Latest / DA CREW Podcast / DA CREW PODCAST SEASON 1_ EPISODE #121_HOST TRIVEDA HARRIS

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DA CREW PODCAST SEASON 1_ EPISODE #121_HOST TRIVEDA HARRIS · DA CREW Podcast

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satisfied clients have seen their credits calls sort say good evening and welcome to Believing
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the Journey Podcast, where I'm your host, Trevida Harris, and I want
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to take the moment to tell you guys that this is episode fifteen of Believing
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the Journey Podcast. As always, we can never start this show without going
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to God first, So let's go to God first and honor him. Dear
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Heavenly Father, thank you for bringing us together tonight as you do each and
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every second Sunday and fourth Thursday of the month for the Believing the Journey Podcast.
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With you, I am always able to find the people that you need
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to bring their stories to this show and to be able to share amongst the
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world. Please continue to guide me in the way that you see fit for
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me, and please continue to bring those guests to need to share their story
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for the world to hear. In your precious name, Jesus, we pray
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now tonight I am going to be talking to miss Valerie Arvaux about her beautiful
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blessings that she received and I don't even know how to put it. It's
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just a beautiful blessing to be able to raise special needs children. Miss Valerie
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is a certified life coach Health and life coach. She is also a licensed
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physical therapy with over thirty years of experience. Her husband and her have been
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married. Her husband, Scott and her have been married for over thirty years.
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They have been blessed with two special needs children, and God only gives
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those to his greatest people. Because I don't think I'm one of those people.
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I will say that for myself. Her intention is to help women find
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their strength through their unique circle stances, and she's also an author in the
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making, so she loves to speak on many different platforms. So I want
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you to welcome my guest, Miss Valerie Arbou. Well, Hello, and
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thank you so much for having me. Thank you for being here. I
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am excited to have this conversation with you. As we were talking before the
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show started, God blessed you with two beautiful children and their special needs.
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How was it when you first found out that you were pregnant with your first
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child? Wow? Well that takes me back twenty two years old. This
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is now twenty one. Okay, I have to say, I just it
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was an unbelievable experience. The lead up to becoming pregnant was seven years of
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infertility. Okay, so we had tried for seven years. We were a
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little older we started this journey of becoming parents. I had gotten married.
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I think I was almost twenty nine, so I was a little bit of
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a late starter, and I initially didn't really want to have children. My
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husband kind of talked me around. They have a way of doing that,
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right, And then when I decided that, you know what, yes,
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I think i'd like to be a mom. I didn't even occur to me
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because I was aged thirty three at the time. It didn't even occur to
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me that this would be a problem. So seven years of infertility and then
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we gave up, and I realized that we were not going to be the
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first parents, we were probably not going to be sorry, not going to
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be the first people nor the last couple to not have children. So we
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just gave up on my thirty eighth birthday, and then the very next month,
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I was pregnant. See you were trying to put it on your time
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and not guy's time. That's what that was. That was it was like,
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Okay, you were trying and trying to do what your own way in
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your time, and God said, no, I got something for you,
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and we're gonna make this happen in my time. And that's what happened.
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Totally, totally. It was an amazing feeling, Trevida. It was I
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was relating to Sarah and Hannah and Sarah Hannah and who was Rachel of old
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from the Old Testament, because they had prayed and they had hoped and they
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had dreamed about becoming a mom, and I had done the same, and
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then all of a sudden it was happening, and it was really exciting.
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I just have to tell you this because it just makes me laugh. My
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husband, when I realized that I thought I might be pregnant, and we've
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been here lots of times before, we had gone to pick up a pregnancy
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test because we'd run out of the ones we had at home, and then
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we were at the store in the mall. We went to Shoppers drug Mart
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and we were in the mall and Scott said, do you think you could
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find a bathroom and we can go and you can go test it out now,
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honey. I really think this is a real week, kind of a
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private thing, and maybe this is something we should do at home. The
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excitement, the excitement. He was like a little boy with a Christmas toy.
