Parenting lessons, what not to do!

I have my sons permission to blog about some of our conversations that we have shared together in private. This isn't being done to bring light to their past in a way to show sorrow or ask for it.  I have a larger desire for them to know this isn't anything close to normal. For them to know I care, that I hear them and that I understand (as much as I can) about their past and how it impacts them today. A question that I get often from friends is "are they really that nice/good all the time?" My answer is always.  These boys are a direct example of how God is larger than any one thing, or person, on this earth.  What someone can do for harm, He can turn it for good.
I know more now than I ever did, that owners manuals don't come with kids. I will add this to the list of questions, along with why men cant figure out women! All we have to rely, on when it comes to parenting, is the tools in our tool box. Those tools are things we learned from our parents as they raised us, both the good and the bad.  I know many of us have said, "I'll never do or say that", only to find ourselves eating those words later in life. We also have those things we learned from our friends' parents.  Many times we all wished our parents did this or that, or didn't do something-comparing them to our friends' parents. Little did we know that they were doing the same thing with ours!!  We can learn new ways to learn to use our tools, but all in all we still have the same tools in which to parent.
 When it comes to parenting, I have been overwhelmed with another thing. My parents! Many times over the past 4 months I have thought of my mom and dad parenting me.  How did they do that? I have a huge appreciation for the stressful times they made it through and for the man they made me into!

So now to me as a parent. I have found myself realizing more these past few weeks that I need to be reminded of what these two precious young men went through.  It is their foundation, it forms their decisions, it guides their path.....but most of all... it helps me to change all of that as their father. People treat their pets better than what they experienced.
Here is some of their experience.....
-Allowed to eat two things for dinner Ramon Noodles or rice.
-Allowed 5 mins to eat their food-no matter how hot it was.
-Many times not given food, it was used as a form of punishment. This went so far that the boys were starving and sneaking food in their pants pockets. Their mom found out and cut out all the pockets in their pants!
-Doing "The Wall" (standing with your nose on the wall and lifting your heals off the floor) was not only a form of punishment, but used as a containment tool like an animal.  On the wall most of the time or in their bed room.
-Rigging their bedroom door with a bell, to notify them that they opened the door.  All hell broke loose if this happened, so even if you needed to use the bathroom at night-nope!
-Being told over and over that you are stupid, cant accomplish anything and that you are worthless.
-Not getting Christmas presents or birthday presents. Now I know many families who cant do this. But the presents were exchanged back and forth between the parents in front of the boys.
-Not ever allowed in the house when the parents were not there, so they had to leave for school when they left for work. The same after school.  This caused the boys to find somewhere to go for hours before school started and after it was over.  Rain, Snow, Heat-didn't matter...they were outside.
-Summer time when school was not in session, they were gone from early morning till late evening on their own. No place to go, no money or food to eat.
-If one of the parents had to wake up at 3:00 am to get ready for work-she was mad that the boys were sleeping still....so she woke them up and made them "do the wall".
-There was screaming, name calling, degrading words spoken to them daily.
-There also was the abuse.

All of this above is a reminder to me that these boys have been traumatized daily for years and years. Through all that they trust me, they love me, they allow me to love them, to care for them, to guide them, to spend time with them, to share life with them and to be their father! They have been a true blessing in my life so far and we have our whole lives ahead of us. They are a answer to my prayers!

This house, this neighborhood, this church community will never be the same because of these two amazing boys.

People can still ask if they are really this good?
My new answer is "you don't even get to experience the level of good these boys really are!"

The thought of what I would say or do if I ran into their mother has always been a question in my head. I have thought of many different reactions and responses as you can imagine.
The one that is giving me a sense of peace in my heart is the one you can pray for it to happen if I do see her. I will look her in the eye and tell her that I do not understand what (or how) things that happened the first 15 years of these young boys life. But that these are the most amazing young men I have ever met, and that they are my sons, my amazing sons who were given to me by the Lord. I also want to thank her because she did have a part in this whole craziness. I know that might sound odd, but its true.

You can pray that God heals the wounds of the past for all of us. And that He continues to give us comfort and guidance in the days to come.

Three months

It has been a little over three months since my life changed forever.

For years and years I have dreamed of being married and being a father. I actually had a goal to accomplish both by the time I was 30. As year 30 came around I remember thinking to myself that this goal wouldn't really play out like I wanted it to. After a while I was content with my life as it was, but I was always wanting a family. The girls I dated didn't pan out into wife material for me, so I started to pray about being a father. Maybe it wasn't in God's plan for me to be married, but there are plenty of children in this world who need a father. We are called to help with widows and be a father to the fatherless. This thought started to grow in me more and more. I volunteered with Safe Families which is a temporary foster program that helps families and children. Their main goal was to reunite the children back with the families-which I was fine with, I was content doing my part. Little did I know that by being faithful in serving this organization and these children, my life would soon change.

