December 9, 2025 • 60 mins
Lydia and Scott Rosencrants have 13 children, 11 of which are adopted and 8 of them have some form of intellectual or physical disability. They didn’t set out to adopt this many kids, but they clearly answered the call a lot of times. And Lydia is the President of our local chapter in Memphis that’s launching soon!
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Hey, everybody, it's Bill Courtney with an army of normal folks.
And we continue now with part two of our conversation
with Lydia and Scott Rosenkrantz right after these brief messages
from our general sponsors. So curious. That's three that are
(00:32):
the exact same age and one that's only one year older.
So I mean, these dudes, are they got to be
rolling tight as these? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (00:41):
The four are three, three and three. We were outnumbered
in every way.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
So when you went to Walmart, So Lisa, our kids
are four and four years are biological, right, but Lisa
had a one year old or two year old or
three year old and was pregnant pushing them through won't wow? Right,
And people would obviously have well intentioned, sweetess, But like,
you know, all these years and what's that in your belly?
(01:11):
You know you know how this works? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (01:14):
I guess, yeah, we get that one too.
Speaker 3 (01:16):
And we didn't even you know, a country to give
them money. They give you kids.
Speaker 1 (01:22):
I would imagine six of you, the six of you
were quite a side.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
We were, indeed, especially as beautiful as as these boys were.
Oh my gosh.
Speaker 3 (01:33):
Yeah, it looked nothing like us.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
Yeah, I mean just just gorgeous.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
All right, So now you've got it. We've got this big,
six person family that didn't even exist eighteen months ago.
We're going to go to Georgia Tech finally, and we're
going to figure this out.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
Well that I let you tell that story.
Speaker 3 (01:56):
Yeah, So with with her working, I would We had
the boys in a Montessori school, and so I would
take them, drop them off, and next door was the
was the Baptist church who did childcare in the afternoon,
So they would go from their morning morning Montessori class
to Baptists and I would come back and pick them up.
(02:16):
And about halfway through that semester, I guess spring semester.
You know, you saw how these kids change you take
them out of the orphanage and bring them home, their
whole world changes. They go from these dour, closed in
kids defensive at all times. I mean, their walls are
up to they're open, They're in awe of everything around them.
(02:36):
They want nothing but what everything you give them. You know, Yeah,
they're being kids and they're just loving and adorable. And
then I was picking them up in the afternoon after
putting them in daycare, and they were reverting back to
how they were and first met them.
Speaker 1 (02:55):
Really, Yeah, why it was.
Speaker 3 (02:57):
A lot like now they're in a room a little
bit yew and being back in the orphanage that we
brought him here just to put him in another place
like we took him from.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
Do you think they were afraid that you weren't ever
coming back every time you dropped them off or something.
Speaker 3 (03:11):
I remember that quite that bad.
Speaker 2 (03:13):
But they knew how to behave in a group of
kids that you know, that's all they had ever known.
Speaker 1 (03:20):
That's interesting that even as infants, that was so baked
into him.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
Well, I mean, Demir was almost five years old when
we adopted him. I mean, it's a long time.
Speaker 1 (03:33):
He with a lot of condition, that's the flies type
of stuff.
Speaker 3 (03:36):
The little group of boys he was with that was
like a pack of holes.
Speaker 1 (03:39):
Well, and they do say psychology teaches us that sixty
five percent of a kid's personality is formed by four
and so if he was five, so much of four.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
But he was almost five and.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
Yeah, So what you're saying is you recognized your children
changing being in this atmosphere.
Speaker 3 (04:01):
Right, And so I was I was looking at what
I was pursuing and going, wow, is this piece of
paper worth what I'm doing to my sons, because they're
my sons. And one afternoon I was just like, this
isn't worth it. I was sitting there looking at it
after I'd kind of been watching them go through this myself.
Speaker 1 (04:19):
Go be some examples of what you were seeing that
was worrying you so much.
Speaker 3 (04:26):
Just a little bit. They were a little more distant again,
just kind of that standoffish that we yeah, that we'd
kind of gotten over, because it takes a while to
break the ice. I mean it does, and and.
Speaker 1 (04:41):
It takes years.
Speaker 3 (04:41):
For every year that a child is institutionalized, it takes
two years to overcome it.
Speaker 1 (04:46):
For every year it is institutionalized, it takes two years
to overcome it. So this four year old needed at
least nine.
Speaker 3 (04:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
Yeah, it took to.
Speaker 3 (04:53):
Me a long time to completely accept us. And the
thing is is we're in the early stage of that
process and we just took a step back. Not a
good sign. I mean it was, and I was noticing
it in just their behaviors less, but then with each
other too. They were becoming less attached to each other.
These kids were defensive, they were they were careful with
(05:16):
even around the kids.
Speaker 1 (05:17):
Which is a mechanism they had to develop the children
to survive, and then you saw it coming back out
of them when you wanted to break it away.
Speaker 3 (05:26):
Yeah, And I was like really, And I made the
choice one afternoon, sitting there, going this isn't worth it.
I'm sitting here killing myself trying to keep up with
classes at Georgia Tech is not an easy place to go.
It's tough and I and I can't be in the
environment because I have other responsibilities. So I'm so you
really reached a bait yeah kind of thing, and I went,
(05:49):
you know what, I went back online that afternoon, sent
letters to my professors thanking them for what they did
and admissions, and dropped out because I was looking at,
you know, four little boys who didn't need a piece.
Speaker 1 (06:01):
Of paper they needed.
Speaker 3 (06:06):
So wow, I became a full time dad at that point.
I mean stay at home, Yeah, I was. I was
given the choice.
Speaker 1 (06:15):
Only four years before, three to four years before. You
just told me your plan. Our plan, yeah, was for
you to work while he became an electrical engineer, so
you could say it.
Speaker 2 (06:27):
I could stay at home.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
So that thing got flop flipped.
Speaker 3 (06:31):
If you had asked me, did I ever raise other
people's children had been a huge no. Right, yeah that change.
Speaker 2 (06:40):
Yeah, we both, I mean we both gave up a
little bit of a dream. I mean I still think
I would have been a good stay at home mom
if I'd had the opportunity, I would have. I would
have enjoyed being the mom who was at school all
the time. I would have enjoyed having dinner ready every night.
But it just wasn't God's plan for us.
Speaker 1 (07:01):
Do you resent that at all?
Speaker 2 (07:02):
Oh gosh, no, no, what we've gained is so much
more than what we've given up. Oh wow, No, no,
not at all.
Speaker 1 (07:09):
Listen, there's a lot of people listening to this show.
Some are Christians, some are not. Some are faithful, some
would call themselves spiritual. I mean, you know, the gamut
of faith runs a very broad spectrum. How do you
explain for those listening surrendering your own dreams to what
(07:36):
you believe is God's plan for you.
Speaker 3 (07:39):
When you think of it from the aspect of their
your dreams, right, so these are they're yours. There's a
selfish aspect to that, because it's how you think things
are going to work out. And if you were to
draw things up Wow, this would be so great, But
you're not considering anything external to.
Speaker 1 (07:55):
Your dream, right.
Speaker 3 (07:57):
And then you when you take on the role of
being a parent, as every parent knows, it becomes really
important about the dreams of the child. What can I
do for the child without then pushing your dreams onto
the child. You've got to watch that develop and your
influence by everything in your life. You can't say you're not.
(08:18):
Everybody's got biases. My dad worked hard his whole life,
and there were times when I was a kid, I
was resentful that work was a little more important to him.
It seemed like than maybe being at one of my
baseball games. And one of the greatest times in my
life was my dad took the time and for two
years he coached me and my brother in baseball. I
got to do that with my boys for ten years
(08:39):
when they were in soccer Jase Oliver, Georgia, Florida, Mississippi, Alabama,
going to soccer games everywhere. I didn't know jack about soccer,
but you know, one of the fathers that I.
Speaker 1 (08:53):
Got started when you're watching football, Yeah.
Speaker 3 (08:55):
Exactly exactly, you know, and that gave me that opportunity.
I was like, well, you know what I'm going to
be there. I don't know anything about this. I'll learn.
I'll be the day that carries the water.
Speaker 1 (09:06):
I don't care.
Speaker 3 (09:08):
Because my dream wasn't worth anything I was looking at.
Going this piece of paper gives me a lot a
better job that then creates more time away, or I
have an opportunity to just be involved and go, you
know what, don't remember that more than they'll remember Gee,
did I get my engineering degree? Did I get my
professional engineering degree? Did I get an award? Did I
(09:29):
create something really great? Really, they never would have been
there for any of that, right that would have been
my workaday world that I come home and explain to
a childhood go, can we go play now, you know yeah,
instead of yeah, exactly and stead or can we just
go play now and watch these boys grow?
Speaker 1 (09:45):
What about your perspective on them, because you're the other
side of that.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
I don't want it to sound like it's easy, Bill,
because it's not like I think we're We're not helping
anybody if we make it sound like, oh, well God
said to do this, and so we did it. You know,
it's not a one time we surrendered everything and then
we never thought about it again. We still every single
(10:16):
day when we have to change diapers on a seventeen
year old or answer the same questions five hundred times
from a child that has an intellectual disability, it's an
every day dying to self. It's every single day. It's
not a one time thing and you're done. That's what
(10:38):
the Christian life is. We get, but we get. What
we get in return is so much greater than that that.
Speaker 1 (10:47):
I wish everybody listening right now could see the brightness
in the two of your eyes and smiles. Certainly we
all sacrifice, but you guys don't seem sacrificial at all.
These seems so full.
Speaker 4 (11:06):
Yeah, I know it really well okay, well you just
you just blew the wood off of it because clearly Demre,
Marat Arston, and Sarah are not seventeen year olds.
Speaker 1 (11:22):
Yeah with disabilities.
Speaker 2 (11:24):
So yeah, yeah, yeah, no story, no disabilities. Right, And
it was so funny because we were like we like
showed doctors the videos. We wanted to make sure there
was no special needs, you know with.
Speaker 3 (11:38):
These floor.
Speaker 1 (11:43):
We'll be right back. So how many months transpired between
Demyr and Marot's showing up did you decide, well, this
(12:11):
isn't enough. There's more we can do.
Speaker 3 (12:13):
We came home with them two thousand and two. We
actually were looking into another adoption the next year, and
these were older siblings. She was the older the two
right she was she was about to age out, oh gosh,
and her younger brother was a couple of years younger
than she was. And we were working through a different
organization trying to facilitate this adoption before she got out
(12:37):
of the foster system whatever however they deem it and
into being, you know, let loose as an adult. And
despite our best efforts, it never happened. We got a
dose of reality that you know when you're you think,
oh I'm I'm doing the good thing right. So you
and me, God, I you know you got your part,
(12:58):
I got my part right. We're in this together. And
you run up against that wall where gods like this
was never meant to happen. I'll let you run down
that road as far as you can until the road ends,
turn around and come back, because you weren't supposed to
go that way. And that was a hard lesson. Because
we vested time, we thought we knew what we were doing.
We've been through this twice, right, we got we're veterans, right, yeah.
Speaker 2 (13:22):
No, and we've been down that road several times, I
would say, but we did end up. Two years after
we brought Demir Marad home, we brought three girls home
from Russia.
Speaker 3 (13:37):
Three sibling group.
Speaker 1 (13:38):
Oh yeah. Their names are Lydia, Ira, and Toma. Is
that correct?
Speaker 2 (13:47):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (13:47):
So are they all? Were they all biologically related? Yes?
Speaker 2 (13:51):
So. Lydia is the oldest. She's eleven months older than
the twins. Era and Toma are the twins. So very
and they had been in the orphanage together.
Speaker 3 (14:01):
Since he was two and were they at the time
The twins were six almost seven, and so they've.
Speaker 2 (14:11):
They've been much longer.
Speaker 1 (14:13):
Ye, So what did you learn about them?
Speaker 2 (14:17):
Very much?
Speaker 3 (14:18):
Russia's beautiful.
Speaker 2 (14:20):
They were beautiful girls and they looked happy.
Speaker 3 (14:23):
And big bows in their hair.
Speaker 2 (14:27):
And so you know, it was like we didn't have
any girls. It was like, oh, this is going to
be wonderful.
Speaker 3 (14:35):
Right, she'll have little girls she can dress up yay.
Speaker 2 (14:38):
And Lydia we had the same name. I mean it
was like Destiny right.
Speaker 1 (14:42):
Yeah, So do you what do you fly to? I
guess Moscow?
Speaker 2 (14:46):
No, they were in Siberia. They were twelve time zones away.
Speaker 3 (14:50):
Yeahs which is three hours east of Chemo, which is
the nearest large It was in the middle of nowhere.
Speaker 1 (14:58):
So you put on your mittens and flow to sever Well.
Speaker 2 (15:00):
He did visit. We actually adopted them in the summer,
which I'm very thankful for.
Speaker 3 (15:04):
Although it was although it was still really cold in Moscow.