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When I went in the test. I handed it to him and we
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sat and we waited, and he's just like his eyes got big. He
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says, here, you're pregnant. The joy, the joy, the joy.
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Oh, it was an amazing feeling. I had never been so close
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to God during that pregnancy. I felt like my spiritual life was on an
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all time high. I felt so connected to God, so close to God.
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The pregnancy was beautiful. Everything about it was lovely. God knows I
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don't do vomit, and he blessed me with not throwing up. I was
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so grateful. I think that's the worst experience for any woman who has been
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pregnant, is that throwing up, Because it takes so many muscles in your
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body to go through that. And it's like, okay, look here,
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can this be over quickly? Because I don't want to do this. I
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do not want to do this. And I can say with my daughter,
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I didn't have any morning sickness at all, and with my youngest I didn't,
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but with my middle child, I did, but it was only after
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eating breakfast. I had to eat the same breakfast every morning, but he
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would not allow it to stay down. So that was frustrating. So I
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had to get up every morning and make I didn't drink the coffee, but
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I had to make coffee. I had to have sausage, pancakes and eggs
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every single morning for breakfast. But at least about ten minutes after eating it,
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it was coming back up, and I was like, Okay, this
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is torture for me, this cannot be good for him. But every day
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I had to be the same thing because anything other than that it was not
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going down at all. So it was weird. But you know, that's
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the difference between each one of my pregnancies with my children because they each have
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different personalities as well. Also, I know you know how that goes totally
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totally. Can you tell me a little bit about your children? Sure?
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So, as I mentioned earlier, my oldest is twenty one. So we
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had a beautiful pregnancy, as I mentioned, and then I had a prolapse
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chord. I didn't know a chord prolapse. I had not attended the prenatal
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classes because I was going to have a C section. I've had fibroid surgery
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in the year two thousand, so my dress was not supposed to go into
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contractions and go through a night natural birth. So I was feeling great.
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The obstetrician wanted to do the surgery two days before the judy. Usually it's
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about two weeks before. But I was feeling healthy. I was fine,
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the baby was doing great, so there was no concerns. But I got
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a chest infection and I was coughing so hard. I coughed so hard that
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I felt something shoot between my legs, and I thought it was the baby's
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leg because I knew I was presenting. She was presenting as a breach baby,
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okay, and I didn't have my water's break, so I didn't realize
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that I was actually in labor. So when I coughed so hard and I
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felt the shoot between my legs. Fortunately it was early in the morning,
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my husband was still home. He called the ambulance. I went to the
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hospital on all fours with an EMT, A male EMT's hand up my vagina,
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alleviating the pressure off the cord off the ambulod because the foot it was
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not her leg, it was actually the umbilical cord that had come out.
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Okay, okay, so this was cutting off the oxygen supply to her brain.
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Okay. Well, I remember thinking, come on, baby, move,
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I was screaming it in my head, but I was soft we saying
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it, and my baby didn't move. The next thing I knew was I
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was waking up from a crash on aesthetic. I don't know how my husband
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got to the hospital, but he drove to the hospital and the e MT
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guy that assisted me met Scott at the doors of the hospital and escorted him
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to where he could see the birth. So I had a crash on aesthetic
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emergency c section. Baby was lifted out. She was gray, She didn't
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make any attempt to breathe. Her heart rate was sixty so basically she was
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dying right, So they resuscitated her and they put her on a ventilator,
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took it to the NICU, which is the neonatal intensive carry in it.
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So when I woke up, apparently I was saying did we get a girl?
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Did we get a girl? And my husband was like, yeah,
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everything's fine, and it took about twenty four hours first to realize the verity
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of what was going on. Both my husban and I are healthcare workers,
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so we were both used to seeing people on ventilators, getting on ventilators,
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getting on ventilators, so it wasn't really a big deal. And as I
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say, it took us about twenty four hours to realize because I remember thinking,
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why am I in a private room? I didn't order a private room.
