated to learn, and she has so much potential. But if she is using all her concentration and might just to sit up, then there is no way she will be able to focus on her school work.

Last week Paula's school told us that unless Paula could get on and off the bus at a normal speed like other children, she could no longer attend. This made me angry as I thought how much her life would be different if she were in America. There would be a bus with a wheelchair lift that comes to her home every day. She wouldn't have to worry about people discriminating against her because of her disability. She could get the specialized education she needs and really thrive. But we're not in America; we are in India.

So I began to plan what I was going to say to her teachers. An SCH staff member was going to go with me so that I could advocate for her without worrying about language barriers. I was determined to fight for my girl and have her in school with her wheelchair.

That never happened.

Monday morning we got a call saying Paula was no longer welcomed at school. The reason they gave was dumb and had absolutely nothing to do with her mobility challenges. Paula had been sick the week before and came home early one day. The school said she is no longer welcome because she had been sick at school. They didn't want her "infecting other children". I was furious as Paula only had a stomach bug. She was kicked out over something that happens to every kid at some point in their life. Personally, I think they were just looking for a  reason to kick her out because she is different.

We began brainstorming what to do next in regards to Paula's education. I sat down with her on Monday and began working with her on basic academic skills such as colors, numbers, shapes, and letters. I found that Paula doesn't actually know most of what I quizzed her on. She can recite the alphabet and count, but if I put an A in front of her and asked her what letter it was, she had no idea.  Unfortunately, most of what Paula had been learning was memorization. She has little knowledge to the concepts behind them.

So we decided to homeschool her. Paula now has a private tutor whom she goes to each day. She also spends time with me every day learning the alphabet, learning English, and working on speech.

I've really been struggling with how to effectively discipline my girls while at the same time making sure they know how much I love them. I've had the hardest time with Leah.

There isn't much we know about Leah's past but this. Leah was found wandering around a railway station a little over two months ago. She was brought to a government run orphanage and within a week transferred to SCH. We don't know if she was abandoned that recently, if she had been on her own for awhile, or if someone else had been trying to take care of her. 

Leah came to SCH speaking and understanding only Hindi (the language spoken here is Telugu). Her speech is often times intelligible, but she is so smart. She already understands most Telugu and she is understanding a lot of what I say to her in English. I don't think Leah has an intellectual disability. She is probably behind academically due to lack of education and she definitely has a speech problem, but she is a really smart kid. But she has some major behavior issues. 

Most of her behavior problems I'm sure stem from whatever her past may be. She hits the other girls really hard whenever she's mad or doesn't get her way. Every time I tell her in a stern voice "No beating Leah!" I often times grab her hands and put them by her sides, trying to demonstrate that we keep our hands to ourselves. Every time this happens she looks up at me and I can see the confusion in her eyes. She doesn't understand why she is suddenly getting in trouble for hitting. This is probably something she has done her entire life. If she did something wrong, she was hit. If another child did something wrong, she hit them. That has probably been the norm for her for a long time. 

So I struggle with how to effectively discipline her. She needs to know this behavior and several others are not ok. But the fact that it is not ok is such a foreign concept to her. Sometimes I will tell another one of my girls to do something (or not to do something) and if they don't listen, Leah will run up and hit them. She looks at me with a smile on her face, pointing to the other child. It breaks my heart. She thinks she is helping me. She is trying so hard to do the right thing, but she has such a skewed concept of what that is. 

My heart aches as I try to find the best way to discipline her. She needs to know these behaviors are not ok. But she isn't doing them for the same reasons most kids are. She thinks she is doing the right thing when in fact, she's doing the opposite. I don't want her to think she is being punished for trying to help me. I want her to know she is being punished for hitting. But those things are one in the same in her mind. 

I also don't want to punish her (or any of my girls) in a way that might make them relive some of the trauma they have in their past. That's so hard because I don't know what that is. If I raise my voice does that inflict emotional pain as they remember someone who yelled at them and beat them? The other day Leah was supposed to be in time out and I could not get her to sit down. I had tried to physically box her in so she couldn't get up and it just wasn't working. I ended up sending her to her room for a few minutes. Yesterday I found out that's a terrible thing to do for a child who has been abandoned. It promotes ideas of separation and abandonment in their minds. My heart ached as I began to regret that I had unknowingly caused her more harm than good in that moment. 

Later on I cried and begged God to give me wisdom. I don't know how to effectively discipline Leah. I have no clue how to teach her what is right and wrong without unintentionally bringing up things from her past. I want to be a source of light in her life. I want her to look at me and feel Christ's love for her. I pray every day that I am a beacon for his light on my girls.

So much more has been happening here and I am excited to share all of it with you! However this post has already turned into quite the novel. I have several more things to say, but I'll save them for another post in a couple days. :)