And this was an interesting trip because where we landed
was a military base that had converted into an airport
because you know, we crushed the Soviet Union ninety three
ninety four, so which was really interesting because I'd been
you know, in the Navy. Its actually work, yeah, exactly,
(15:26):
you know, and so that walking through there in that
because there's that was interesting. Military personnel walking around and stuff,
and you're like, wow, we used to be enemies. Yeah,
I'm walking around inside your country.
Speaker 1 (15:38):
You know.
Speaker 3 (15:38):
That was kind of that was a different but it
was It was funny because we tried to learn some Russian.
Speaker 2 (15:45):
We did. We actually learned a decent amount communication.
Speaker 3 (15:49):
Yeah, communicating get by in the street if we had
to buy something or change money. We knew what we
were doing with that. Not a whole lot of conversational
you know, because you didn't know a lot about slang,
so you weren't conversive that way. But it was interesting
because I went for the visit and you got to
bring gifts, and the gifts has to be better for
you know, who's ever in charge. And then the next
time they get a little bit less of a gift,
(16:10):
a little bit less. You understand this hierarchy of gifts.
And so we had all those prepared and they, you know,
bring the girls in and we're I'm sitting in a
room with these three little girls and we're drinking tea.
They took the sugar bowl and they're drinking spoon or
eating spoonfuls of sugar out of the sugar bowls. They
didn't get sugar. You're kidding not to these.
Speaker 2 (16:30):
These little girls. I mean to give you some perspective.
The twins were almost seven, Lydia was almost eight, and
they were about thirty four pounds. What so we were,
you know, when we took clothes for them, when we
when we completed the adoption, they were in four teas
and they were oh well, I mean they they were malnourished,
(16:51):
but they were fathy.
Speaker 3 (16:54):
Yeah, to put it in morse propec marot. But we
adopted it at three and a half was forty two.
He was a beast. Yeah, and so he's bigger than
his sisters that we brought home, who were twice his age.
Speaker 2 (17:07):
Yeah, they were little, They were very very little, but
they they grew so quickly once we had them.
Speaker 1 (17:13):
So you'd load them up, yeah, yep, bring them home. Right.
Speaker 2 (17:19):
We got home on a Friday. In school started on
a Monday, and so off they go to school speaking
no English.
Speaker 1 (17:25):
And how did that work?
Speaker 2 (17:28):
We sat in the hallway. We took turns sitting in
the hallway on a bench, and when the teachers needed us,
they would call us and we would go.
Speaker 3 (17:37):
So we went back to elementary school.
Speaker 1 (17:39):
Are you kidding me? You really did that for how long? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (17:45):
Months? It took them up because they've been immersing their
language for longer and they could still talk to each other.
It took longer for them to get rid of their
Russian and accept English. The boys learned English in like
three months.
Speaker 1 (17:59):
Well they were Yeah, the development, that's right, But these
kids were already developed and unbelievable.
Speaker 2 (18:09):
But we realized it took us a while because we
weren't sure what was language and what might be disabilities,
but we eventually realized the girls had some delays that
we had not been aware of.
Speaker 1 (18:23):
Intellectual.
Speaker 3 (18:26):
Yeah, that was our journey.
Speaker 2 (18:28):
That and so that took us. That took us on
a journey that we never wanted to be on and
never expected to be on, where we were immersed in
five O four's and i EPs and psychiatrists and medications
and seizures and neurologists. And it took us on a
journey that we never ever expected to be on.
Speaker 1 (18:47):
And you signed up for we did, but.
Speaker 2 (18:49):
We had no I mean, we had no idea. But yes,
I mean well, I mean anyone who either has a
child or at to a child, there's a risk, right,
But when you adopt, especially older children, you're definitely taking
a risk.
Speaker 1 (19:10):
Phenomenal story and for most people the story should end there.
I mean three groups of adoption. Yeah, three groups of adoption, two, two,
and three.
Speaker 2 (19:22):
Within three years, we went from zero to seven, right.
Speaker 3 (19:26):
And thirty five months oldest and youngest in this case, right.
Speaker 1 (19:29):
And these three graded yeh yes, Oh, I mean yeah,
I think anybody in the right mind would have said,
you know, yeah, the Lord's blessed us with this massive family.
Speaker 2 (19:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (19:44):
Here we are and gosh that this is, this has
been more than we bargained for. But we love our girls,
we love our family, and it's part of it. We've
sat in the hallway and done school and we got
these kids. Let's uh, you know that you know that
(20:04):
that requires a non passionate vehicle to get our family around.
Why don't we just call it quits?
Speaker 3 (20:10):
Yeah, well we never you know, people ask us, are
you done yet? My own mother thought I was crazy,
and she well she had an older sister had seventeen
children natural births, so she she kind of knew crazy
when she saw it. So and we'd be like, all
you guys done, Like, well, God never gave us a number. Well,
(20:37):
actually God still has.
Speaker 1 (20:39):
Interesting interestingly, seven appears pretty frequently in the Bible.
Speaker 2 (20:44):
Well, it's completeness, right, it was a number.
Speaker 1 (20:47):
Of completions you had years ago, would.
Speaker 3 (20:53):
Have said, and yet eight is the number of new beginning.
Speaker 1 (20:59):
It's also who knows what's going on mathematics.
Speaker 2 (21:06):
Well, we did take we did take some time off
to make sure we were addressing the needs of the girls,
especially that took time and enjoy the kids that we had.
We had, I mean, we had so much fun, and
then we thought, well, maybe it's time to consider adoption again.
And doors kept getting shut one after the other, and
(21:28):
so one I don't remember exactly, but one day I
said to Scott, you know, I'm about to turn forty.
If we're ever gonna try for a biological child, we
probably should do that. It was ticking, It was ticking.
It was getting louder and louder, right, And so eight
months later I was pregnant with Owen.
Speaker 1 (21:51):
Okay, so now we got bio baby number one. Because
the biological clock is ticking ticking. What man has their
wife look at him and say, hey, you know, right,
even if it doesn't work, the try the effort. So
let's still yeah, there it is. And so Owen shows up,
(22:13):
the baby boy of seveny eighth now of these seven siblings.
Speaker 2 (22:20):
And they were like twelve to fourteen, so he was
just a little bit spoiled.
Speaker 1 (22:25):
Yeah, oh I bet he was passed around like that.
Speaker 3 (22:27):
Oh yeah, for time to hold him. It's like we're like, gone,
can we hold him? We're fighting with our own children
to hold our youngest.
Speaker 1 (22:40):
So still not good enough.
Speaker 2 (22:43):
Oh gosh, Okay, So I'll start this one. And then
I think Scott has to pick it up. So so
I think Owen was about a year old, and I
was getting ready for work one day, just very innocently.
I can still see myself getting ready for work. And
I was on Facebook when Facebook was still worth looking at.
(23:06):
And there was a blog that somebody else had reposted
from another mother who was headed to Bulgaria, and they
were also a family of several adoptions, and she was
adopting a fifteen year old girl who weighed fifteen pounds.
Oh my goodness, and Bill, that broke me, It just
(23:29):
completely broke me.
Speaker 1 (23:31):
How does a fifteen year old of fifteen pounds even
be a lot?
Speaker 2 (23:34):
Exactly exactly? And she didn't look like I mean, she
looked like she was very close to not being alive.
But from that point on, I was like, well, we
gotta know more, We have to know more. What can
we do? And so I would say within a few
months of that time, we had decided that we were
(23:57):
going to go to that same orphanage, which was the
worst orphanage in Bulgaria. Yeah, and we were going to
adopt two little girls with the most severe special needs
that I had ever. I couldn't even fathom that children
(24:18):
with this many needs could survive.
Speaker 1 (24:21):
Why sign up for that? My people who listen, who've
listened to this forever. I have a brother in law, Ben,
who has special needs, and I've watched Gary and Peggy,
my in laws, raise him. Now when I say Ben
has special needs, he's pretty high functioning, but he will
always need care the rest of his life. And he
(24:44):
has created some of the greatest joys in our families world.
And I could tell stories upon stories. I'll also tell
you I can tell stories upon stories have been very, very,
very hard, and Gary and Peggy have a very special
place in Heaven for their commitment and consistency with caring
(25:05):
for Ben and a seventy five year old parents. They
still care for Ben, and it's work, and when that's
the hand you're dealt in life, you make the best
of it. And I am. I fully believe, after watching
garyan Peggy's life for the last thirty five years of
my life with Ben, that the Lord strengthens you and
(25:28):
gives you what you need and will meet you right
where you need to be met when you're blessed with
a child with special needs. And I believe that's where
Gary and Peggy are however, to consciously sign up for it,
not to be dealt the cards, but to deal with
(25:49):
or pick that card out of a deck of fifty
two beautiful cards. I just, honestly, and I mean this,
Please take this, and with exactly how intended. I cannot imagine.
I absolutely understand answering the call when that's what you're given.
(26:16):
I cannot imagine signing, specifically cognitively signing up for that work.
Why how with especially when you already have seven other
children plus eight with the bioowen, Why how I can't
(26:38):
even fathom that we'll be right back.
Speaker 3 (26:56):
It wasn't easy with everything we'd gone through at the
Three Girls and found it felt like we had caught up,
that we weren't dreading water anymore.
Speaker 1 (27:04):
We were kind of all right, we're we're.
Speaker 3 (27:06):
Kind of making it. We we got everything in the process.
We got the the right schools, we got the write doctors,
we got to we're kinda we got a routine back again.
And you know, for me, because I'm the day to
day guy, right so I felt a lot of pressure
with that. I was felt like maybe I'm catching my
breath and and maybe maybe I can start to do
(27:26):
Scott things a little bit. And so when Lydia brought
this up, I was like, really, God, really was this?
You know? And you think yourself, is this not enough?
And then I'm going, God, AT's a coward. Sure part
of the adventure. What's next? So we were looking at
(27:48):
two little girls, an obviously, but there's another little girl.
And literally, as Fragile's analyzed, this other little girl was
on the just as Fragile, on the opposite end of
the spectrum.
Speaker 1 (27:59):
What does that mean?
Speaker 3 (28:01):
Well, Anna had hydrocephalus. She'd had it since birth. So
think about the uh, the worst possible thing her Her
skull went like out the back it was fifty nine centimeters,
you know, that's she was. She weighed twenty two pounds.
Half her weight was her head. She'd never picked her
head up. She laid on one side, she laid on
you the imagine living your entire life. And she was
(28:21):
four and a half when we got her, living with
a migraine headache. Oh that's the level of pain that
she existed in. The other little girl was the opposite
of the specify. I said. She had microcephalus, which means
she had a shrunken had very very little brain tissue
that had formed, you know, enough for the basic functions
of keeping her alive. And I remember the first day
(28:44):
in the baby house with the two of them, and
I walked in, and you know, my interpreter got me
set got me in this little room. This is a
lot noisier than the other baby houses i'd been in.
Chaos was raining. They had their own cemetery that I
could see out through the window. For the kids that
didn't make it on a regular basis, they had lots
(29:06):
of funerals. And so they bring me in these two
little girls and they put them in my arms, and
the caregivers walk off, and what walked off And this was.
Speaker 2 (29:17):
Just a visit.
Speaker 3 (29:18):
This was not just a visit.
Speaker 2 (29:19):
He was coming back home. This was not the final advent.
Speaker 3 (29:22):
This was this is the stage, first visit. So you
go first stage, you come back home, and you come
back and you go through the court stuff. So it's
not kind of the way we did stuff in Cossacks.
And so I'm holding one little girl in this arm,
one little girl in this arm, and I'm just looking
around the room, looking at the rest of the cast
that was in there, and caregivers coming and go and
take out out of the kids, and everybody's just ignoring me.
And I'm sitting there for forty five minutes, and my
(29:43):
interpreter's kind of there and hanging out, and my arm's
going numb because Anna's head was so heavy sitting in
the crook of my arm. It's like having a bowling
ball sitting on your elbow. And she went to sleep.
One of the caregivers walked through the room, walks in,
she goes and she's just staring at her, and she
calls another lady in and they're talking. I, you know,
(30:04):
I can't understand what they're saying. I don't understand Bulgarian.
It's surrealic, but it's different than Russian apparently. And my
interpreter driver told me later on the drive back home,
he said, she's never.
Speaker 1 (30:15):
Slept like that. Oh, now you're hooked. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (30:20):
They couldn't believe. Said they'd never seen her calm like that.
She just hold her. She just fell asleep me holding her.
The other little girl was so fragile, and we went
through this process. They told me if we traveled, she'd
die in traveling, that we would have to have sank.
Speaker 2 (30:35):
Pressure from the plane and would kill her.
Speaker 3 (30:36):
Yeah, And so they were trying to the whole time
talk me out of this, right, and I'm like, oh, no,
I'm doing God's work. I'm bringing this child home. This
is she's gonna be my daughter to no again. That
was one of those battles of the Holy Spirit that
you lose. So that was it was a humbling trip.