I remember the call like it was yesterday. It was like a normal call from Safe families...I have a child in need, can you help? This time it was different. It was children, not child and I was being asked to consider a long term placement, maybe even adoption. It was a lot to take in, I mean it was something that I longed for-but it still was a large task. I said I would need time to pray, and they were in agreement. Back and forth the pulling and fighting began between my heart and my head. I needed it to make sense, everything needed to line up just right but I couldn't get it to. After a few weeks, I called Safe Families on the night before I was going to meet the boys. I explained how I wasn't able to meet the boys and how I didn't think this was the right time for me. She asked what was going on, and I explained that I didn't know how I was going to financially do it. I didn't know what it was going to cost to raise two 15 year old boys, and that I would loose a roommate if I did this. So I would have less income than I did currently with two more mouths to feed and care for. Some of it was my reasoning and logic but there was a reality piece to this that was so unknown. She asked me to pray and that maybe I was to be involved in some other way. I prayed and felt comfortable meeting the boys.

Just to be a mentor, I kept telling myself over and over again as I walked up to the door to pick them up. As the front door opened, God opened the door of my heart forever. As I met these two young men I could sense that something bigger was about to happen. Looking back I never knew what it was going to be, and surely didn't think we would be where we are today-but from the moment we met, I knew God was at work.

The next phase happened so quickly that you would have thought it was months later. But after a few weeks of hanging out, they moved it. Soon we were moving down the road of adoption. I still had no idea how this was all going to work out, let alone how the finances would happen. But I did know that all I needed to do was to trust God and allow him to work in me. And work he did!

The work that the Lord did by mending our hearts as one family, in such a short period of time, has been hard to describe.
It has been as if we have been together for years.
On October 3rd, our final adoption hearing, the court will catch up with what we all three of us already know....We are family!

I love those boys as if they came from a part of me.

We might not share the same blood, but we do share the same heart!

Will you help?

This issue has been weighing on my heart for months now, so here we go.

How far are you willing to go to help others? I think my initial instinct would be "I would do anything to help others." Then as I think about it more, I would have to say that I start to weigh my willingness to help everyone with the level of comfort I would need to give up. Does that make sense? I mean we are not all selling our homes and using every penny to help those in need, so there is a line drawn somewhere. If you agree with me, then the issue isn't about helping others-but more about our willingness to give up comfort!

So if someone needed you to hold the door open for them, not much comfort is being given up-5 seconds maybe, you would help them. I would guess that a high percentage of people would be willing to help someone in that way. What if someone needs you to help them start their car? Now the comfort level is getting a little higher. Time is a factor, is the person safe, can you really help them out, will I be late doing whatever is next, etc. All those comfort thoughts come into play when you make your decision to help. I am guessing that we are getting closer to a 50-50 chance of helping someone out. Most of us rationalize that we are already "good" people or "doing our part" with something else in our life-which allows us off the hook when we say "sorry I cant help you right now"! Is that rationale really something, or is it our way of justifying things?

So what is it about our comfort zone that determines what we are willing to do or not do. Were called to help the least of these, how does that work into our comfort determination? Everyone in need is someones mother or father, daughter or son, etc. Is this how we would want someone to respond to our mother who asked for help? Or even more the mother who has given up on asking others to help and doesn't know where to turn any longer?

What will it take to no longer allow our comfort meter to determine when, who, and how we help those in need around us. Do Christ followers look different than non believers when it comes to who lends a hand? I know what I would like that answer to be-just not sure that makes it true.

It makes me wonder if the Barna institute is correct that 85% of Americans would consider themselves Christians, if just a portion of them reached out and helped someone-wouldn't this country or our communities look different?

Next time you are asked for help......How will you respond?

Through Foreign Eyes

Can you imagine what it would be like to wake up tomorrow and in a different country? For some of us if we had input on which country-we would do it in a heart beat. A different language, different cultural things, different food (still remember eating cow stomach in Africa), different customs, etc. Things would not be the same as it is here in the good 'ol USA. What if you didn't have a say in where you would wake up? What if it wasn't a place you would ever want to go, or even knew where it existed on a map? No time to prep and learn the new language, the sites to go see, etc. Just BAM one day you are in a different world.

I think that some people who live here right next to us experience that exact same thing. They don't have to hop on a plane and travel to the other side of the world-they simply wake up and wonder "how in the world did I end up here", or "where am I?"