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I didn't right, And when I went to see the baby, she
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was gorgeous. She still is gorgeous, but she was gorgeous, and she
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was the biggest baby because she was twenty nine and a half sorry, nine
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thirty nine and a half weeks. Okay, so all the other babies were
12:35
little premies and tiny little things, so my baby looked like a big bruiser
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at eight pounds and change. She was a big baby, yes, from
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my first and I have very narrow hips. I'm not going to show you,
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but I have very narrow Well, that's a big baby. I don't
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think you would have been able to push her out anyway, because yes,
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you small, you are small, so I don't see that happening. I
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think that I was necessaried in C section anyway, So that's my first,
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okay, And so with her, as I say, it took his twenty
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four hours to actually realize what was going on. The neonatologist kept saying when
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he came back to work on Monday. She was born on a Friday morning,
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he totally expected her to not be living by the time Monday came around.
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He came into work and he just looked at us, looked at the
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baby, and he just kept saying, bulba palsy, Buba palsy. So
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basically that means it just translates to cerebral palsy. So she had a deprivation
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of oxygen to her brain and so because of that, brain cells died and
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she's not able to function as a regular baby would function. He thought her
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kidneys would shut down, He thought everything would shut down and she would be
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a vegetable and then pass away. Praise God, she is still always had
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a different plan totally. So that was our first and we can talk a
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little bit more about her journey in a minute. But my second came three
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years later, and I didn't want to deal with another baby after the traumatic
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entrance into the world of our first baby. Right, so we're parents for
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the first time. We're parents of a child with special needs. And then
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the prognosis we gave we were given was a year, so then we're parents
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of a child that's only going to live a year. So I was not
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planning to have any more children. But my husband saw a picture of a
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little boy in his wheelchair and this little boy was laughing so hard. His
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little sister was standing beside him and she was laughing so hard. And Scott
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said, I want that for Melody Anne. So again I took a little
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convincing. He's very good at convincing. Yeah, he's very good at convincing.
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Yeah, So we had. I got pregnant for a second child,
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and it wasn't easy. I had with my first. I think I'd taken
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CLOMD, which is a drug just to basically help increase the targets for the
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sperm. With my second, I was about to start and then my period
15:16
didn't come, and I thought, oh, okay, I'll pick up the
15:18
prescription in a few days when my period starts, because I expected it too
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and it didn't. But at six weeks I had a bleed and I remember
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thinking, God, if I'm going to miscarry, because that had always been
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my prayer. Lord, I don't want to get pregnant. If I'm going
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to miscarry, my heart bleeds for all those women that have experienced that.
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I just did not want to join the ranks. And so when we got
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to six weeks and I was having this bleed, I'm like, okay,
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Lord, But little did I know I had another fighter in my womb.
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Yes, yes, So Ebony was born three years later, as I mentioned,
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and I remember thinking, I wonder what it must be like. I
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don't know whether I would prefer to have the knowledge that my child has special
16:03
needs at birth? Oh would I want to find out later? And I
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remember thinking that and thinking, I don't know. I don't know that I
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ever really decided. But now I am living experience of both. Our youngest
16:15
was born with so I'm married to a Caucasian, so our babies are light
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skinned. My oldest is looks Latino, my youngest looks totally white. People
16:25
thought I was the nanny, blue eyes, brown, curly hair, and
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gorgeous. Again, I'm just double by us. But both my children ms
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are and you have every right to be. So she was born and she
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met all the milestones. She was doing all the things that little babies do
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and little kids do. She talked up a storm at a very young age.
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She was reading at the age of three, okay, and I was
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just and you know, quite social, tended to get along with adults more
16:56
so than her peers. But we did not really eyes because we were so
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consumed with the care for Melody Anne. That our second child also had special
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needs. So Melody Anne has cerebral policy as that mentioned, So she is
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nonverbal, not able to speak, not able to swallow. So she has
17:15
a G tube and that's how she spades through her tummy. So she has
17:18
a little button thing which we attach a tube too, and she gets her
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feed through that. And she's wheelchair bound, so she's total care. So
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being consumed with her care kind of blind it is to the indicators that our
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second child had special needs as well. So with our first child being total
17:38
care, my husband and I could not do it all because we don't have
17:42
family close by to where we live, so we have to hire caregiver.