As fragile as these children were, and you think you're
doing something really good. The second one wasn't meant to be.
(30:58):
And you know what. We brought Anna home and Anna
was as fragile as could be. I mean when we
brought her home, because Lydia went back with the mirror
or the sun. They traveled to bring her home. I
stayed at home with the other kids. They showed up
near Port Atlanta. We went from the airport to the
emergency room. You're kidding, No, in Cholla.
Speaker 2 (31:20):
So Children's Healthcare of Atlanta. She was there for two
months before we could bring her home April through June.
Speaker 1 (31:27):
But you knew that going in, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (31:29):
We didn't know it was going to be quite like that,
that she was going to be in the hospital for
two months. That was that was not unknown.
Speaker 1 (31:39):
Wow, And Anna is now seventeen seventeen.
Speaker 3 (31:44):
Yeah, like I said, she was four and a half
years old. She weighed twenty two pounds. She's now seventeen
year old, she's about eighty two pounds. Healthy. She's had
you know, she's had a lot of her challenges in this.
Like I said, they because of her skull on the
first thing as they did after she got her got
her stable and got her healthy and strong enough is
(32:04):
they did a creanal reduction surgery at Children's Hospital of Atlanta,
and she's one of thirty one that've been done. They
usually don't do them that old because your your skull
is now hard bone by the time you're five years old.
She was five and a half at the time, because
it's it's harder. It's so much harder to do. But
they literally take your skull off from the eyebrows to
(32:25):
the ears. They open your scalpe up, do this, take
it off, cut it. The pieces are going to go
back together so it's normal sized. They grind up the
other pieces like mortar, put it in between the pieces
of bone, and wrap your head backup.
Speaker 1 (32:38):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (32:38):
Five and a half hour surgery.
Speaker 2 (32:39):
It's like a jigsaws.
Speaker 3 (32:41):
Oh yeah, And she went from just having this huge
bulbless thing out in the back of her head because
of the hydrocephalus that never been treated to having a
normal sized head. She doesn't have a shunt. They went
in and did what's called aventriciloscopy, which when the neurosurgeon
explained this to me, you think you're in a ten
minute loube change that guy's going on. So I'm gonna do.
(33:01):
He's a neurosurgeon, and they just go in.
Speaker 5 (33:04):
They put a little hole in the skull, take a
little thing, little boroscope, goes down underneath, comes up underneath
your brain to where the ventricles are, and they just
poke a little hole in the membrane so the fluid
can drain out and follow the basal artery down and
get resimilated in your body.
Speaker 3 (33:18):
And I'm just going, what.
Speaker 2 (33:19):
So we made so we actually both feel like we
have medical degrees at this point through we have experienced it.
I mean, honestly, with our kids, we've had it feels
like everything except a trike. We've never had a kid
with a trake. But but Anna's tube fed, she's you know,
she's she will always be in a wheelchair. She's very
(33:41):
much a she's an infant at seventeen, right, she's full care,
but she's also full of joy.
Speaker 1 (33:47):
And you asked you also saved her life.
Speaker 2 (33:50):
And you but you asked why villain? And I think,
I mean, I guess some people may ask why does
God allow things like this to happen? Anyway? But when
I look at Anna, she reminds me that every single
one of us is made in the image of God,
and every single life has dignity and worth. And we
(34:17):
put so much of our value on the wrong things right,
like our work, our ability to do this or that,
and Anna can't do any of that. But I have
a feeling that all day long she's communing with God. Right,
And maybe she's sad for the rest of us.
Speaker 3 (34:37):
She's the happiest child we have. She wakes up every morning,
smile on her face, full of joy, just can't wait
to go. She's she's tough as nails.
Speaker 2 (34:50):
And I would say, out of all of our adoptions,
we probably grew the most with her and overcome the
fear that came along with that.
Speaker 1 (35:04):
Okay, so now it's gotta be.
Speaker 2 (35:08):
Well. Now we can do anything, no, we we you know,
we can do anything.
Speaker 3 (35:14):
But I could do all things.
Speaker 2 (35:17):
We could do all things Christ who strengthens us.
Speaker 1 (35:19):
Uh So, how long after Anna before somehow you decided
let's do this again.
Speaker 2 (35:25):
It was about two years.
Speaker 3 (35:27):
Yeah, yeah, so and and two not not in the
same city. These and these little girls were actually in
separate baby are Yeah back to Bla, so and and
so the other side of the country. So Plevin's on
the western side, you know, north. Sofia is the capital city,
so like three hours north and it's nice little drive.
(35:48):
Well this is over on the Black seaside. And both
of these are resort cities. So Juey was in the
south and Stephka was in the north, split by the
Balka Mountains that run through the center. And I go
to visit so and you fly into Sofia. You got
eyone with the capital city and had my driver, your vor.
(36:11):
You talk about an amazing man, right. So he speaks
six languages. He was at the time getting his final
certification because you have to be you have to be
spot on in every language in order to do the
transcribing of paperwork into multiple languages. So he was on
the phone at times with me and he'd be telling
(36:31):
me like the conversation she's having. So he's speaking to
me in English, talking to someone in French or or
sometimes and with another lawyer online in Bulgaria. So they're
talking back and forth, and he's speaking French, and he's
letting me know what's going on because it's a long
car ride, so he doesn't want.
Speaker 1 (36:48):
Me to be bored.
Speaker 3 (36:49):
So he's speaking three languages, listening in three languages the
same time, looking at something to make sure he's reading
that the transcription he did for the compan he's talking to,
which is done in French, is correct with the from
the Bulgarian that he was seeing, so he's getting it
correct for the government. So he's reading in French and Bulgarian,
talking to languages right, And he's worried that he hasn't
done enough of this life because he's talking to me
(37:10):
later about the people he grew up with and the
business that they own. This really rich friend of his
and I had a conversation with him over dinner. I said,
how long have you been doing this? And he said, well,
it's it's it's been several years now and I've been
through about two hundred of these. I said, so, your
rich friend has he changed two hundred lives the way
you have. And he just sat there and looked at
(37:31):
me from it and he's like, well, no, I guess not.
I said, So you got time for the other things,
I said, because you obviously have the qualifications, you could
do business anywhere. You speak six languages. You know, right
now you're saving lives all the world you have, you're
making families. And that was a great conversation with a
really really nice guy.
Speaker 1 (37:52):
Pretty amazing.
Speaker 3 (37:53):
Yeah, who's who's driving a car and being an interpreter, right,
and he doesn't think he's doing enough m hm, you know.
Speaker 1 (38:00):
And so so this is Julia and Stea. Are they
a dual deal?
Speaker 2 (38:08):
No, No, they weren't. We started with Stepka. Stepha has
Bartleby Days syndrome, which is a genetic condition that causes
any number of issues. But she had these little pigtails
on the top of her head and she was four
and she was just so cute.
Speaker 1 (38:27):
It's just cute. Julia.
Speaker 2 (38:32):
Julia has spina bifida, you know, And a lot of
times there's a like a there's a brief description of
the child right that you're given, and it's like, how
do you describe somebody in a paragraph, like, how would
somebody describe me in a paragraph? Right? But basically they said,
she's so good with the other kids, right, And you
(38:54):
could just look at her and you could see her
spirit that she was and she is, I mean, she's still.
I mean, she's in a family of you know, thirteen kids.
She's a patient. She's a patient young lady. So we
ended up deciding to bring the both home. And she
was our oldest adoption. She was nine at the time
(39:16):
and Stepco was four, so she was the oldest child
we adopted.
Speaker 1 (39:21):
And I think Alex in the prep told me that
about this same time, you now find out.
Speaker 2 (39:31):
Well, so I get home, so I ourson, and I
traveled to pick the girls up this time and get
home and I'm you know, I'm like, oh, I'm so
jet lagged.
Speaker 1 (39:44):
Home. Yeah, with the girls, everybody, everybody's solid, eleven one bios.
Speaker 2 (39:54):
And a week Aftertle tired. Yeah, it's so natural. But
it didn't go away. So a week after I got home,
I found out I was pregnant.
Speaker 1 (40:06):
When I read that, I laughed out loud.
Speaker 3 (40:09):
We told you, it is.
Speaker 2 (40:12):
So funny because I was worried about my biological clock
at forty and here I am about to turn forty five.
Speaker 1 (40:17):
I have it. I have an offhand comment and there's
there's no there's no need to respond whatsoever. I just
want to know, with all these kids and everything going on,
you even had time to even become pregnant. We can
go right past that. But it was good.
Speaker 3 (40:34):
It was It was like funny because you know, she's
dealing this tired she could and she comes back to
me and she was like, she's like worried about telling me,
and she goes, I don't know how you're going to
take this, but I'm pregnant, and I'm going, well, what
am I going to say? Like no, I mean.
Speaker 1 (40:53):
Like okay or or or you sure don't really say
that that just makes you do. So you got three choices,
being Jack, to be a dope or just say great great.
They were like the more the here we go, hold
it up. We will be right back. What does the
(41:23):
maternity ward look like when you're having a child and
your families that are to celebrate, there's no room for
anybody else.
Speaker 2 (41:29):
Well, they you know, it was a little crowded when
all the kids came to to well, they weren't there
when she was born. I mean it was like a
very sudden thing that was she was very fast.
Speaker 3 (41:42):
Owen was being her first. He owned, he was happy
where he was right. She was weak, overdue. He didn't
want to leave, so they induced her. And it was
like we were the first people showed up that middle
day Thursday whatever, and we were the last ones to
leave Friday.
Speaker 2 (41:57):
Yeah, he just was.
Speaker 3 (42:00):
Six hours sea. Yeah, we were. We were doing our
parent thing right because we had two boys who we
are a basketball game at our school, had to get
home do homework. You know, we'd already fed other ones,
worked all day. Yeah, so I was I went to
get those two bringing them home. She's gonna help one homework.
I had the other one. We're heating at dinner for him.
She cos my water broke, all right, had the bag.
(42:22):
Let's get in the car.
Speaker 2 (42:25):
Like lots of time. My mom comes in and she's like,
I think y'all should.
Speaker 3 (42:30):
Go, And we're like, well, you got things, you got
things handled here, we'll worry about homework later.
Speaker 2 (42:37):
You know.
Speaker 3 (42:37):
I'm looking at the boys, go okay, you got some dat.
Speaker 1 (42:40):
You know.
Speaker 3 (42:40):
We're just kind of like all right. We get in
the car and we're like we really haven't decided on
the name yet. We're down to four, you know, and
so we decided Eva Joyce. Joyce's her mother's middle name.
So we decided to make that little tie there. And
we're driving the house hospitals, not what ten minutes away,
you know, we're going out. We pull up, so we're
in little of Grange Storge, right, you pull the hospital,
(43:00):
like the lights are out. It's like it's kind of
dark in the lobby. So I go inside. So oh well,
the door's are open and looking around, I ran and said, well,
you know, I needed, you know, wheelchair for my life,
and got one and got to the elevators and you know,
get upstairs and there were nurses on the there's nurse
on woard. They just they just finished up with someone else.
(43:22):
And we're like, okay, well we'll get you ready there.
Speaker 1 (43:24):
Do you want anything?
Speaker 3 (43:25):
And at first she was she didn't own naturally and
she said, oh no. Well got into the room and
all of a sudden the pain thing changed, change change.
Speaker 2 (43:34):
I was like, give me some drugs now.
Speaker 3 (43:37):
And the nurse in charge goes too late. She's crowning.
Really yeah, that click fifty six minutes from the time
her water broke, she gave birth to our daughter Eva.
Speaker 2 (43:49):
The nurses delivered her, doctor walks.
Speaker 3 (43:51):
Room and go, well, my work here is done.
Speaker 1 (43:54):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (43:55):
Oh yeah, so everybody's thrown. We've got this little gorge
just redheaded girl.
Speaker 1 (44:02):
I mean, you went from ten to thirteen pretty quick.
Speaker 3 (44:04):
Yeah, in one.
Speaker 2 (44:06):
Out we are that, we are set and so well
now we're at twelve.
Speaker 1 (44:09):
We're twelve now no, no, that's what I'm saying. You
went from nine to twelve. Yeah, nine to twelve, twelve, ye, yes.
Speaker 3 (44:16):
That's okay. We lose count two and there are Yeah,
so you.
Speaker 1 (44:18):
Went from nine to twelve pretty nice.
Speaker 2 (44:20):
Even dozen we are.
Speaker 1 (44:22):
We really are.
Speaker 2 (44:25):
Oh we're done, done, done, done, done, done done total
EVAs our little our last little gift.
Speaker 3 (44:31):
Yeah, except except tell me what happened.
Speaker 2 (44:35):
Yeah, so the most innocent thing in the world. Bill.
I was leaving Walmart one day in January twenty nineteen.
Speaker 6 (44:43):
Always comes back to Walmart.
Speaker 3 (44:45):
You can't get anything at Walmart, you can including a kid.
