In Emma’s Words
Emma believed everyone should be treated with kindness and respect. Sure, some have a few glitches and yet everyone deserves to smile.
Don’t take our word for it. Give Emma a listen.
The Day I Met Emma
Emma changed my life, my outlook and many of my views on just about everything. Emma set me on a course to become a better person, a better father and husband. Emma set me on a path to become a better human being. I write these memories as a keepsake of who I was and who Emma ignited me to become. I write these memories to preserve the light that Emma provided.
Our Foster Care System is Failing All of Us
Providing foster care is not for feint of heart. Let's just get that out of the way right up front. The Kansas City Star's special reports on the state of foster care in our country shows us is that something is systemically wrong both in the way our culture looks at...
Earning Trust of Foster Care Children
Today's post is about earning the trust of foster care children. Because believe me, this is a completely different bag of cats than raising your own biological children. Marie and I were told this when we were getting our foster parent and adoption certification in...
Living in gratitude and thanksgiving
Living in gratitude, counting our blessings, giving thanks. All are desirable. All have long lasting effects on our lives, our attitudes and our health. This post isn't to convince you of this as one may simply spend some time with Google searches to find mountains of...
Living Strong
We are certainly living in interesting times, wouldn't you agree? COVID-19 has changed the very fabric of our society and challenged our basic precepts on our economy. Our current normal wasn't even imagined by most Americans as little as a six weeks ago, let alone...
Inclusion Connections’ 5th Annual Gala FashionAbility
Inclusion Connections of Olathe, Kansas is putting on its 5th Annual Gala FashionAbility on February 9th, 2019 and I am so happy to tell you that it is SOLD OUT! Why is this exciting? Because it means that there will be so much fun had, so much awareness raised and,...
Special Needs Adoption
When Marie and I first talked about adopting a child out of the foster care system it never occurred to either of us, well me for sure, that we'd be taking part in a special needs adoption. I'd like to you to consider, for the sake of argument, that almost any...
Grief Morphs and Changes
To my surprise, both my wife and I reacted unexpectedly this past Saturday when we dropped off Piper to Camp Barnabas. You see, Piper is a counselor this week with Camp Barnabas. And she has been there for both Sibling Week and more than a few times to drop off and...
A Lake Kahola Memory of Emma
Emma only got to visit Lake Kahola a few times. We didn’t move in until the last weekend of September 2017 and by mid-February she was gone. Still, in those few visits she provided me with memories to last a lifetime. Marie, Piper and Paisley (our...
Eternal Perspective and Grief
Dr. Bruce Ewing, formerly of Fellowship Bible Church in Tulsa, OK and a graduate of Dallas Theological Seminary, was my first spiritual leader that I remember talking about, teaching about and living Eternal Perspective. Oh, I'm sure others probably touched on the...
Suicide Prevention and Awareness Event
On April 29, 2019 I will be attending a Suicide Prevention and Awareness Event at Legacy Christian Church in Overland Park, Kansas. This is part of a series of events in the "Straight Talk for Families" category that LCC puts on from time to time. We've been invited...
Emmaisms: I Don’t Want A Scarry Video
As I begin to share my writing again, I thought "What better place than an Emmaism?" People really seem to enjoy them. Heck, I enjoy them! As Marie and I were driving down the road the other day she reminded me of an incident shortly after we had adopted her. Emma was...
Emmaisms: Air Tickles
While playing with Oliver (our grandson) the other day Marie and I stumbled upon a great memory of Emma. Up until about her 17th birthday she had one very unique quality when it came to being tickled; you didn't even have to touch her. All you had to do was wiggle...