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Sorry, we have to hire caregivers. And so that's a job in itself,
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doing the advertising, sifting through the responses, calling for interviews, doing
17:56
the interviews, all of that, plus you know, when you hire them,
18:00
then you're training them, and then there's the payroll all of that side
18:03
to it as well. So I was busy, and I chose not to
18:07
let my physiotherapy license go, so I was working part time, so I
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had to do so many hours per year to keep my license. So yeah,
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So with my youngest, it wasn't till they probably hit grade two and
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I was recognizing that they weren't going to birthday parties. They weren't getting invited
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to birthday parties. So that's where some of the social awkwardness came in.
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But let me back up, because I do recall when they were very little,
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so transitioning them from the soft food, pablem, whatever it is,
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transitioning from that to textured food was very difficult. This child would not I
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couldn't give her anything textured, anything with bits and pieces in it. She
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just spat it out. So I remember thinking, is this child ever going
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to progress to regular food? They did, thankfully, but it took a
18:57
while. And then there are other things like now that we recall flapping of
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the hands when they were probably a toddler and as I mentioned, the social
19:07
awkwardness sort of you know, getting along with adults more easily than they did
19:11
with their peers. So yeah, it was kind of a bit of a
19:15
shock. When we got to grade five, I realized, you know what,
19:19
there's something else going on here, because this child did not respond to
19:22
discipline, did not respond to its schedule. My oldest had to be scheduled
19:26
for all who needs to be met, but my youngest did not want to
19:30
be scheduled, and I remember thinking there's something going on. I remember talking
19:34
to the grade five teacher and said, you know, do you notice anything
19:37
at school with how they're doing. Oh, it's just preteen syndrome. They're
19:42
fine, they just don't always follow through with everything. If they listened and
19:48
followed instruction, they would do better. But they tend to rush through and
19:52
get their work done. Anyhow. I was mumments, what's the word intuition,
19:57
Mum, intuition. I was like, yeah, there's something else going
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on, something else going on. So we did some testing ADHD. There's
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a diagnosis that we got at grade five. At the end of grade five,
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going into grade six, and then what we didn't realize was mental health
20:15
stuff was starting to kind of come in. Grade eight was a rough year
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and be for a lot of girls. So we knew that junior high would
20:23
be tough, and so we kind of got through that. We actually ended
20:27
up moving them from school they were actually in our church, to Nomination School,
20:32
but it was so tough that year that I actually pulled them out and
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put them into public school, which was hard. They are very much into
20:37
art, so we went to an art centered school, and for the first
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time in a very long time, they actually felt like they were somebody.
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They had friends, they had a couple of friend groups. People knew who
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they were in the school. They got to be captain of the volleyball team,
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whereas before they were spending quite a bit of time on the bench.
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Even though they were a good player, they just did not jive with the
20:57
coach. It was. It was so thrilling to actually have my child enjoy
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school and exactly were belonging. But unfortunately that did not last long because then
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we started into the mental health thing. So we started with mental health issues
21:15
like cutting, depression, a little bit of anxiety, So then we had
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to deal with that. That was hard, That was really hard, So
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again we pulled them out of because they were starting to do behaviors that we've
21:26
never seen before. They were missing school, they were being so disrespectful to
21:30
us as their parents, they were lying, they were cheating, all of
21:34
this behavior that we hadn't seen before. So that was where I was.