Speaker 2 (44:48):
And this young lady stopped me, and she had a
four month old baby in her cart, and she said,
you know, I don't have a ride back to the
hotel that I'm living in will you get me arrived
and I said sure, So I got her life story
in the meantime and became her transportation. The baby had
(45:10):
never seen a doctor and some things, so became very
involved in her life. And it turned out that Department
of Children's Services was already involved. I didn't know that
at the time, and two months later was at church
one night and they called and they said, we're taking
the baby tonight. You either come get him or he's
(45:31):
going into foster care.
Speaker 1 (45:32):
And be as foster effectively as Falter.
Speaker 2 (45:35):
Fictive because we weren't actually related, but we had ties
to the family because we were not. I mean, Department
of Children's Services typically frowns on large families. They're not
real fond.
Speaker 1 (45:48):
Of that, y'all.
Speaker 2 (45:51):
They didn't.
Speaker 1 (45:55):
Under Oh yeah, she calls me.
Speaker 3 (45:57):
She goes, they're gonna if we don't take hey, they're
going to take him, and say can we do this.
I'm like, head it up the attic. I'll have a
crib assemble by the time you get home, good man.
Speaker 2 (46:08):
So anyway, that COVID hits. Lots of things happened, but
we ended up adopting him in April of twenty twenty one,
right before we moved to Memphis.
Speaker 1 (46:19):
Yeah, holy smokes.
Speaker 3 (46:22):
And he's seven now.
Speaker 1 (46:24):
And he's seven now, and his name is.
Speaker 3 (46:26):
Quick short from Quaevius, which is.
Speaker 1 (46:30):
Interesting because, coming full circle back to Peter and then
Nick and Tracy, when you talk about biracial adoptions, you've
got Kazakh born children who are kind of Asian Ish
(46:52):
looking but also Russian looking. So I don't want to
sound like a jark, but I don't know how to
describe their look perfectly. People haven't seen.
Speaker 2 (47:01):
Most people who see our boys think they're Asian.
Speaker 1 (47:04):
Okay, there you go, but but they're really they're not Asian.
It's it's it's they have to have a beautifully interesting look. Yes,
but let's just say kind of asion.
Speaker 2 (47:16):
Kind of Asian, okay, all right.
Speaker 1 (47:18):
And then you've got Russian kids who were born in Russia.
And then you've got your own children, and y'all are
Anglican as it gets. And one of your babies is
redheaded apparently, which I just learned now. And then you
got you got the Bulgarians who are probably dark and olive.
Speaker 2 (47:40):
Stepha and Julia Anna is actually very fair, okay.
Speaker 1 (47:44):
Well, and then Gypsies, I mean, and then shows up
and he's in African American. Yeah, so dinner looks like
the United Stations when you guys are all out and about.
People haven't wonder what in God's green Earth showed up.
Speaker 3 (48:08):
It's it's funny because you know, you know in.
Speaker 1 (48:11):
By the way in your shoes, I would be rimming
with broad So I say that, yeah, well we are
a tone in cheek. But people have to be going
what on earth?
Speaker 3 (48:22):
And they're always not sure, so you get strange questions
to my son Maurat taking him just had to get
wisdom teth. So he's in high school, right, so I
got him with me God and Owen's with us because
I had to take os. I was taken care of him.
So now gentleman and there, well he's got his grandson
with him that he had to bring in there, so
he's he was asking me. So he started talking to
my son Murat about his son, and I'm like, oh, no, no,
(48:44):
they're both my sons. And he looks at me because
my son was a senior high school so he's old
enough to be a father, shouldn't be And he looks
at me and he goes, you're his father too. I say, yeah, sure,
am I still got it. So it's just he's like,
no fense. He goes, you'll have to be a grandfather.
I said, well, yeah, I know. I realized we're in
the South, but that hasn't happened yet, but it does.
Speaker 2 (49:06):
Now you have a granddaughter. Arstin the first adoption is married,
and we have a six year old granddaughter who's in
the same class as Quay, so they're in the same.
Speaker 3 (49:20):
And so one woman was really confused when she asked
who they were because she thought, well, are you guys old.
Speaker 1 (49:24):
That means the six year old is Quay's niece.
Speaker 3 (49:28):
He's her uncle. Yeah, And she looked because I asked,
was that your brother? She goes, no, it's my uncle.
It can't be your uncle. He's not an adult. And
she's like, and Quai goes, we live in the same house,
but I'm her uncle.
Speaker 1 (49:41):
All right. So one question I wanted to ask before
we get to the last question I'm going to ask.
I get close these kids and I realized we're talking
about children that stretch from twenty nine to seven years old.
Just for everybody listing, we have a six year old grandchild,
(50:02):
but we also have twenty nine, twenty eight, I'll just
do it this way, Lydia's twenty nine, Iris twenty eight,
Thomas twenty eight, Demirs twenty seven, Marats twenty six, Arsenon's
twenty six, Sirx twenty six, Jui's twenty, Anna seventeen, stephka
is sixteen, Owen is fourteen, Eva is none, and quay
(50:25):
as seven. You Gigglewa's hilarious.
Speaker 3 (50:32):
Well, when he graduates high school, I'll be seventy.
Speaker 1 (50:35):
De blestion is when the Christmas card, when the family
Christmas card goes out, do your own children look at
their own family? And I was gonna say, almost kind
of giggle it look at us, and you just did it,
so they must.
Speaker 2 (50:52):
It's I guess it's just so natural, like you were saying,
like people, if people look at us, Bill, they probably
we do. I honestly don't notice it anymore. I don't
think about the fact that we're weird.
Speaker 1 (51:08):
I don't think anybody would. I really just think people
would be like, Wow, how amazing.
Speaker 2 (51:14):
I just don't. I guess it's just it's been life
for so long. I mean, it's twenty four years now.
Speaker 1 (51:22):
Please tell me you're done.
Speaker 2 (51:24):
Well, No, no, we've just learned we don't say.
Speaker 1 (51:30):
That, oh, there's no plans, but there's no plan if
something came along.
Speaker 2 (51:36):
But not very many of these were what I would
exactly call plans, or a lot of maybe half were
plans and half were not planned.
Speaker 3 (51:45):
Was planned.
Speaker 1 (51:47):
The rest of it was football dreams. And here comes
some Bulgarian kids, and I'm pregnant too, and the whole supert.
Speaker 2 (51:55):
So we we've just learned not to sit to say never.
Speaker 1 (52:00):
This is an army in normal folks. We highlight normal
people who do extraordinary things in their corner of the
world to try to make it a better place. You've
done so by growing a family. You haven't started a
Bible one c. Three. You're just serving kids who needed
serving and built a family doing it. What do you
(52:23):
say to folks who are out there listening to us today,
thinking about the world and thinking about something that Alex
often says that there's more houses of worship in the
United States than there are are kids in the foster
care system by just a small number. So one family
from every house worship the United States adopted a child,
(52:45):
we'd empty the foster care system overnight. What do you
say with that kind of demographic going on in your
life when people hear your story, because your story includes
an enormous amount of sacrifice. You sacrifice your dreams of
being an engineer, you sacrifice your dreams of maybe being
a homeroom mom. One day, you're still sacrificing every day
(53:09):
taking care of Anna, And despite all those sacrifices, leave
us with what this is to you? It's it's our life.
Speaker 3 (53:20):
If you going back to the story I told in
the in the orphanage of the other little kids coming
up the words mommy and daddy, the kids who don't
have one, that's the word, that's God, there's you'd be
giving them. You know, how do you put it?
Speaker 1 (53:38):
You can't.
Speaker 3 (53:39):
I can't change the world for everybody. But I can
change the world for one person. You can become that.
You can become the whole world for one child, and
that changes everything for that.
Speaker 1 (53:51):
How many planets in our solar system? You've not changed
the world, You've changed the universe for these people. Yeah,
lots of worlds.
Speaker 3 (54:00):
So and you don't know and what effect will they have?
Speaker 1 (54:03):
Then I was about to say him, what world have
they changed for you? Guys? Oh?
Speaker 3 (54:08):
Completely, I'm a completely different person. Now than I was.
Speaker 1 (54:11):
When we start to change a thing like my van back,
like our fifteen passenger van backs, they had a fifteen
passenger van that they could pretty much get well, they
could thirteen.
Speaker 3 (54:23):
Yeah, you could get your.
Speaker 1 (54:24):
Old family into. And it got smoked and.
Speaker 2 (54:26):
They moved to Memphis. And so that's enough said, right,
everybody understands.
Speaker 1 (54:30):
Yeah, nobody here, no side of drive, and so your
van got smoked and nobody because it's a big So
if anybody's out there looking for somewhere to spend thirty dollars,
they would love to have a fifteen passengers van to
be able to get their family to and from wherever
the heck of this shall go together, yes.
Speaker 2 (54:50):
Which is primarily churches.
Speaker 1 (54:52):
Yeah, do you ever get a break?
Speaker 2 (54:58):
You know, we don't bill. We we didn't mention that
both my parents live with us, and they've got physical
issues now as well.
Speaker 3 (55:07):
Her dad's ninety five, mother's eighty two. They yeah, they're
not in great health. They're good, but not great.
Speaker 2 (55:14):
So we had our twenty fifth wedding anniversary two years
ago and Damir and Damir and Sarah came from Atlanta
and spent the weekend and took care of the of
everybody for us so we could. We spent the weekend
at the Beast Pro Shop Pyramids.
Speaker 1 (55:32):
Don't know, people who don't know, it's actually really luxury hotel.
Speaker 2 (55:40):
It was wonderful. That was the first time we had
been away for a weekend together since Owen was born
in twenty eleven. Wow, and since then not again.
Speaker 1 (55:53):
Who came home?
Speaker 2 (55:54):
No, Demir and Sarah?
Speaker 1 (55:56):
All right, Demir Sah, come on back for on a
third show up on a Wednesday night and give your
old parents Thursday through Sunday to get on out of here.
And who knows, maybe they'll dp two million kids and
you'll get a bio show up after the weekend.
Speaker 2 (56:15):
Why they don't come as they're scared, will go away?
Come back with another kid.
Speaker 1 (56:19):
Here's you come back with bo kids. Hilarious, y'all. I
want to I just want to say this to you.
I read this and when I read it, the words
that came out of my brain were what loving, empathetic
people you are. But I'm gonna amend that after spending
(56:41):
an hour and a half with you, oh also crazy
and that part hadn't changed. Goes what I see. But
and when I say bright I don't mean it intellectually.
I mean I mean the brightness that comes off of you, guys.
The aura that you guys have in your smiles and
(57:06):
in your eyes and in telling your story and everything
else is really inspirational individually, which is very important, but
both individually and as a couple, I'm drawn to how
bright and loving and empathetic you are. And your family
(57:27):
is very fortunate to have a father and a mother
like you, guys, and the world is a better place
because of the work you've done in raising your family.
So I just want to say that to you that
I'm inspired by you. I think you're wonderful, wonderful people.
I think you're nuts, but wonderful people. How lex you
got anything for me? Close? I know you got to go,
(57:48):
so I'll keep this quick.
Speaker 6 (57:49):
But during the pre interview, Lyddy and I were talking about,
you know, the Bible, for those of you are Christian's
pretty clear that true and unofiled religion is taking care
of the what it was an orphan and not everybody
is called to adopt, and not everyone would be called
to adopt eleven, but we're all called to do something.
That much is clear, and so whether it's helping through
care portal, or you become a CASA you know, volunteer.
(58:11):
You can involve the National Angels and we featured a
bunch of these models on the podcast.
Speaker 1 (58:15):
Or being wealthy beyond all means and providing these folks
with a fifteen passenger van or a we can open
the whole family a week away somewhere would be nice.
Somewhere in the bibble. It's got to say something about
hearing for those who care for the widows and orphans.
(58:37):
And I know it doesn't say that exactly, but we
can find some script that checks that box.
Speaker 2 (58:42):
To well we are. If I had one word to
describe us, it would simply be blessed. We are blessed
beyond measure. You can't outgive God. You can try, you
are never going to be successful.
Speaker 1 (59:00):
Yeah, well, on those lines, I would call you faithful.
So thank you for joining me, Thank you for sharing
your nutty story. And I think we'll pick up at
least thirteen listeners on this episode, so that's a good thing.
Scott Lydia, thanks for being here, Thanks telling your story,
(59:21):
and God bless you and God bless your family. Let
us know if you do anything else crazy in the future,
informed sounds good.
Speaker 3 (59:30):
Thanks for being.
Speaker 1 (59:35):
And thank you for joining us this week. If Lydia
and Scott have inspired you in general, or better yet,
to take action by exploring adopting, getting involved with an
adoption or foster care nonprofit, wanting to join the Memphis
Chapter of the Army, wanting to start an Army chapter
in your own community, or something else entirely, please let
(59:59):
me know. I'd love to hear about it. You can
write me anytime at Bill at normalfolks dot us. And
you've enjoyed this episode, share friends'm on social, subscribe to
the podcast, rate it, review it, join the Army at
normalfolks dot us, any and all of these things that
will help us grow an army of normal folks. I'm
(01:00:20):
Bill Courtney. Until next time, do what you can
Hey, everybody, it's Bill Courtney with an army of normal folks.
