Welcome to Hyderabad!

We've been in Hyderabad for over three weeks now. And what a crazy three weeks it has been! Our first ten days here we were stranded in the basement of another SCH home because our house wasn't ready. The girls were stir crazy by the time we moved in! But the day finally came and we moved into our beautiful new home!

Our house (called Joy Home) is a giant two story house. We live on the first floor. Another group of kids that SCH will soon be getting from the government will live on the second. The amount of space we have is crazy! It's triple the size of our apartment in Ongole.Our house has four bedrooms and 4 1/2 baths. The older girls share one bedroom while the younger ones share another. The rooms are HUGE! Jackie, Heidi, Angel, Chelsea, Jeanette, Esther, Naomi, and Rebekah share the largest room of the house. They have more room than they've ever had in their lives! We are so thankful that SCH picked this beautiful house for our girls! The smallest bedroom in the house has been transformed into a school room where our girls do their homework. They have a tutor who comes every afternoon and helps with homework as well as catching them up in school as most of them are behind a couple years.

The best part of living in Hyderabad is our new schools! Having access to better schools is the main reason we moved. There were no special education resources in Ongole and our girls were not getting the education they needed or deserved. By the time we moved, four of our girls had been kicked out because they "didn't have any ability to learn". Getting all twelve enrolled in various schools was a long and stressful process, but we are thrilled to now see all twelve thriving in their new schools!

Esther, Jackie, Angel, and Chelsea are enrolled at Bachpan Playschool. Bachpan is a top notch preschool with one of the best academic programs in Hyderabad. Chelsea and Angel are in playgroup, the beginning class. Jackie is in nursery, the second level. We are really hoping they will soon see how smart she is and bump her up to LKG with Esther! Esther's class, LKG (lower kindergarten) focuses on learning to read and write small words as well as many other things. The girls love Bachpan and can't wait to put their uniforms on every morning!


Heidi started at Kangaroo Kids Playschool last week. I am so excited to see her thrive in their integrated program. I really think that attending a different school than her sisters will help her to develop appropriate social skills and become more attentive in an academic environment. Heidi loves going to school! She's the first one to leave in the morning (which is hard as she's the slowest of our bunch), but she can't wait to walk out the door and get on her bus every day!

Paula, Naomi, and Rebekah are attending Sparsh Special Education School. We absolutely love Sparsh and have been thrilled with the resources they have access to there! In addition to their education they each receive half an hour of speech therapy, physiotherapy, and occupational therapy every day! They come home with daily reports detailing what they learned and how their therapies went. Naomi and Rebekah have been learning how to jump in physiotherapy and Paula gets leg exercises every day! They are all learning phonics and how to pronounce their ABCs correctly. In occupational therapy they are learning how to correctly hold pencils and are working on fine motor skills.

Phoebe, Victoria, Stephanie, and Jeanette were recently enrolled at Devnar School for the Blind. Devnar is normally a boarding school, but they were happy to let our girls attend during their school day! They are all learning to read and write Braille as well as learning regular academics. They started them out in 1st Class since they didn't learn how to read Braille in Ongole. On the girls' first day we discovered that Phoebe had been enrolled at Devnar several years ago before she came to SCH! She learned Braille then and has continued with it on and off during her years at SCH. She's a really smart girl, and we are hoping she picks it back up quickly and can be promoted to a higher class! Devnar has amazing resources and education for children who are blind. We're really excited about the opportunities the girls will have here!


With school enrollment, comes heavy school fees. Thankfully, four of our girls get to attend school for free!! Victoria, Phoebe, Jeanette, and Stephanie have zero school fees! All they need is $25 a month each for transportation. Victoria and Phoebe's are already covered! Steph and Jeanette still need sponsors. You can become a $25 per month sponsor for Jeanette here and for Stephanie here. Just donate under the School Sponsorship link.

The rest of the girls have some pretty hefty school fees. All of the girls fees cover their tuition, enrollment fees, books, uniforms, field trips/special events, and transportation. We are currently fundraising to cover everything for this semester (now-May). Heidi needs $645. Chelsea, Angel, Jackie, and Esther each need $525. Paula, Naomi, and Rebecca each need $490.

We need $4,215 as soon as possible. I know that's a huge number, but every little bit helps! Could you please donate even just a simple $10 so our girls can go to school? You can donate at www.tinyurl.com/schjoyhomeschoolfees.

Enjoy our Shake It Off music video as you consider donating towards our girls' education!

Three Bundles of Joy

There has been so much going on since our six new girls moved in! Abby and I have been co-fostering for about two weeks now, but it feels like we've been doing this forever!

Abby and I designed family t-shirts and had them shipped to her in America before she left. Look how cute we all are! The shirts say "You are beautiful for you are fearfully and wonderfully made!"

Looking at this picture still puts me in shock. Do we really have twelve kids? Our family looks so huge and overwhelming in this picture, but that's not really how I feel in day to day life.