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We were, my husband and I were on our knees constantly, constantly,
21:45
and so we did end up pulling them out of that situation because they were
21:48
spiraling so bad that we thought, if we don't do something drastic, they're
21:52
not going to be here, or there's going to be something even worse,
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right, so we moved them too. We actually sent them to a boarding
21:57
school, a Christian boarding school, and for the first half of the year
22:00
they did great. Second half of the year and not so great, And
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then we got to sorry, second half of the grade eleven, not so
22:08
great. So I ended up And now everybody would do this, and I
22:12
don't know that I would recommend this to everybody, but I ended up quitting
22:15
my job and moving to where the boarding school was, which was an hour
22:18
and a half drive from where we live. So I moved to where the
22:22
boarding school was. God, in his wisdom, there was a job available
22:25
for me. To go to there was an apartment with two bathrooms, Thank
22:27
you Jesus, because I did not want to share a bathroom with my teenager,
22:32
right, And we were able to get through grade eleven. And what
22:38
was interesting was during grade eleven, we had already scheduled to do some testing
22:44
psychological educational testing for postgraduate school by going on to university. And because we
22:51
wanted to have, you know, if there was to be any accommodations,
22:53
we wanted to have an updated evaluation of what our child would need. And
23:00
so when we went for that evaluation after and it was split over two sessions,
23:03
the psychologist said, so, have you considered your child being on the
23:07
spectrum? No, and so she Because we had to be part of the
23:15
assessment, Scott and I had to look back to those first five years of
23:18
Emani's life and that's when we started to recall oh, yes, as I
23:23
mentioned earlier, transitioning to textured food, the flapping of the hands, the
23:26
social aquarness, all of that kind of came to the forefront and it was
23:30
like, okay, So that's when we got We continued the testing, we
23:33
tested for autism, and then we got last summer got the diagnosis of high
23:38
functioning autism. Okay, so that's a lot. It is a lot.
23:45
However, I can honestly say that you guys have handled that. You,
23:51
yourself and your husband have handled that with such grace and such stability that I
23:56
don't know any other couples that I've talked to that I know who have special
24:02
needs children who are still together Number one. Number two, because it puts
24:08
a strain on the relationship itself, because you're as a mom, your care
24:15
is to make sure that your child is taking care of fully no matter what.
24:19
And most of the men, most of the time they're they're limited in
24:23
their ability to do what's necessary because they don't have that motherly instinct. It's
24:30
just not within them to do. But you guys have handled it just the
24:36
way that God has saw fit for you, guys, because He didn't just
24:40
bless you with these beautiful blessings just because he wanted them to be here.
24:45
He wanted them to have the parents that they needed to in order to instill
24:51
them into becoming who they needed to be. And that is what I see
24:56
when I listen to the story that you've given in us. Because you said
25:02
you moved to be close to where they were gonna be attending school. God
25:07
provided that job. He saw the provision for that way before you even knew
25:11
it was gonna be part of your journey. So God always lays out the
25:18
plan for us way before we even know what's gonna happen. And when you
25:23
were trying to conceive and didn't really know if you would or whatever, he
25:29
already knew what time it was when it was gonna happen, and the children
25:33
that he was going to bless your lives with, And he couldn't have blessed
25:37
anybody better than he's blessed you too, with these two beautiful young women,
25:42
you know. And I'm in awe. I mean, that's all I can
25:47
say, because it takes a lot and for you to still be able to
25:52
work, to still be able to inspire other women to know that just because
25:59
if they're circumstances, they're still purpose within that and your your story. For
26:07
any other woman saying that they have, you know, children who are diagnosed
26:12
with ADHD, cerebral palsy or anything like that, it is a true test
26:18
of what God has in store for them. And all they have to do
26:22
is dig deep and be still and pay attention to what he's teaching them in
26:26
that moment and everything falls into place like it's supposed to. So I'm just
26:33
it's just an amazing story. And I didn't even know, you know,
26:37
what we were gonna talk about or anything like that. But once I read
26:41
the bio, that was the thing that came to me is raising God's blessing.
26:47
Because you have raised His blessings and they have blessed your lives in so
26:52
many ways. I'm sure that you still have yet to see all of the
26:56
blessings that He has in store for you with them. Yeah, totally.