And we continue now with part two of our conversation
with Lydia and Scott Rosenkrantz right after these brief messages
from our general sponsors. So curious. That's three that are
(00:32):
the exact same age and one that's only one year older.
So I mean, these dudes, are they got to be
rolling tight as these? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (00:41):
The four are three, three and three. We were outnumbered
in every way.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
So when you went to Walmart, So Lisa, our kids
are four and four years are biological, right, but Lisa
had a one year old or two year old or
three year old and was pregnant pushing them through won't wow? Right,
And people would obviously have well intentioned, sweetess, But like,
you know, all these years and what's that in your belly?
(01:11):
You know you know how this works? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (01:14):
I guess, yeah, we get that one too.
Speaker 3 (01:16):
And we didn't even you know, a country to give
them money. They give you kids.
Speaker 1 (01:22):
I would imagine six of you, the six of you
were quite a side.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
We were, indeed, especially as beautiful as as these boys were.
Oh my gosh.
Speaker 3 (01:33):
Yeah, it looked nothing like us.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
Yeah, I mean just just gorgeous.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
All right, So now you've got it. We've got this big,
six person family that didn't even exist eighteen months ago.
We're going to go to Georgia Tech finally, and we're
going to figure this out.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
Well that I let you tell that story.
Speaker 3 (01:56):
Yeah, So with with her working, I would We had
the boys in a Montessori school, and so I would
take them, drop them off, and next door was the
was the Baptist church who did childcare in the afternoon,
So they would go from their morning morning Montessori class
to Baptists and I would come back and pick them up.
(02:16):
And about halfway through that semester, I guess spring semester.
You know, you saw how these kids change you take
them out of the orphanage and bring them home, their
whole world changes. They go from these dour, closed in
kids defensive at all times. I mean, their walls are
up to they're open, They're in awe of everything around them.
(02:36):
They want nothing but what everything you give them. You know, Yeah,
they're being kids and they're just loving and adorable. And
then I was picking them up in the afternoon after
putting them in daycare, and they were reverting back to
how they were and first met them.
Speaker 1 (02:55):
Really, Yeah, why it was.
Speaker 3 (02:57):
A lot like now they're in a room a little
bit yew and being back in the orphanage that we
brought him here just to put him in another place
like we took him from.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
Do you think they were afraid that you weren't ever
coming back every time you dropped them off or something.
Speaker 3 (03:11):
I remember that quite that bad.
Speaker 2 (03:13):
But they knew how to behave in a group of
kids that you know, that's all they had ever known.
Speaker 1 (03:20):
That's interesting that even as infants, that was so baked
into him.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
Well, I mean, Demir was almost five years old when
we adopted him. I mean, it's a long time.
Speaker 1 (03:33):
He with a lot of condition, that's the flies type
of stuff.
Speaker 3 (03:36):
The little group of boys he was with that was
like a pack of holes.
Speaker 1 (03:39):
Well, and they do say psychology teaches us that sixty
five percent of a kid's personality is formed by four
and so if he was five, so much of four.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
But he was almost five and.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
Yeah, So what you're saying is you recognized your children
changing being in this atmosphere.
Speaker 3 (04:01):
Right, And so I was I was looking at what
I was pursuing and going, wow, is this piece of
paper worth what I'm doing to my sons, because they're
my sons. And one afternoon I was just like, this
isn't worth it. I was sitting there looking at it
after I'd kind of been watching them go through this myself.
Speaker 1 (04:19):
Go be some examples of what you were seeing that
was worrying you so much.
Speaker 3 (04:26):
Just a little bit. They were a little more distant again,
just kind of that standoffish that we yeah, that we'd
kind of gotten over, because it takes a while to
break the ice. I mean it does, and and.
Speaker 1 (04:41):
It takes years.
Speaker 3 (04:41):
For every year that a child is institutionalized, it takes
two years to overcome it.
Speaker 1 (04:46):
For every year it is institutionalized, it takes two years
to overcome it. So this four year old needed at
least nine.
Speaker 3 (04:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
Yeah, it took to.
Speaker 3 (04:53):
Me a long time to completely accept us. And the
thing is is we're in the early stage of that
process and we just took a step back. Not a
good sign. I mean it was, and I was noticing
it in just their behaviors less, but then with each
other too. They were becoming less attached to each other.
These kids were defensive, they were they were careful with
(05:16):
even around the kids.
Speaker 1 (05:17):
Which is a mechanism they had to develop the children
to survive, and then you saw it coming back out
of them when you wanted to break it away.
Speaker 3 (05:26):
Yeah, And I was like really, And I made the
choice one afternoon, sitting there, going this isn't worth it.
I'm sitting here killing myself trying to keep up with
classes at Georgia Tech is not an easy place to go.
It's tough and I and I can't be in the
environment because I have other responsibilities. So I'm so you
really reached a bait yeah kind of thing, and I went,
(05:49):
you know what, I went back online that afternoon, sent
letters to my professors thanking them for what they did
and admissions, and dropped out because I was looking at,
you know, four little boys who didn't need a piece.
Speaker 1 (06:01):
Of paper they needed.
Speaker 3 (06:06):
So wow, I became a full time dad at that point.
I mean stay at home, Yeah, I was. I was
given the choice.
Speaker 1 (06:15):
Only four years before, three to four years before. You
just told me your plan. Our plan, yeah, was for
you to work while he became an electrical engineer, so
you could say it.
Speaker 2 (06:27):
I could stay at home.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
So that thing got flop flipped.
Speaker 3 (06:31):
If you had asked me, did I ever raise other
people's children had been a huge no. Right, yeah that change.
Speaker 2 (06:40):
Yeah, we both, I mean we both gave up a
little bit of a dream. I mean I still think
I would have been a good stay at home mom
if I'd had the opportunity, I would have. I would
have enjoyed being the mom who was at school all
the time. I would have enjoyed having dinner ready every night.
But it just wasn't God's plan for us.
Speaker 1 (07:01):
Do you resent that at all?
Speaker 2 (07:02):
Oh gosh, no, no, what we've gained is so much
more than what we've given up. Oh wow, No, no,
not at all.
Speaker 1 (07:09):
Listen, there's a lot of people listening to this show.
Some are Christians, some are not. Some are faithful, some
would call themselves spiritual. I mean, you know, the gamut
of faith runs a very broad spectrum. How do you
explain for those listening surrendering your own dreams to what
(07:36):
you believe is God's plan for you.
Speaker 3 (07:39):
When you think of it from the aspect of their
your dreams, right, so these are they're yours. There's a
selfish aspect to that, because it's how you think things
are going to work out. And if you were to
draw things up Wow, this would be so great, But
you're not considering anything external to.
Speaker 1 (07:55):
Your dream, right.
Speaker 3 (07:57):
And then you when you take on the role of
being a parent, as every parent knows, it becomes really
important about the dreams of the child. What can I
do for the child without then pushing your dreams onto
the child. You've got to watch that develop and your
influence by everything in your life. You can't say you're not.
(08:18):
Everybody's got biases. My dad worked hard his whole life,
and there were times when I was a kid, I
was resentful that work was a little more important to him.
It seemed like than maybe being at one of my
baseball games. And one of the greatest times in my
life was my dad took the time and for two
years he coached me and my brother in baseball. I
got to do that with my boys for ten years
(08:39):
when they were in soccer Jase Oliver, Georgia, Florida, Mississippi, Alabama,
going to soccer games everywhere. I didn't know jack about soccer,
but you know, one of the fathers that I.
Speaker 1 (08:53):
Got started when you're watching football, Yeah.
Speaker 3 (08:55):
Exactly exactly, you know, and that gave me that opportunity.
I was like, well, you know what I'm going to
be there. I don't know anything about this. I'll learn.
I'll be the day that carries the water.
Speaker 1 (09:06):
I don't care.
Speaker 3 (09:08):
Because my dream wasn't worth anything I was looking at.
Going this piece of paper gives me a lot a
better job that then creates more time away, or I
have an opportunity to just be involved and go, you
know what, don't remember that more than they'll remember Gee,
did I get my engineering degree? Did I get my
professional engineering degree? Did I get an award? Did I
(09:29):
create something really great? Really, they never would have been
there for any of that, right that would have been
my workaday world that I come home and explain to
a childhood go, can we go play now, you know yeah,
instead of yeah, exactly and stead or can we just
go play now and watch these boys grow?
Speaker 1 (09:45):
What about your perspective on them, because you're the other
side of that.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
I don't want it to sound like it's easy, Bill,
because it's not like I think we're We're not helping
anybody if we make it sound like, oh, well God
said to do this, and so we did it. You know,
it's not a one time we surrendered everything and then
we never thought about it again. We still every single
(10:16):
day when we have to change diapers on a seventeen
year old or answer the same questions five hundred times
from a child that has an intellectual disability, it's an
every day dying to self. It's every single day. It's
not a one time thing and you're done. That's what
(10:38):
the Christian life is. We get, but we get. What
we get in return is so much greater than that that.
Speaker 1 (10:47):
I wish everybody listening right now could see the brightness
in the two of your eyes and smiles. Certainly we
all sacrifice, but you guys don't seem sacrificial at all.
These seems so full.
Speaker 4 (11:06):
Yeah, I know it really well okay, well you just
you just blew the wood off of it because clearly Demre,
Marat Arston, and Sarah are not seventeen year olds.
Speaker 1 (11:22):
Yeah with disabilities.
Speaker 2 (11:24):
So yeah, yeah, yeah, no story, no disabilities. Right, And
it was so funny because we were like we like
showed doctors the videos. We wanted to make sure there
was no special needs, you know with.
Speaker 3 (11:38):
These floor.
Speaker 1 (11:43):
We'll be right back. So how many months transpired between
Demyr and Marot's showing up did you decide, well, this
(12:11):
isn't enough. There's more we can do.
Speaker 3 (12:13):
We came home with them two thousand and two. We
actually were looking into another adoption the next year, and
these were older siblings. She was the older the two
right she was she was about to age out, oh gosh,
and her younger brother was a couple of years younger
than she was. And we were working through a different
organization trying to facilitate this adoption before she got out
(12:37):
of the foster system whatever however they deem it and
into being, you know, let loose as an adult. And
despite our best efforts, it never happened. We got a
dose of reality that you know when you're you think,
oh I'm I'm doing the good thing right. So you
and me, God, I you know you got your part,
(12:58):
I got my part right. We're in this together. And
you run up against that wall where gods like this
was never meant to happen. I'll let you run down
that road as far as you can until the road ends,
turn around and come back, because you weren't supposed to
go that way. And that was a hard lesson. Because
we vested time, we thought we knew what we were doing.
We've been through this twice, right, we got we're veterans, right, yeah.
Speaker 2 (13:22):
No, and we've been down that road several times, I
would say, but we did end up. Two years after
we brought Demir Marad home, we brought three girls home
from Russia.
Speaker 3 (13:37):
Three sibling group.
Speaker 1 (13:38):
Oh yeah. Their names are Lydia, Ira, and Toma. Is
that correct?
Speaker 2 (13:47):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (13:47):
So are they all? Were they all biologically related? Yes?
Speaker 2 (13:51):
So. Lydia is the oldest. She's eleven months older than
the twins. Era and Toma are the twins. So very
and they had been in the orphanage together.
Speaker 3 (14:01):
Since he was two and were they at the time
The twins were six almost seven, and so they've.
Speaker 2 (14:11):
They've been much longer.
Speaker 1 (14:13):
Ye, So what did you learn about them?
Speaker 2 (14:17):
Very much?
Speaker 3 (14:18):
Russia's beautiful.
Speaker 2 (14:20):
They were beautiful girls and they looked happy.
Speaker 3 (14:23):
And big bows in their hair.
Speaker 2 (14:27):
And so you know, it was like we didn't have
any girls. It was like, oh, this is going to
be wonderful.
Speaker 3 (14:35):
Right, she'll have little girls she can dress up yay.
Speaker 2 (14:38):
And Lydia we had the same name. I mean it
was like Destiny right.
Speaker 1 (14:42):
Yeah, So do you what do you fly to? I
guess Moscow?
Speaker 2 (14:46):
No, they were in Siberia. They were twelve time zones away.
Speaker 3 (14:50):
Yeahs which is three hours east of Chemo, which is
the nearest large It was in the middle of nowhere.
Speaker 1 (14:58):
So you put on your mittens and flow to sever Well.
Speaker 2 (15:00):
He did visit. We actually adopted them in the summer,
which I'm very thankful for.
Speaker 3 (15:04):
Although it was although it was still really cold in Moscow.