Yes, our day to day is absolutely crazy and beyond chaotic. But I don't feel overwhelmed. Honestly I don't even feel like twelve is too big a number. Abby and I like to joke about how insane we must be to have twelve children with special needs who don't fluently speak our language. But that's all it is, a joke.

Life with these twelve beautiful girls is wonderful. Never have I experienced so much joy in one place. These silly girls bring so much JOY and LIFE into our home. We've been up to a lot lately and each of our twelve have been absolutely thriving since we all moved in!

Heidi said her first word! The other night I was carrying her downstairs when she reached out and touched my face. As I turned to see her, she looked me right in the eyes and said "mama". I cried. I have been praying for my baby to start talking for over a year and she's finally there! I had a meeting with a speech therapist a couple weeks ago and now have a solid plan for her speech development. I can't wait to see my little girl become more verbal! Heidi is just the cutest now that she has one word down! She grabs Abby or I, making sure she has our full attention, before saying "mama" and pointing to whatever she wants or needs. We are so proud! I've honestly never loved someone as much as I love Heidi. I love all my girls equally, but Heidi just has this extra special place in my heart. I don't know if it is just because she is the first child at SCH that I fell in love with or what. But man do I love this bundle of joy. Heidi brings a smile to my face every single day. Even when she pees her pants for what seems to be the millionth time, I can't help but look at her and smile. She is radiant. Heidi really means the world to me. I can't imagine going a single day without her in my life.

Jackie makes me laugh on a daily basis. She is usually one of our first children to wake up in the morning and loves to get me out of bed! Most mornings I wake up to her gently kissing my cheek. I roll over and she giggles and says "I love you Carrie Mummy! Morning time!" Jackie amazes me with everything she can do at five years old despite her physical disability. Jackie only has one finger on the end of each of her hands and one toe on the outside of each of her feet. Despite not having fingers to grab or hold things, Jackie can do just about anything. She still eats with a spoon, colors and writes with crayons, opens doors and cabinets, and gets in to trouble when she unlocks the latch on our gate! It's impossible not to love Jackie because she charms everyone the second she meets them. Recently a volunteer named Kevin served at SCH. When he introduced himself to Jackie she misunderstood his name. She immediately screamed "SEVEN YOU ARE MY FRIEND!" to which she received lots of laughter. Over the course of the month he was here Jackie made sure that everyone called him Seven instead of his real name. Jackie is such a goof.

Rebekah is a hot mess. There is no better way to put it. And I love it because I am the biggest hot mess there ever was. The only word Rebekah can say completely clearly is "yeah" and she says it all the time! "Hey Rebekah how was school?" "Yeah." "Rebekah have you done your tuition?" "Yeah." "Rebekah it's dinner time!" "Yeah." "Rebekah are you ready for bed?" Silence. Bedtime has proved itself  to be the only time I don't hear her "yeah". She gets really frustrated when she can't communicate through speech. Soon Abby and I will start working with her on ways of nonverbal communication so Rebekah can better express herself. Rebekah makes me laugh daily as well. She loves to blabber on as if telling a story in gibberish. The other night I read Rebekah a bedtime story. I read the book "David Goes to School". The little boy in the book is very animated and was probably intended to look a little silly. But that's not what Rebekah saw. She saw a character in a book who looked like her. She was SO excited to see his picture. Bouncing up and down in bed, she pointed to the picture of the boy then back to herself as if to say "He looks like me! He looks like me!" She pointed to his teeth then grabbed her own. She pointed to his eyes then covered hers laughing. I fought back tears as I saw the joy on my little girl's face. She finally found something that made her feel normal. Rebekah has Apert's Syndrome which causes her to look quite a bit different than other kids. I never realized that Rebekah might be self conscious about the way she looks. Seeing the joy on her face when a character from a book made her feel normal was breathtaking. Rebekah is beautiful.

Over the next few days I will be posting updates like this about each of our twelve! SCH is run completely off donations, and we have a sponsorship program to fund our children's living expenses and school fees. Abby and I really want to see all 12 of our girls become fully sponsored before the end of the year. The good news is that we are already a fourth of the way there! Heidi, Jackie, and Rebekah (along with Angel) are all fully sponsored.

An SCH child sponsorship is $200 a month in full. It covers the rent and utilities for the child's apartment, all their food and water, medicine, routine medical checkups, and transportation. It also helps cover the salary of employees who work with them directly (nurses, ayahs, physical therapists, etc).

Our girls also have separate school sponsorships to cover the cost of their tuition. Eleven of our girls attend mainstream private schools (free education isn't really a thing here). Paula is currently homeschooled, but still has an education sponsorship to cover the cost of her school materials and private tutor. School sponsorships are $50 a month.

I know that it A LOT of money. I could never afford to pay a full sponsorship each month! Luckily you can sponsor our kids in partial sponsorships. Abby and I both sponsor a couple of our girls at $40 a month. You can see our kids' sponsorship pages by clicking their picture on the right side of my blog or you can click here to see a list of all the children in need of sponsorship.

Here we stand, our hearts are Yours. Not our will but Yours be done. Join me in praying this for our 12 girls!

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