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I just want to I love how you're bringing up the blessing peace, because
27:04
that was one of the things with God. Lord, if we are destined
27:08
to raise special needs children, please help their lives to be a blessing to
27:12
others. And God has delivered. I just have to tell you, we
27:18
just last weekend had our eighth annual ac Camp, so Alternative Augmented Communication Camp
27:25
for children using communication devices. And because Melody Anne uses a communication device and
27:32
we back in two thousand eleven, twenty twelve, her one of her speech
27:37
language pathologists said, Hey, there's a camp in Idaho, So we live
27:41
in Canada, Okay, and I thought going to Idaho to camp like really
27:48
anyway, we decided to make it a family vacation. It took us two
27:52
days to drive down there, Okay, and we for our youngest. We
27:56
had organized for her to do some horse riding because I want it to be
28:00
a special trip as well. I didn't want it to be just about her
28:03
sister. So we went down, we went to camp, and I have
28:07
to say it was amazing. It was so amazing. We went back four
28:11
years in a row. When I went down the first year, I thought
28:15
to myself, we need to have something like this in Alberta, Canada,
28:18
where I live. And so I went down with a big notepad and a
28:22
pen and I took all kinds of notes. You said, like me,
28:26
I'm a note taker. I will write down listen and the third so that
28:30
I can implement it somewhere in my life. Right, And that's what we
28:34
did. God blessed us with the opportunity to start a camp in Alberta.
28:40
So we partnered with the University albert of Alberta and the Speech Limuage Pathology program.
28:45
And how you mentioned how God orchestrates everything there was a professor when we
28:52
were in Idaho who knew of somebody at the University of Alberta who put is
28:56
in touch with our now camp director, and she was extremely passionate about starting
29:00
this camp. And the model that we use is what we modeled from the
29:04
Idaho camp. So we are able to and this is where the blessing comes
29:08
in. We are able to provide camp for children using some kind of augmented
29:14
communication alternative communication. We have a student that's studying SLP or speech language pathology,
29:22
or a student that's studying physical therapy, or a student that's studying occupational
29:26
therapy. We've made it multidisciplinary and each of those campers have a one on
29:30
one counselor. So those are the students. Oh wow. We have volunteer
29:34
clinicians who come back year after year and they supervise the students. And then
29:41
we have a mentor who is an AAC user, so she's been coming back
29:45
for the last few years as well, and she gives an address every year
29:48
to the parents. We offer parent training and we've been doing this now for
29:52
eight years. Even during COVID, we were able to pivot and do virtual
29:57
for two years and yeah. So that's how melody AND's life has become a
30:03
blessing to many other children using a communication device and parents as well. One
30:08
of the beautiful things is that this camp is that we've had parents say I
30:14
was so scared to touch my kid's device, but after being here for this
30:17
weekend, I'm feeling more confident about having a conversation with my child using their
30:22
communication device. And that's why we do what we do. We want families
30:26
to communicate with their children that don't have a vocal voice, have their augmented
30:32
communication voice. Listen, listen. I'm I'm speechless right now because all lack
30:40
A keeps it is you have raised God's blessing and he gave me the title.
30:47
And that's all I saw, and that's all I keep hearing because He
30:51
truly provided everything from birth till now, and there's so much more that is
30:59
to come because of this. You never know. I always say this,
31:03
and I say this about my own children. It's of course we're always gonna
31:06
be biased about our own children. Is that you never know who you're raising,
31:10
but God already knows that. And so when you understand that God has
31:17
provided you with these blessings. You don't know who they're gonna bless down the
31:22
road. You just make sure that you're doing what God has called you to
31:26
do as you're raising them. And so it is just amazing. My best
31:32
friend is all here and she said it has been awesome, and it's and
31:34
she tips her hat off to you. She was born with final bifida and
31:37
hydrocephalis, So it's amazing to hear your story of your daughters and her and
31:47
I have a brain dishort on myself, which is Kiari malformation, and I've
31:51
you know, lost my speech and things of that nature. But most people
31:55
don't know those things because I don't necessarily talk about them too much. But
31:59
I'm gonna do it so this month about kr malformation and the misdiagnosis of that.