And this was an interesting trip because where we landed
was a military base that had converted into an airport
because you know, we crushed the Soviet Union ninety three
ninety four, so which was really interesting because I'd been
you know, in the Navy. Its actually work, yeah, exactly,
(15:26):
you know, and so that walking through there in that
because there's that was interesting. Military personnel walking around and stuff,
and you're like, wow, we used to be enemies. Yeah,
I'm walking around inside your country.
Speaker 1 (15:38):
You know.
Speaker 3 (15:38):
That was kind of that was a different but it
was It was funny because we tried to learn some Russian.
Speaker 2 (15:45):
We did. We actually learned a decent amount communication.
Speaker 3 (15:49):
Yeah, communicating get by in the street if we had
to buy something or change money. We knew what we
were doing with that. Not a whole lot of conversational
you know, because you didn't know a lot about slang,
so you weren't conversive that way. But it was interesting
because I went for the visit and you got to
bring gifts, and the gifts has to be better for
you know, who's ever in charge. And then the next
time they get a little bit less of a gift,
(16:10):
a little bit less. You understand this hierarchy of gifts.
And so we had all those prepared and they, you know,
bring the girls in and we're I'm sitting in a
room with these three little girls and we're drinking tea.
They took the sugar bowl and they're drinking spoon or
eating spoonfuls of sugar out of the sugar bowls. They
didn't get sugar. You're kidding not to these.
Speaker 2 (16:30):
These little girls. I mean to give you some perspective.
The twins were almost seven, Lydia was almost eight, and
they were about thirty four pounds. What so we were,
you know, when we took clothes for them, when we
when we completed the adoption, they were in four teas
and they were oh well, I mean they they were malnourished,
(16:51):
but they were fathy.
Speaker 3 (16:54):
Yeah, to put it in morse propec marot. But we
adopted it at three and a half was forty two.
He was a beast. Yeah, and so he's bigger than
his sisters that we brought home, who were twice his age.
Speaker 2 (17:07):
Yeah, they were little, They were very very little, but
they they grew so quickly once we had them.
Speaker 1 (17:13):
So you'd load them up, yeah, yep, bring them home. Right.
Speaker 2 (17:19):
We got home on a Friday. In school started on
a Monday, and so off they go to school speaking
no English.
Speaker 1 (17:25):
And how did that work?
Speaker 2 (17:28):
We sat in the hallway. We took turns sitting in
the hallway on a bench, and when the teachers needed us,
they would call us and we would go.
Speaker 3 (17:37):
So we went back to elementary school.
Speaker 1 (17:39):
Are you kidding me? You really did that for how long? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (17:45):
Months? It took them up because they've been immersing their
language for longer and they could still talk to each other.
It took longer for them to get rid of their
Russian and accept English. The boys learned English in like
three months.
Speaker 1 (17:59):
Well they were Yeah, the development, that's right, But these
kids were already developed and unbelievable.
Speaker 2 (18:09):
But we realized it took us a while because we
weren't sure what was language and what might be disabilities,
but we eventually realized the girls had some delays that
we had not been aware of.
Speaker 1 (18:23):
Intellectual.
Speaker 3 (18:26):
Yeah, that was our journey.
Speaker 2 (18:28):
That and so that took us. That took us on
a journey that we never wanted to be on and
never expected to be on, where we were immersed in
five O four's and i EPs and psychiatrists and medications
and seizures and neurologists. And it took us on a
journey that we never ever expected to be on.
Speaker 1 (18:47):
And you signed up for we did, but.
Speaker 2 (18:49):
We had no I mean, we had no idea. But yes,
I mean well, I mean anyone who either has a
child or at to a child, there's a risk, right,
But when you adopt, especially older children, you're definitely taking
a risk.
Speaker 1 (19:10):
Phenomenal story and for most people the story should end there.
I mean three groups of adoption. Yeah, three groups of adoption, two, two,
and three.
Speaker 2 (19:22):
Within three years, we went from zero to seven, right.
Speaker 3 (19:26):
And thirty five months oldest and youngest in this case, right.
Speaker 1 (19:29):
And these three graded yeh yes, Oh, I mean yeah,
I think anybody in the right mind would have said,
you know, yeah, the Lord's blessed us with this massive family.
Speaker 2 (19:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (19:44):
Here we are and gosh that this is, this has
been more than we bargained for. But we love our girls,
we love our family, and it's part of it. We've
sat in the hallway and done school and we got
these kids. Let's uh, you know that you know that
(20:04):
that requires a non passionate vehicle to get our family around.
Why don't we just call it quits?
Speaker 3 (20:10):
Yeah, well we never you know, people ask us, are
you done yet? My own mother thought I was crazy,
and she well she had an older sister had seventeen
children natural births, so she she kind of knew crazy
when she saw it. So and we'd be like, all
you guys done, Like, well, God never gave us a number. Well,
(20:37):
actually God still has.
Speaker 1 (20:39):
Interesting interestingly, seven appears pretty frequently in the Bible.
Speaker 2 (20:44):
Well, it's completeness, right, it was a number.
Speaker 1 (20:47):
Of completions you had years ago, would.
Speaker 3 (20:53):
Have said, and yet eight is the number of new beginning.
Speaker 1 (20:59):
It's also who knows what's going on mathematics.
Speaker 2 (21:06):
Well, we did take we did take some time off
to make sure we were addressing the needs of the girls,
especially that took time and enjoy the kids that we had.
We had, I mean, we had so much fun, and
then we thought, well, maybe it's time to consider adoption again.
And doors kept getting shut one after the other, and
(21:28):
so one I don't remember exactly, but one day I
said to Scott, you know, I'm about to turn forty.
If we're ever gonna try for a biological child, we
probably should do that. It was ticking, It was ticking.
It was getting louder and louder, right, And so eight
months later I was pregnant with Owen.
Speaker 1 (21:51):
Okay, so now we got bio baby number one. Because
the biological clock is ticking ticking. What man has their
wife look at him and say, hey, you know, right,
even if it doesn't work, the try the effort. So
let's still yeah, there it is. And so Owen shows up,
(22:13):
the baby boy of seveny eighth now of these seven siblings.
Speaker 2 (22:20):
And they were like twelve to fourteen, so he was
just a little bit spoiled.
Speaker 1 (22:25):
Yeah, oh I bet he was passed around like that.
Speaker 3 (22:27):
Oh yeah, for time to hold him. It's like we're like, gone,
can we hold him? We're fighting with our own children
to hold our youngest.
Speaker 1 (22:40):
So still not good enough.
Speaker 2 (22:43):
Oh gosh, Okay, So I'll start this one. And then
I think Scott has to pick it up. So so
I think Owen was about a year old, and I
was getting ready for work one day, just very innocently.
I can still see myself getting ready for work. And
I was on Facebook when Facebook was still worth looking at.
(23:06):
And there was a blog that somebody else had reposted
from another mother who was headed to Bulgaria, and they
were also a family of several adoptions, and she was
adopting a fifteen year old girl who weighed fifteen pounds.
Oh my goodness, and Bill, that broke me, It just
(23:29):
completely broke me.
Speaker 1 (23:31):
How does a fifteen year old of fifteen pounds even
be a lot?
Speaker 2 (23:34):
Exactly exactly? And she didn't look like I mean, she
looked like she was very close to not being alive.
But from that point on, I was like, well, we
gotta know more, We have to know more. What can
we do? And so I would say within a few
months of that time, we had decided that we were
(23:57):
going to go to that same orphanage, which was the
worst orphanage in Bulgaria. Yeah, and we were going to
adopt two little girls with the most severe special needs
that I had ever. I couldn't even fathom that children
(24:18):
with this many needs could survive.
Speaker 1 (24:21):
Why sign up for that? My people who listen, who've
listened to this forever. I have a brother in law, Ben,
who has special needs, and I've watched Gary and Peggy,
my in laws, raise him. Now when I say Ben
has special needs, he's pretty high functioning, but he will
always need care the rest of his life. And he
(24:44):
has created some of the greatest joys in our families world.
And I could tell stories upon stories. I'll also tell
you I can tell stories upon stories have been very, very,
very hard, and Gary and Peggy have a very special
place in Heaven for their commitment and consistency with caring
(25:05):
for Ben and a seventy five year old parents. They
still care for Ben, and it's work, and when that's
the hand you're dealt in life, you make the best
of it. And I am. I fully believe, after watching
garyan Peggy's life for the last thirty five years of
my life with Ben, that the Lord strengthens you and
(25:28):
gives you what you need and will meet you right
where you need to be met when you're blessed with
a child with special needs. And I believe that's where
Gary and Peggy are however, to consciously sign up for it,
not to be dealt the cards, but to deal with
(25:49):
or pick that card out of a deck of fifty
two beautiful cards. I just, honestly, and I mean this,
Please take this, and with exactly how intended. I cannot imagine.
I absolutely understand answering the call when that's what you're given.
(26:16):
I cannot imagine signing, specifically cognitively signing up for that work.
Why how with especially when you already have seven other
children plus eight with the bioowen, Why how I can't
(26:38):
even fathom that we'll be right back.
Speaker 3 (26:56):
It wasn't easy with everything we'd gone through at the
Three Girls and found it felt like we had caught up,
that we weren't dreading water anymore.
Speaker 1 (27:04):
We were kind of all right, we're we're.
Speaker 3 (27:06):
Kind of making it. We we got everything in the process.
We got the the right schools, we got the write doctors,
we got to we're kinda we got a routine back again.
And you know, for me, because I'm the day to
day guy, right so I felt a lot of pressure
with that. I was felt like maybe I'm catching my
breath and and maybe maybe I can start to do
(27:26):
Scott things a little bit. And so when Lydia brought
this up, I was like, really, God, really was this?
You know? And you think yourself, is this not enough?
And then I'm going, God, AT's a coward. Sure part
of the adventure. What's next? So we were looking at
(27:48):
two little girls, an obviously, but there's another little girl.
And literally, as Fragile's analyzed, this other little girl was
on the just as Fragile, on the opposite end of
the spectrum.
Speaker 1 (27:59):
What does that mean?
Speaker 3 (28:01):
Well, Anna had hydrocephalus. She'd had it since birth. So
think about the uh, the worst possible thing her Her
skull went like out the back it was fifty nine centimeters,
you know, that's she was. She weighed twenty two pounds.
Half her weight was her head. She'd never picked her
head up. She laid on one side, she laid on
you the imagine living your entire life. And she was
(28:21):
four and a half when we got her, living with
a migraine headache. Oh that's the level of pain that
she existed in. The other little girl was the opposite
of the specify. I said. She had microcephalus, which means
she had a shrunken had very very little brain tissue
that had formed, you know, enough for the basic functions
of keeping her alive. And I remember the first day
(28:44):
in the baby house with the two of them, and
I walked in, and you know, my interpreter got me
set got me in this little room. This is a
lot noisier than the other baby houses i'd been in.
Chaos was raining. They had their own cemetery that I
could see out through the window. For the kids that
didn't make it on a regular basis, they had lots
(29:06):
of funerals. And so they bring me in these two
little girls and they put them in my arms, and
the caregivers walk off, and what walked off And this was.
Speaker 2 (29:17):
Just a visit.
Speaker 3 (29:18):
This was not just a visit.
Speaker 2 (29:19):
He was coming back home. This was not the final advent.
Speaker 3 (29:22):
This was this is the stage, first visit. So you
go first stage, you come back home, and you come
back and you go through the court stuff. So it's
not kind of the way we did stuff in Cossacks.
And so I'm holding one little girl in this arm,
one little girl in this arm, and I'm just looking
around the room, looking at the rest of the cast
that was in there, and caregivers coming and go and
take out out of the kids, and everybody's just ignoring me.
And I'm sitting there for forty five minutes, and my
(29:43):
interpreter's kind of there and hanging out, and my arm's
going numb because Anna's head was so heavy sitting in
the crook of my arm. It's like having a bowling
ball sitting on your elbow. And she went to sleep.
One of the caregivers walked through the room, walks in,
she goes and she's just staring at her, and she
calls another lady in and they're talking. I, you know,
(30:04):
I can't understand what they're saying. I don't understand Bulgarian.
It's surrealic, but it's different than Russian apparently. And my
interpreter driver told me later on the drive back home,
he said, she's never.
Speaker 1 (30:15):
Slept like that. Oh, now you're hooked. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (30:20):
They couldn't believe. Said they'd never seen her calm like that.
She just hold her. She just fell asleep me holding her.
The other little girl was so fragile, and we went
through this process. They told me if we traveled, she'd
die in traveling, that we would have to have sank.
Speaker 2 (30:35):
Pressure from the plane and would kill her.
Speaker 3 (30:36):
Yeah, And so they were trying to the whole time
talk me out of this, right, and I'm like, oh, no,
I'm doing God's work. I'm bringing this child home. This
is she's gonna be my daughter to no again. That
was one of those battles of the Holy Spirit that
you lose. So that was it was a humbling trip.
As fragile as these children were, and you think you're
doing something really good. The second one wasn't meant to be.
