Its been a year since Journey Mei took her Make A Wish trip to meet Elsa and Anna in Disney World. I really can't believe I didn't write about that trip. It was so amazing! Give Kids The World is such a special place. If you aren't familiar with it, you have to check it out. They provide the most amazing week to terminal children all over the world. Sterling and I plan to volunteer there very, very soon. Such a great perspective shift! I mean seriously, looking around at all the families that have terminal children, seeing families come back to visit WITHOUT the child they came with the first time, and so many more things we saw and experienced that were really life changing.
Of course, a year later, its becoming more of a memory than a reality. Journey Mei has been super healthy for quite a while now with no issues whatsoever. But Fisher on the other hand...not so much. Which brings me to his story. When we found out Journey was getting a wish from Make A Wish, we had some discussions with all the children to explain to them what the "wish" meant and why Journey was getting it. This explanation was fairly simple until we got to Fisher. We didn't realize that explaining to him meant telling him how he was different from Journey Mei, his condition I mean. And when it came right down to it, I guess it was just what we thought based upon the information we received when adopting them both. With Journey Mei, from the very beginning, her condition was explained to us to be very serious and not a lot of hope, both in China and after we came home. Fishers condition is pretty similar, we now know, but for some reason seemed to have more "options" at the time.
Over the past year, Fisher has been to the ER numerous times and has been experiencing a lot of things related to his condition. It became very clear that we didn't have a good explanation or reason to submit Journey as a MAW candidate and not Fisher. And after talking to the people at MAW it was clear what to do. So Fishers cardiologist submitted the paperwork needed and the ball was rolling! What would he wish for?
Now the back story...years ago when we brought Fisher home from China, we had a camper. We went on a few trips here and there and made some amazing memories. But we had to make some decisions the very next year and decided to sell the camper. (If you ask Fisher now if he remembers that he says no.) Our plan was to sell our house, find a smaller house with more land and make ourselves a little farm. That wasn't the LORDS plan, however. After about 6 months on the market, our house hadn't sold and we just couldn't figure out why. Springville is a very sought after area, and our property is great, perfect for a family with kids and animals, and our house is huge!
One week that summer while visiting my mother in law, we got a call. The girl we had thought was "Journey"...the one that we were were told had many families waiting and we would never get a chance, that girl...the families ahead of us said "no" and did we want her? What?!?!? Really?!?! But our house is for sale now and we've made other plans and I am pregnant and is there anyone else...we had thought there was no chance...but God. So we said yes. Now we know why our house wasn't selling LOL. The LORD knew that Journey Mei was coming and that we would need that space and need to be closer to Childrens Hospital...not where we had been looking for land to buy.
So long story short, Journey Mei came home and became blessing number 6. This number somehow changes a lot, did you know that? Suddenly, once you have more than 4 children, you are a little limited on your ability to travel. Which at the time didn't seem like such a big deal, until July. This past July, Greg got a new job, a job he had really been wanting for some time. All of the benefits were such a blessing it just seemed like such an answer to prayer! Then, he started to travel. Now, he has always traveled. I mean in 15 years of marriage, there has only been one year that Greg didn't travel for work. But mostly, its a day here and a night there, but nothing major. Well, in the past 3 months, he has traveled more than he has in almost the whole time we have been married. So from time to time we would talk about trying to travel with him, but it was just impossible. Just ONE night in any hotel room for 8 people is easily $200! (We have to get two rooms because of hotel liability.)
Meanwhile, we had started talking to Fisher about what his wish might be. We really tried to give him fully over to his own imagination and use the questions recommended by MAW to really get him thinking. But he kept coming back to a camper. We were like, hey Fisher, you can wish for ANYTHING buddy...how about a cruise or how about a trip to meet your favorite character or how about Chip and Joanna Gaines come to our house and teach you how to do construction? Really, that was one of the things he REALLY wanted (we were watching Fixer Upper together at the time) and was in the running for a pretty long time. But when the volunteers came to the house to talk to Fisher, camper it was. He wanted us to be able to travel as a family again. (And search for dinosaur bones! LOL) But he didn't remember us having a camper before, isn't that funny? But what a blessing.
Like I said, it took almost a year, so I think he almost thought it wasn't really going to happen. When the time came, he was so surprised! Make A Wish teamed up with an amazing company called BD/MedMined to surprise Fisher. They had a tailgate party and a cooking contest. They asked me and Fisher to be judges, and when it came time to announce the winner of the cooking contest, Fisher got to read the winner...and it was HIM! He jumped up and down and so did I! Later when we were standing by the camper he said, "Mommy, when are they going to bring the camper?" I did not understand so I asked him what he meant. He said, "When are they going to bring it to our house?" I think he still thought it was just a dream, like maybe he didn't really get to keep it! They had the camper all fixed up with the cutest bedding, to our amazement, exactly what Sterling and I were planning for our theme...woodland creatures! It was precious. And a bag of prizes for Fisher with, you guessed it, a kit for discovering dinosaur bones! (What he is doing in the picture) Yep. Happy camper for sure!
And...mom and dad couldn't help but pull off a surprise of our own...when the kids got home, we had a sign telling them to PACK YOUR BAGS WE ARE GOING TO DOLLYWOOD!!! Something really cool that happened as well was that when we left Give Kids the World, they gave us a passport that allowed us to visit amusement parks all over the country for free for one year. Well guess what, the year was almost up and we hadn't been able to visit ANY of them! Remember what I said about traveling with 6 kids? Its just so expensive! But now that we had a camper, we could try! So someone told me that Dollywood gave free tickets to terminally ill children. So, I checked it out and sure enough, they do! Such an amazing place, really. Dollywood is super SUPER family friendly. Honestly, some amusement parks are not really family friendly anymore, and definitely not "faith friendly" if you know what I mean, but not Dollywood! It felt like home. I cannot say enough about it. The kids have been listening to Dolly Parton songs ever since we got home LOL!
I really hope we can go back one day! We are Dollywood FANS now for sure! Less than a week after we got home, daddy is back on the road and Fisher hasn't been feeling well and once again I have been reminded of how short life really is and what a blessing it is that we now have a camper and can take off and travel with daddy anytime we want! This life is such a vapor. Thanks be to God for Jesus and eternal life through HIM. Cant wait to write again soon about our camping adventures. 8 people (6 kids) in a camper is bound to be "tale" worthy LOL! One of Gregs customers said we should have a reality show. Well, maybe not. HAPPY CAMPING!
No comments:
Post a Comment