32:06
But all I can keep saying is that you have raised God's blessings,
32:12
and you and your family have touched so many lives that I don't think you
32:15
even thought about you were gonna have or be in a position to bless others
32:21
with your story. You were just simply trying to raise your children and not
32:24
understanding that He gifted you these blessings so that they can give the world something
32:30
else, you know, And it's just an amazing and I'm glad you took
32:36
the opportunity to come on the show to share this amazing message with us about
32:42
how God blesses us in the most unique circumstances and we can be intentional about
32:50
what it is that he's teaching us and sharing with us along with everyone else,
32:55
what his blessings and hold. So it's just it's wonderful. I don't
33:05
even know what else to say. I do if we have time, I
33:08
do have one more blessing. So Melody Anne, when she was probably around
33:15
twelve, Scott and I thought about what would be a sustainable plan for her
33:22
future living arrangements. Initially, we thought we would be taking care of her
33:27
until we died, because that's often what happens for a lot of parents that
33:30
are raising children with special needs. You're so engrossed in the day to day
33:34
you really don't take the time to think about the future. So we briefly
33:37
thought about it when she was twelve, and then we just realized financially we
33:40
couldn't afford to do what our dream was, which was to set her up
33:45
in her forever home kind of like a group home. Right, we got
33:49
to a place where we had a caregiver for six and a half years,
33:52
and if anybody has ever had a caregiver for more than around that time or
33:57
more, be blessed, because it's be like a revolving door sometimes. So
34:00
we just felt so blessed to have this caregiver. One day she said,
34:06
you know, I'm going to move on, and we were devastated because Scott
34:08
and I don't have any family where we live, right, And so as
34:13
I was mentioning earlier, I wanted to maintain my job. Scott was working
34:15
as well, our youngest was in school, and so we had to think
34:21
about what do we want to do that's going to be sustainable, and so
34:24
out of that desperation we birthed Eden House. And Eden House is named Eden
34:30
House because Melody Ann's middle name is Eden. Eden House for her is a
34:37
start, a beginning, a fresh beginning of her living independent of her parents.
34:40
And we also had a niece who unfortunately passed away when she was four
34:45
and a half and her name was Eden. Oh, so we created Eden
34:50
House with a lot of help. It was I have to tell you,
34:52
it was a struggle. But what we have created is a home for three
34:58
young ladies with disabilities. We have created a workplace for about thirteen staff that
35:01
are around the clock working with these three ladies. These three ladies have an
35:06
opportunity to live independent of their parents. And I have to tell you,
35:09
Trivita, each one of them have thrived, Each one of them have grown.
35:15
Melody and my child. I did not know that she would understand empathy,
35:19
but she has shown empathy for her housemates. She has had to learn
35:22
that it's not all about her, that she accommodating to her other housemates as
35:28
well. She has been to more places in our city than I've ever been.
35:30
She is living the life. Let me tell you, it sounds as
35:36
if she is just like getting out of mom and Daddy's way because I got
35:44
stuff I got to do. Tell me about it. I remember calling over
35:46
there one day and asking one of the caregivers could I speak to Melody and
35:51
please? Oh, well, I'm sorry, she's busy right now. What
35:54
okot to say that I didn't envision that we would be able to do this.
36:04
God provided miracle after miracle. Because we had to fight with the government
36:08
to get funding. We had to step out in faith. We had bought
36:12
another house, we didn't have the finances for it. That was another miracle
36:15
that God provided. We had to step out in faith to move into the
36:20
house that my husband and I and our youngest child currently live in because we
36:23
didn't know that the government we're going to pay I remember thinking on the twenty
36:28
ninth of March, are we going to move in or do we put it
36:30
up for rent because we don't know if the government's going to cover edenhouse.