(30:58):
And you know what. We brought Anna home and Anna
was as fragile as could be. I mean when we
brought her home, because Lydia went back with the mirror
or the sun. They traveled to bring her home. I
stayed at home with the other kids. They showed up
near Port Atlanta. We went from the airport to the
emergency room. You're kidding, No, in Cholla.
Speaker 2 (31:20):
So Children's Healthcare of Atlanta. She was there for two
months before we could bring her home April through June.
Speaker 1 (31:27):
But you knew that going in, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (31:29):
We didn't know it was going to be quite like that,
that she was going to be in the hospital for
two months. That was that was not unknown.
Speaker 1 (31:39):
Wow, And Anna is now seventeen seventeen.
Speaker 3 (31:44):
Yeah, like I said, she was four and a half
years old. She weighed twenty two pounds. She's now seventeen
year old, she's about eighty two pounds. Healthy. She's had
you know, she's had a lot of her challenges in this.
Like I said, they because of her skull on the
first thing as they did after she got her got
her stable and got her healthy and strong enough is
(32:04):
they did a creanal reduction surgery at Children's Hospital of Atlanta,
and she's one of thirty one that've been done. They
usually don't do them that old because your your skull
is now hard bone by the time you're five years old.
She was five and a half at the time, because
it's it's harder. It's so much harder to do. But
they literally take your skull off from the eyebrows to
(32:25):
the ears. They open your scalpe up, do this, take
it off, cut it. The pieces are going to go
back together so it's normal sized. They grind up the
other pieces like mortar, put it in between the pieces
of bone, and wrap your head backup.
Speaker 1 (32:38):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (32:38):
Five and a half hour surgery.
Speaker 2 (32:39):
It's like a jigsaws.
Speaker 3 (32:41):
Oh yeah, And she went from just having this huge
bulbless thing out in the back of her head because
of the hydrocephalus that never been treated to having a
normal sized head. She doesn't have a shunt. They went
in and did what's called aventriciloscopy, which when the neurosurgeon
explained this to me, you think you're in a ten
minute loube change that guy's going on. So I'm gonna do.
(33:01):
He's a neurosurgeon, and they just go in.
Speaker 5 (33:04):
They put a little hole in the skull, take a
little thing, little boroscope, goes down underneath, comes up underneath
your brain to where the ventricles are, and they just
poke a little hole in the membrane so the fluid
can drain out and follow the basal artery down and
get resimilated in your body.
Speaker 3 (33:18):
And I'm just going, what.
Speaker 2 (33:19):
So we made so we actually both feel like we
have medical degrees at this point through we have experienced it.
I mean, honestly, with our kids, we've had it feels
like everything except a trike. We've never had a kid
with a trake. But but Anna's tube fed, she's you know,
she's she will always be in a wheelchair. She's very
(33:41):
much a she's an infant at seventeen, right, she's full care,
but she's also full of joy.
Speaker 1 (33:47):
And you asked you also saved her life.
Speaker 2 (33:50):
And you but you asked why villain? And I think,
I mean, I guess some people may ask why does
God allow things like this to happen? Anyway? But when
I look at Anna, she reminds me that every single
one of us is made in the image of God,
and every single life has dignity and worth. And we
(34:17):
put so much of our value on the wrong things right,
like our work, our ability to do this or that,
and Anna can't do any of that. But I have
a feeling that all day long she's communing with God. Right,
And maybe she's sad for the rest of us.
Speaker 3 (34:37):
She's the happiest child we have. She wakes up every morning,
smile on her face, full of joy, just can't wait
to go. She's she's tough as nails.
Speaker 2 (34:50):
And I would say, out of all of our adoptions,
we probably grew the most with her and overcome the
fear that came along with that.
Speaker 1 (35:04):
Okay, so now it's gotta be.
Speaker 2 (35:08):
Well. Now we can do anything, no, we we you know,
we can do anything.
Speaker 3 (35:14):
But I could do all things.
Speaker 2 (35:17):
We could do all things Christ who strengthens us.
Speaker 1 (35:19):
Uh So, how long after Anna before somehow you decided
let's do this again.
Speaker 2 (35:25):
It was about two years.
Speaker 3 (35:27):
Yeah, yeah, so and and two not not in the
same city. These and these little girls were actually in
separate baby are Yeah back to Bla, so and and
so the other side of the country. So Plevin's on
the western side, you know, north. Sofia is the capital city,
so like three hours north and it's nice little drive.
(35:48):
Well this is over on the Black seaside. And both
of these are resort cities. So Juey was in the
south and Stephka was in the north, split by the
Balka Mountains that run through the center. And I go
to visit so and you fly into Sofia. You got
eyone with the capital city and had my driver, your vor.
(36:11):
You talk about an amazing man, right. So he speaks
six languages. He was at the time getting his final
certification because you have to be you have to be
spot on in every language in order to do the
transcribing of paperwork into multiple languages. So he was on
the phone at times with me and he'd be telling
(36:31):
me like the conversation she's having. So he's speaking to
me in English, talking to someone in French or or
sometimes and with another lawyer online in Bulgaria. So they're
talking back and forth, and he's speaking French, and he's
letting me know what's going on because it's a long
car ride, so he doesn't want.
Speaker 1 (36:48):
Me to be bored.
Speaker 3 (36:49):
So he's speaking three languages, listening in three languages the
same time, looking at something to make sure he's reading
that the transcription he did for the compan he's talking to,
which is done in French, is correct with the from
the Bulgarian that he was seeing, so he's getting it
correct for the government. So he's reading in French and Bulgarian,
talking to languages right, And he's worried that he hasn't
done enough of this life because he's talking to me
(37:10):
later about the people he grew up with and the
business that they own. This really rich friend of his
and I had a conversation with him over dinner. I said,
how long have you been doing this? And he said, well,
it's it's it's been several years now and I've been
through about two hundred of these. I said, so, your
rich friend has he changed two hundred lives the way
you have. And he just sat there and looked at
(37:31):
me from it and he's like, well, no, I guess not.
I said, So you got time for the other things,
I said, because you obviously have the qualifications, you could
do business anywhere. You speak six languages. You know, right
now you're saving lives all the world you have, you're
making families. And that was a great conversation with a
really really nice guy.
Speaker 1 (37:52):
Pretty amazing.
Speaker 3 (37:53):
Yeah, who's who's driving a car and being an interpreter, right,
and he doesn't think he's doing enough m hm, you know.
Speaker 1 (38:00):
And so so this is Julia and Stea. Are they
a dual deal?
Speaker 2 (38:08):
No, No, they weren't. We started with Stepka. Stepha has
Bartleby Days syndrome, which is a genetic condition that causes
any number of issues. But she had these little pigtails
on the top of her head and she was four
and she was just so cute.
Speaker 1 (38:27):
It's just cute. Julia.
Speaker 2 (38:32):
Julia has spina bifida, you know, And a lot of
times there's a like a there's a brief description of
the child right that you're given, and it's like, how
do you describe somebody in a paragraph, like, how would
somebody describe me in a paragraph? Right? But basically they said,
she's so good with the other kids, right, And you
(38:54):
could just look at her and you could see her
spirit that she was and she is, I mean, she's still.
I mean, she's in a family of you know, thirteen kids.
She's a patient. She's a patient young lady. So we
ended up deciding to bring the both home. And she
was our oldest adoption. She was nine at the time
(39:16):
and Stepco was four, so she was the oldest child
we adopted.
Speaker 1 (39:21):
And I think Alex in the prep told me that
about this same time, you now find out.
Speaker 2 (39:31):
Well, so I get home, so I ourson, and I
traveled to pick the girls up this time and get
home and I'm you know, I'm like, oh, I'm so
jet lagged.
Speaker 1 (39:44):
Home. Yeah, with the girls, everybody, everybody's solid, eleven one bios.
Speaker 2 (39:54):
And a week Aftertle tired. Yeah, it's so natural. But
it didn't go away. So a week after I got home,
I found out I was pregnant.
Speaker 1 (40:06):
When I read that, I laughed out loud.
Speaker 3 (40:09):
We told you, it is.
Speaker 2 (40:12):
So funny because I was worried about my biological clock
at forty and here I am about to turn forty five.
Speaker 1 (40:17):
I have it. I have an offhand comment and there's
there's no there's no need to respond whatsoever. I just
want to know, with all these kids and everything going on,
you even had time to even become pregnant. We can
go right past that. But it was good.
Speaker 3 (40:34):
It was It was like funny because you know, she's
dealing this tired she could and she comes back to
me and she was like, she's like worried about telling me,
and she goes, I don't know how you're going to
take this, but I'm pregnant, and I'm going, well, what
am I going to say? Like no, I mean.
Speaker 1 (40:53):
Like okay or or or you sure don't really say
that that just makes you do. So you got three choices,
being Jack, to be a dope or just say great great.
They were like the more the here we go, hold
it up. We will be right back. What does the
(41:23):
maternity ward look like when you're having a child and
your families that are to celebrate, there's no room for
anybody else.
Speaker 2 (41:29):
Well, they you know, it was a little crowded when
all the kids came to to well, they weren't there
when she was born. I mean it was like a
very sudden thing that was she was very fast.
Speaker 3 (41:42):
Owen was being her first. He owned, he was happy
where he was right. She was weak, overdue. He didn't
want to leave, so they induced her. And it was
like we were the first people showed up that middle
day Thursday whatever, and we were the last ones to
leave Friday.
Speaker 2 (41:57):
Yeah, he just was.
Speaker 3 (42:00):
Six hours sea. Yeah, we were. We were doing our
parent thing right because we had two boys who we
are a basketball game at our school, had to get
home do homework. You know, we'd already fed other ones,
worked all day. Yeah, so I was I went to
get those two bringing them home. She's gonna help one homework.
I had the other one. We're heating at dinner for him.
She cos my water broke, all right, had the bag.
(42:22):
Let's get in the car.
Speaker 2 (42:25):
Like lots of time. My mom comes in and she's like,
I think y'all should.
Speaker 3 (42:30):
Go, And we're like, well, you got things, you got
things handled here, we'll worry about homework later.
Speaker 2 (42:37):
You know.
Speaker 3 (42:37):
I'm looking at the boys, go okay, you got some dat.
Speaker 1 (42:40):
You know.
Speaker 3 (42:40):
We're just kind of like all right. We get in
the car and we're like we really haven't decided on
the name yet. We're down to four, you know, and
so we decided Eva Joyce. Joyce's her mother's middle name.
So we decided to make that little tie there. And
we're driving the house hospitals, not what ten minutes away,
you know, we're going out. We pull up, so we're
in little of Grange Storge, right, you pull the hospital,
(43:00):
like the lights are out. It's like it's kind of
dark in the lobby. So I go inside. So oh well,
the door's are open and looking around, I ran and said, well,
you know, I needed, you know, wheelchair for my life,
and got one and got to the elevators and you know,
get upstairs and there were nurses on the there's nurse
on woard. They just they just finished up with someone else.
(43:22):
And we're like, okay, well we'll get you ready there.
Speaker 1 (43:24):
Do you want anything?
Speaker 3 (43:25):
And at first she was she didn't own naturally and
she said, oh no. Well got into the room and
all of a sudden the pain thing changed, change change.
Speaker 2 (43:34):
I was like, give me some drugs now.
Speaker 3 (43:37):
And the nurse in charge goes too late. She's crowning.
Really yeah, that click fifty six minutes from the time
her water broke, she gave birth to our daughter Eva.
Speaker 2 (43:49):
The nurses delivered her, doctor walks.
Speaker 3 (43:51):
Room and go, well, my work here is done.
Speaker 1 (43:54):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (43:55):
Oh yeah, so everybody's thrown. We've got this little gorge
just redheaded girl.
Speaker 1 (44:02):
I mean, you went from ten to thirteen pretty quick.
Speaker 3 (44:04):
Yeah, in one.
Speaker 2 (44:06):
Out we are that, we are set and so well
now we're at twelve.
Speaker 1 (44:09):
We're twelve now no, no, that's what I'm saying. You
went from nine to twelve. Yeah, nine to twelve, twelve, ye, yes.
Speaker 3 (44:16):
That's okay. We lose count two and there are Yeah,
so you.
Speaker 1 (44:18):
Went from nine to twelve pretty nice.
Speaker 2 (44:20):
Even dozen we are.
Speaker 1 (44:22):
We really are.
Speaker 2 (44:25):
Oh we're done, done, done, done, done, done done total
EVAs our little our last little gift.
Speaker 3 (44:31):
Yeah, except except tell me what happened.
Speaker 2 (44:35):
Yeah, so the most innocent thing in the world. Bill.
I was leaving Walmart one day in January twenty nineteen.
Speaker 6 (44:43):
Always comes back to Walmart.
Speaker 3 (44:45):
You can't get anything at Walmart, you can including a kid.
