Tag: adoption

Homelessness

YouTube

I follow a channel on YouTube called “Invisible People“, it is a channel about homeless people. The guy interviews random homeless people throughout the world. It’s pretty raw and you hear all kinds of stories. This channel is great, because everything I have wanted to ask, he asks! I’ve mentioned this in the past, but everyone has a story and most people want to tell their story to anyone who will listen. I find everyone interesting and want to hear their story.

Adoption

We received our son through the gift of adoption. A very kind girl chose to place her baby with us and we are so thankful to her and her family for making this decision. It has been a very interesting roller-coaster. There is a whole new dynamic to your relationship. Our son has an extra set of grandparents and may have to deal with some things that most kids don’t have to deal with.

Up until a couple years ago, we kept in touch with the Birth-mother (BM). We had a great relationship with her, her husband, and second son. We were invited to birthday parties. She was invited to birthday parties for our son J. It’s been great. A couple years ago, the BM made a poor decision and feel in love with a another person while she was still married and raising a 2 year old boy.

Your choice

Her and her lover ended up being homeless and making very poor decisions. We started getting calls to lend her money, for hotel rooms. Our love for her made us want to give, but we were very hesitant to lend her the money. We told her this was a one shot deal and it had to be used for what the intended purpose was (a room) and nothing else. Come to find out, it wasn’t going to be used for a room for the night, but to help her lover with hormone injections. She tried calling one other time, but we had to remind her about the stipulation. We haven’t heard from her since.

We haven’t had much contact with our BM, but she still posts on FB, so we are able to follow her journey. She has had several family members trying to help her out and give her a hand-up in life. Unfortunately, she has chosen to live a life of homelessness. I wish we could help more, but there isn’t much you can do when they have made this choice.

I know we can’t help much, but it is sad to see the damages she is doing to her life. Explaining all of this to our boy when he grows up is going to be quite interesting. We know they are based up in SLC, so I try and look for them when I’m in the area. I pray for her and her family often! Covid-19 has probably made it harder for them and put them in more danger.

How do we help?

This is the ultimate question. I’m not sure what the answer is, but there are a lot of sites out there and local opportunities to help. Treat them with respect and try and help them out where you can. I’m not sure about you, but I want to make sure my $ goes for good and not something else.

Christmas Month

I am going to do another blog post this week. 

Having the holidays over is going to be awesome!  There are a lot of festive activities and parties, but it is one right after another!  The weekends are usually crammed packed, so you don’t have much down time.   Sunday after church are usually my favorite times.  We are chilled around here and take it easy.  

I have loved every event that we have attended and done this month.  Earlier this month, we attended a Christmas Party with my family.   Getting together with this side of the family, usually only happens once a year.   My family means the world to me and I wish that I saw them more!  As I’ve mentioned, my father passed away several years ago (30 years now).  We have since found out that he had a daughter before he got married to my mom.  It is a crazy DNA story that I will have to expound on sometime.   She fits right in with our family.  There are a lot of resemblances with her and my family that are spooky.    Each get together, we learn more and more about her.  So much fun!

This weekend, we were able to meet with Jacob’s birth grandma, J.  She lives in North Carolina, so we don’t get to see her very much.  She is divorced and has two adult kids that keep her busy!  Jacob’s birthmother has made some decisions in her life that aren’t the best.   It’s rough to see her go through this troubled time.   We have so much love for her and the decision she made to place with us.  We just don’t love her decisions she is making now.

We told Grandma J to meet us at Leatherby’s, so we could have food and desert, if she had eaten, since it was going to be late.  We show up and see a sign that says, “We are temporarily closed for remodeling….”  There was no mention of this online.  I look it up now and it still says it’s open!   Am I the only one who relies way too much on the internet to tell me what is going on?   We ended up going a block or two over to “Crown Burger”.    You can’t go wrong with burgers, can you?  We had a great visit with J.

Before the meeting with J, we had family photos taken.  I was dreading it, but it wasn’t as bad as I though it was going to be.  I’m not much of a suit person, but it went better than I thought.

We went through the Christmas In Color display this week in South Jordan, UT.  It is a big parking lot filled with Christmas lights synced to music and it is amazing!   It is a pretty fun thing to do as a family.  Jacob enjoys it.  Hopefully the biggest of scrooges can come through with a little Christmas spirit or a song or two stuck in your head.   This year, they added vertical lights have this 3D effect to them.

I hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas this year.   I hope you don’t get caught up in the whole retail nightmare of Christmas.