36:36
But we looked back on how God had led over this whole journey, and
36:39
we looked back and we remembered all the milestones, and we prayed and thanked
36:44
God for each of those milestones, and we stepped out in faith and God
36:46
opened up the doors. We got the funding. The other cool thing Trevida,
36:51
the house that I'm currently living in now with my youngest and my husband,
36:54
had been owned by a couple. They both passed away within a year
36:58
of each other. The son had was living in another province, like five
37:01
hours away by plane, and we didn't know that the funding was coming in.
37:07
So the realtors said to us, write him a letter, and we're
37:09
like, why would we do that? Write him a letter and tell him
37:13
you need an extension for the possession date and explain why. And would you
37:17
know that this man honored that extension and he understood because he has a child
37:22
with special needs. Oh why who knew? God always knows no matter what.
37:30
And that is the underlying message of this entire show is God always knows,
37:37
and God will always provide as long as you trust him and don't question
37:44
him. It's okay every once in a while when you're unsure, but He
37:47
always provides the answer. He never asked you to do anything except for the
37:52
obedience what He's called you to do. And that's it. That's it,
37:55
And that's one of the things that I always say every time I get ready
38:00
the end one of my shows, which I'm gonna say in just a few
38:01
minutes, is to stay out of God's business and mind your own. The
38:06
only thing that he needs you to do is be obedient to what He's called
38:09
you to do. That is my tagline for everything whenever it comes to what
38:15
God is doing in anybody's life, because we get so quick that we want
38:21
to question him and we want to go over there. Mind in his business.
38:24
And God is God all by himself, He doesn't need any assistance from
38:29
us. The only thing he needs from us is to be obedient to what
38:31
he's calling us to do. And we don't always understand what it is that
38:36
he puts on our plate. He just needs us to get full off of
38:39
whatever it is is on there and use it to benefit someone else. And
38:45
I'm very grateful for the opportunity that i have to bring everyone together to share
38:52
their journeys to get some kind of encouragement from it, because I never saw
38:57
myself doing anything like this. But I'm is being obedient to what He's called
39:01
me to do because everybody has a story and everybody has a purpose with their
39:06
journey, and as long as I'm able to speak, I'm going to continue
39:09
to do that and use this platform for just that reason, because God knows
39:14
more than I do, and I'm just the little girl trying to be his
39:17
vessel in to bring forth whatever it is that he needs me to do.
39:22
Like I said, he gave me this title God Raising God's blessing, and
39:28
He has blessed you guys over and over, and as I said, there's
39:31
many more blessings ahead of you, guys, because he knows more than we
39:37
do, and all you have to have is that little mustard seed of faith,
39:39
and he will provide the rest. He never counts our bank account,
39:44
he never counts any of that stuff. It's always do you trust me enough
39:49
to lead you? And that's all we need to do is trust him enough
39:52
and he'll do the rest. But I thank you so much for being here.
39:58
This has been an amaz amazing conversation and I definitely would love to have
40:04
you back so that I can get an update on the girls, because I'm
40:07
sure Melanie an it's gonna have some business that she's gonna be taking care of
40:14
and she gonna be busy on the time, so I'm gonna need update on
40:19
that. But as always, you guys, this has been believed in the
40:27
journey, and as I just said of you moments ago, stay out of
40:30
God's business in mindo owned. The only thing that God requires of us is
40:36
to be obedient to his call for his direction for our lives. As always,
40:40
I thank you for tuning in and I will see you again on the
40:45
twenty eighth, and we will be talking to the authors of You're Just a
40:51
Foster Parent anthology book. So those are some wonderful authors and I look forward
40:57
to talking to them on the twenty eighth, so tune in. All right,
41:00
good night you guys. I can't blae, I can't blae Queen.
41:16
I was the sweet, sweet sweet I know it wasn't sweet sweet sweet swept
42:05
all right,