Speaker 2 (44:48):
And this young lady stopped me, and she had a
four month old baby in her cart, and she said,
you know, I don't have a ride back to the
hotel that I'm living in will you get me arrived
and I said sure, So I got her life story
in the meantime and became her transportation. The baby had
(45:10):
never seen a doctor and some things, so became very
involved in her life. And it turned out that Department
of Children's Services was already involved. I didn't know that
at the time, and two months later was at church
one night and they called and they said, we're taking
the baby tonight. You either come get him or he's
(45:31):
going into foster care.
Speaker 1 (45:32):
And be as foster effectively as Falter.
Speaker 2 (45:35):
Fictive because we weren't actually related, but we had ties
to the family because we were not. I mean, Department
of Children's Services typically frowns on large families. They're not
real fond.
Speaker 1 (45:48):
Of that, y'all.
Speaker 2 (45:51):
They didn't.
Speaker 1 (45:55):
Under Oh yeah, she calls me.
Speaker 3 (45:57):
She goes, they're gonna if we don't take hey, they're
going to take him, and say can we do this.
I'm like, head it up the attic. I'll have a
crib assemble by the time you get home, good man.
Speaker 2 (46:08):
So anyway, that COVID hits. Lots of things happened, but
we ended up adopting him in April of twenty twenty one,
right before we moved to Memphis.
Speaker 1 (46:19):
Yeah, holy smokes.
Speaker 3 (46:22):
And he's seven now.
Speaker 1 (46:24):
And he's seven now, and his name is.
Speaker 3 (46:26):
Quick short from Quaevius, which is.
Speaker 1 (46:30):
Interesting because, coming full circle back to Peter and then
Nick and Tracy, when you talk about biracial adoptions, you've
got Kazakh born children who are kind of Asian Ish
(46:52):
looking but also Russian looking. So I don't want to
sound like a jark, but I don't know how to
describe their look perfectly. People haven't seen.
Speaker 2 (47:01):
Most people who see our boys think they're Asian.
Speaker 1 (47:04):
Okay, there you go, but but they're really they're not Asian.
It's it's it's they have to have a beautifully interesting look. Yes,
but let's just say kind of asion.
Speaker 2 (47:16):
Kind of Asian, okay, all right.
Speaker 1 (47:18):
And then you've got Russian kids who were born in Russia.
And then you've got your own children, and y'all are
Anglican as it gets. And one of your babies is
redheaded apparently, which I just learned now. And then you
got you got the Bulgarians who are probably dark and olive.
Speaker 2 (47:40):
Stepha and Julia Anna is actually very fair, okay.
Speaker 1 (47:44):
Well, and then Gypsies, I mean, and then shows up
and he's in African American. Yeah, so dinner looks like
the United Stations when you guys are all out and about.
People haven't wonder what in God's green Earth showed up.
Speaker 3 (48:08):
It's it's funny because you know, you know in.
Speaker 1 (48:11):
By the way in your shoes, I would be rimming
with broad So I say that, yeah, well we are
a tone in cheek. But people have to be going
what on earth?
Speaker 3 (48:22):
And they're always not sure, so you get strange questions
to my son Maurat taking him just had to get
wisdom teth. So he's in high school, right, so I
got him with me God and Owen's with us because
I had to take os. I was taken care of him.
So now gentleman and there, well he's got his grandson
with him that he had to bring in there, so
he's he was asking me. So he started talking to
my son Murat about his son, and I'm like, oh, no, no,
(48:44):
they're both my sons. And he looks at me because
my son was a senior high school so he's old
enough to be a father, shouldn't be And he looks
at me and he goes, you're his father too. I say, yeah, sure,
am I still got it. So it's just he's like,
no fense. He goes, you'll have to be a grandfather.
I said, well, yeah, I know. I realized we're in
the South, but that hasn't happened yet, but it does.
Speaker 2 (49:06):
Now you have a granddaughter. Arstin the first adoption is married,
and we have a six year old granddaughter who's in
the same class as Quay, so they're in the same.
Speaker 3 (49:20):
And so one woman was really confused when she asked
who they were because she thought, well, are you guys old.
Speaker 1 (49:24):
That means the six year old is Quay's niece.
Speaker 3 (49:28):
He's her uncle. Yeah, And she looked because I asked,
was that your brother? She goes, no, it's my uncle.
It can't be your uncle. He's not an adult. And
she's like, and Quai goes, we live in the same house,
but I'm her uncle.
Speaker 1 (49:41):
All right. So one question I wanted to ask before
we get to the last question I'm going to ask.
I get close these kids and I realized we're talking
about children that stretch from twenty nine to seven years old.
Just for everybody listing, we have a six year old grandchild,
(50:02):
but we also have twenty nine, twenty eight, I'll just
do it this way, Lydia's twenty nine, Iris twenty eight,
Thomas twenty eight, Demirs twenty seven, Marats twenty six, Arsenon's
twenty six, Sirx twenty six, Jui's twenty, Anna seventeen, stephka
is sixteen, Owen is fourteen, Eva is none, and quay
(50:25):
as seven. You Gigglewa's hilarious.
Speaker 3 (50:32):
Well, when he graduates high school, I'll be seventy.
Speaker 1 (50:35):
De blestion is when the Christmas card, when the family
Christmas card goes out, do your own children look at
their own family? And I was gonna say, almost kind
of giggle it look at us, and you just did it,
so they must.
Speaker 2 (50:52):
It's I guess it's just so natural, like you were saying,
like people, if people look at us, Bill, they probably
we do. I honestly don't notice it anymore. I don't
think about the fact that we're weird.
Speaker 1 (51:08):
I don't think anybody would. I really just think people
would be like, Wow, how amazing.
Speaker 2 (51:14):
I just don't. I guess it's just it's been life
for so long. I mean, it's twenty four years now.
Speaker 1 (51:22):
Please tell me you're done.
Speaker 2 (51:24):
Well, No, no, we've just learned we don't say.
Speaker 1 (51:30):
That, oh, there's no plans, but there's no plan if
something came along.
Speaker 2 (51:36):
But not very many of these were what I would
exactly call plans, or a lot of maybe half were
plans and half were not planned.
Speaker 3 (51:45):
Was planned.
Speaker 1 (51:47):
The rest of it was football dreams. And here comes
some Bulgarian kids, and I'm pregnant too, and the whole supert.
Speaker 2 (51:55):
So we we've just learned not to sit to say never.
Speaker 1 (52:00):
This is an army in normal folks. We highlight normal
people who do extraordinary things in their corner of the
world to try to make it a better place. You've
done so by growing a family. You haven't started a
Bible one c. Three. You're just serving kids who needed
serving and built a family doing it. What do you
(52:23):
say to folks who are out there listening to us today,
thinking about the world and thinking about something that Alex
often says that there's more houses of worship in the
United States than there are are kids in the foster
care system by just a small number. So one family
from every house worship the United States adopted a child,
(52:45):
we'd empty the foster care system overnight. What do you
say with that kind of demographic going on in your
life when people hear your story, because your story includes
an enormous amount of sacrifice. You sacrifice your dreams of
being an engineer, you sacrifice your dreams of maybe being
a homeroom mom. One day, you're still sacrificing every day
(53:09):
taking care of Anna, And despite all those sacrifices, leave
us with what this is to you? It's it's our life.
Speaker 3 (53:20):
If you going back to the story I told in
the in the orphanage of the other little kids coming
up the words mommy and daddy, the kids who don't
have one, that's the word, that's God, there's you'd be
giving them. You know, how do you put it?
Speaker 1 (53:38):
You can't.
Speaker 3 (53:39):
I can't change the world for everybody. But I can
change the world for one person. You can become that.
You can become the whole world for one child, and
that changes everything for that.
Speaker 1 (53:51):
How many planets in our solar system? You've not changed
the world, You've changed the universe for these people. Yeah,
lots of worlds.
Speaker 3 (54:00):
So and you don't know and what effect will they have?
Speaker 1 (54:03):
Then I was about to say him, what world have
they changed for you? Guys? Oh?
Speaker 3 (54:08):
Completely, I'm a completely different person. Now than I was.
Speaker 1 (54:11):
When we start to change a thing like my van back,
like our fifteen passenger van backs, they had a fifteen
passenger van that they could pretty much get well, they
could thirteen.
Speaker 3 (54:23):
Yeah, you could get your.
Speaker 1 (54:24):
Old family into. And it got smoked and.
Speaker 2 (54:26):
They moved to Memphis. And so that's enough said, right,
everybody understands.
Speaker 1 (54:30):
Yeah, nobody here, no side of drive, and so your
van got smoked and nobody because it's a big So
if anybody's out there looking for somewhere to spend thirty dollars,
they would love to have a fifteen passengers van to
be able to get their family to and from wherever
the heck of this shall go together, yes.
Speaker 2 (54:50):
Which is primarily churches.
Speaker 1 (54:52):
Yeah, do you ever get a break?
Speaker 2 (54:58):
You know, we don't bill. We we didn't mention that
both my parents live with us, and they've got physical
issues now as well.
Speaker 3 (55:07):
Her dad's ninety five, mother's eighty two. They yeah, they're
not in great health. They're good, but not great.
Speaker 2 (55:14):
So we had our twenty fifth wedding anniversary two years
ago and Damir and Damir and Sarah came from Atlanta
and spent the weekend and took care of the of
everybody for us so we could. We spent the weekend
at the Beast Pro Shop Pyramids.
Speaker 1 (55:32):
Don't know, people who don't know, it's actually really luxury hotel.
Speaker 2 (55:40):
It was wonderful. That was the first time we had
been away for a weekend together since Owen was born
in twenty eleven. Wow, and since then not again.
Speaker 1 (55:53):
Who came home?
Speaker 2 (55:54):
No, Demir and Sarah?
Speaker 1 (55:56):
All right, Demir Sah, come on back for on a
third show up on a Wednesday night and give your
old parents Thursday through Sunday to get on out of here.
And who knows, maybe they'll dp two million kids and
you'll get a bio show up after the weekend.
Speaker 2 (56:15):
Why they don't come as they're scared, will go away?
Come back with another kid.
Speaker 1 (56:19):
Here's you come back with bo kids. Hilarious, y'all. I
want to I just want to say this to you.
I read this and when I read it, the words
that came out of my brain were what loving, empathetic
people you are. But I'm gonna amend that after spending
(56:41):
an hour and a half with you, oh also crazy
and that part hadn't changed. Goes what I see. But
and when I say bright I don't mean it intellectually.
I mean I mean the brightness that comes off of you, guys.
The aura that you guys have in your smiles and
(57:06):
in your eyes and in telling your story and everything
else is really inspirational individually, which is very important, but
both individually and as a couple, I'm drawn to how
bright and loving and empathetic you are. And your family
(57:27):
is very fortunate to have a father and a mother
like you, guys, and the world is a better place
because of the work you've done in raising your family.
So I just want to say that to you that
I'm inspired by you. I think you're wonderful, wonderful people.
I think you're nuts, but wonderful people. How lex you
got anything for me? Close? I know you got to go,
(57:48):
so I'll keep this quick.
Speaker 6 (57:49):
But during the pre interview, Lyddy and I were talking about,
you know, the Bible, for those of you are Christian's
pretty clear that true and unofiled religion is taking care
of the what it was an orphan and not everybody
is called to adopt, and not everyone would be called
to adopt eleven, but we're all called to do something.
That much is clear, and so whether it's helping through
care portal, or you become a CASA you know, volunteer.
(58:11):
You can involve the National Angels and we featured a
bunch of these models on the podcast.
Speaker 1 (58:15):
Or being wealthy beyond all means and providing these folks
with a fifteen passenger van or a we can open
the whole family a week away somewhere would be nice.
Somewhere in the bibble. It's got to say something about
hearing for those who care for the widows and orphans.
(58:37):
And I know it doesn't say that exactly, but we
can find some script that checks that box.
Speaker 2 (58:42):
To well we are. If I had one word to
describe us, it would simply be blessed. We are blessed
beyond measure. You can't outgive God. You can try, you
are never going to be successful.
Speaker 1 (59:00):
Yeah, well, on those lines, I would call you faithful.
So thank you for joining me, Thank you for sharing
your nutty story. And I think we'll pick up at
least thirteen listeners on this episode, so that's a good thing.
Scott Lydia, thanks for being here, Thanks telling your story,
(59:21):
and God bless you and God bless your family. Let
us know if you do anything else crazy in the future,
informed sounds good.
Speaker 3 (59:30):
Thanks for being.
Speaker 1 (59:35):
And thank you for joining us this week. If Lydia
and Scott have inspired you in general, or better yet,
to take action by exploring adopting, getting involved with an
adoption or foster care nonprofit, wanting to join the Memphis
Chapter of the Army, wanting to start an Army chapter
in your own community, or something else entirely, please let
(59:59):
me know. I'd love to hear about it. You can
write me anytime at Bill at normalfolks dot us. And
you've enjoyed this episode, share friends'm on social, subscribe to
the podcast, rate it, review it, join the Army at
normalfolks dot us, any and all of these things that
will help us grow an army of normal folks. I'm
(01:00:20):
Bill Courtney. Until next time, do what you can
Host
Bill Courtney
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