Hope

This is Hope. She is 14 years old and in the 8th grade. She is such a delight. This past year, Hope has really enjoyed being in the choir, playing on the high school lacrosse team, participating in the Indian Education activities and having fun with her friends and pets. She loves animals and is great with kids. She has such a tender heart...

Hope came to us as a foster child when she was 7 months old. We were able to adopt her just before she turned three years old. She has 3 birth brothers who she has some contact with (they are also in an adoptive home.) She is multiracial--African American, Ojibwe Indian, and Caucasian. Hope has ADHD and FASD (fetal alcohol spectrum disorder). She does not let her disability stop her from reaching for the goals she is setting for herself.

Life has not always been easy for Hope. Before she was diagnosed with ADHD and FASD, she had many struggles with comprehension and compliance. She will always have to work harder to stay on task and to manage her disability, and we are so thankful for her attitude about life. She loves youth group and is growing in her faith everyday. We love her so much....

McKenna

This is McKenna. Her story is miraculous in so many ways. At 26 weeks gestation, I went into my clinic for a routine ultrasound. What the technician said to us, forever changed our lives that day.."Has anyone mentioned that there may be something wrong with the Baby?" These words started a whirlwind of emotion and a long series of medical consultations that ultimately led us to a neurosurgeon at Minneapolis Children's Hospital.

McKenna had a posterior occipital encephalocele. It is in the family of spina bifida but the opening in the neural tube is on the head instead of the spine. Ultimately, the best predictor of outcome has to do with how much brain tissue was pushed out of the skull. Because she had an opening in her skull (at the back of her head by her neck), the lining of her brain pushed out and created a sack. At birth, the sack was almost the size of her head. There was some non-viable brain tissue and lots of brain fluid that had pushed out. We knew immediately that things did not look good for. Those 10 weeks of waiting from the time we were told of her "birth defect" to the time she was delivered were some of the longest days of our lives...The waiting was so difficult.

Each time we would see another specialist, they gave us more bad news. They told us that she would most likely not survive through the pregnancy and if she did, she would die shortly after. They offered us the option to terminate the pregnancy. We walked in to that office knowing that we would accept our child any way that God chose to give her to us...and yet I grieved at knowing that 90% of families that are faced with that choice do not make the same decision. We made plans for her funeral and chose a burial site for her. We gave her a name immediately after discovering the news of her condition so that we could pray for her by name...McKenna Marie. Our faith became all that held us up during this time. We felt His presence intimately as we fought for our daughters life and grieved over what might have been.. We claimed Ephesians 3:20 as her verse--Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever.


Ironcally, It was the neurosurgeon that we saw a few weeks before she was born that helped remind us to hold onto hope. He said, "I am not giving you my medical opinion, but I just think she is going to be okay." Those words helped us through the next few weeks as we prepared for her birth and potential death.

October 1st, 1992, McKenna was born and had surgery to remove the encephalocele the day after. She stayed in the hospital 9 days before she came home to us. Our Church body broke into cheering when they heard that she was doing much better than the doctors expected. Our family and friends praised God with us as we give our thanks to God for the miracles in Kenna's life.

Since her birth, McKenna has not had an easy road. She has had more than 10 surgeries and multiple hospitalizations. She has difficult to control Abdominal Migraines (she vomits many times a week), an anxiety disorder, a moderate mental disability, a VP shunt. The doctors told us she would most likely never walk or talk, suck or swallow--and she does all those things.

She is so much more than her disability. She is so funny. She has a sense of humor that only those who take the time to get to know her can truly appreciate. She does not have much of a filter for what she says--so if she likes your hair, she will tell you..and if she doesn't, well, she will tell you that also. She has a strong childlike faith that is incredibly inspiring. She teaches us so much more than we have taught her.

McKenna feels everything so intensely. When she is happy, she is joyful. When she is sad, it is so painful to watch, because she is so deeply sad. She loves so unconditionally and sees life in such a wonderful way. She is intense and is exhausting to parent. Her behaviors are difficult to manage. Her medical challenges are daily. Yet, she I thank God everyday for her in our lives.
She has changed the way we define "success" in life. She has redefined so much of what we used to think was important. She has brought us closer to our Savior because of her beautiful and simple faith and because we could not care for her if it were not for God. She is His and we could not face another day of the challenges she gives us if we did not remember that she is His and that He is ultimately working through us to care for her.

Did God "heal" McKenna? Not to the standards of the world. At times in life, I get sensitive to the stories of families who pray for their children who were faced with seemingly unsurmountable odds and the child is born completely normal. I want to rejoice with them and most often I am able to. But at times of weakness, I focus for a moment on the fact that we prayed too. We had faith that she could be healed if it had been the Lord's will. And yet it was not the Lord's will for her to be healed. His power is perfected in our weakness. Each day, He is using her story to change the lives of those around her. Her ministry is big..it is vital and she never let's what others think of her stop her from sharing her faith. Whether you are in the line at Kohl's or on her Special Olympics team, you are going to here the gospel from McKenna---that is just the God made her and it was no defect.....