I was taking groceries to my truck and the wind was so bitter cold, below zero wind chill, and I thought of the homeless person and prayed wondering if any of them were left out in the cold. I wanted to run and jump in the truck and then finish the prayer, but I thought I would walk slowly to the truck feeling the sting on my face just for a few minutes trying to feel even a little what someone spending the night would be feeling like. I am surely not the only one who is thinking about them, but those of us that are..we are thinking that someone else will do something about it. Tomorrow it will be just as cold, and so will the next day. If they are able to wake up in the morning, they will have to face it all over again. But someone else will step up-right?

I wonder as I prayed at dinner, thanking God for always providing food on the table and asking Him to be with those without food tonight. I wondered like standing in the cold air, should I not eat for a day, two days or three? Just so I can feel, truly feel what it is like to go without food. When I was at Culinary school I learned that the average restaurant wastes 12-18% of it's food that it takes in. The average home, over 30% is wasted. From scraps as we prepare food to uneaten leftovers still in the fridge. How many starving people could we save from just our waste? Who knows but someone else will step up-right?

Who will step up? Who will be the next one to help someone in need? I know I am not doing my part, this is so much I can do. But dream with me for just a moment. How would this world, this country, this state or this town look differently if we did step up? If we just did more than we did yesterday? If just the Christians alone did what Jesus asked us to do? Who would be hungry? thirsty? need to be clothed? who would need to be visited or invited in? Is Matthew 25 just something we do once a year in the Fall, to make us feel like we have "done our part". Our feel good weekend? Great things happen that weekend, don't get me wrong, but how would needs be met if that happened twice a year? 6 times a year? monthly? daily? if this happened we would need to have to focus on the spiritual needs of those around us, because their physical needs would have been met. And many of them would be knocking down the church door wondering who this Jesus guy really is, because this time..people didn't just walk by looking the other way.


I watch this young man light up in just a few hours. For years darkness has hovered over him. He is looking at things from a very different perspective. The smallest smile or the most simple question allows him to know that he is alive and you notice. That's all it took. I am sure it wont be that easy in the days to come, but for now I rest knowing that sometimes it is the smallest things that make the biggest difference when your heart is in the right place.

We wont do it, living the same life we lived yesterday. We will not impact those around us if we continue to focus inwardly on our own lives or competing with the Jone's to get what they have.

You want to do something, die to yourself today and ask what God what would he have you do. Be careful for what you ask for, because what He might ask might change your world forever.....and change THE world forever.

End of the week

Well I thought I would check in before I head to bed.

This was a busy week trying to catch up after being gone last week. Still trying to process the trip and settle back into life all at the same time. I do miss the other students, every time I cook-I look around waiting to see one of them pop around the corner. It makes it interesting to think that we all shared an experience-then you never see each other again. I mean the chances that our paths cross is very slim. So did the paths cross long enough to make an impression? For some of them, yes! When I take a drink of wine, we I see the Schwann's truck, when I use my knife, maybe even when I am served a meal that is over-cooked!! Well even months down the road, I hope I will still be reminded of them.

So coming back from the trip-I have been asked many times "how was it"! If you like to cook-I highly recommend it. It really was a great week, I learned a lot and I am processing going back for another class. I am cooking differently, and trying my hardest not to waste food. I know that my roommates are benefiting from my experience for sure!

Tonight we just got back from seeing Iron man 2, I do recommend seeing it. I read a review that said it was a great movie but that it wasn't as good as the first one. I thought that it was a great one, and that it did live up to the first one. There are not many sequels that live up to this-but Iron Man 2 does. Hope you enjoy it.

Well tomorrow I will be back to a few landscaping jobs, even with the 40 degree weather! Still trying to keep balance in my life even as I try to get these jobs done. Taking it one day at a time!


I hope you all enjoy your weekend!

I will remember tonight for a long time.

I thought that I was going to explain day 5 and how my wonderful experience at the Culinary Institute ended. Instead the past few hours have really taken on a whole new life of their own.

As I was making my plans for this trip, I decided to not take a chance on rushing to catch my flight. Instead I decided to come back to the city, spend the night then leave in the morning. When I was looking for a hotel I decided to use my points system and stay in a free, very nice, one-so I selected the W-Hotel. The rooms are $500 a night, but it didn't cost me a thing (well $60 for parking!).

Driving in New York was more than interesting, this place I am sure has a lot of nice people-but I don't think they are on the roads! I arrive at the hotel check-in and head to my room. If you have never stayed at a W-Hotel, they pride themselves on the experience of your stay. They go out of their way for customer service and the modern decor of the place is shocking. Here is the lobby, the check in counter and one of the rooms.





The reason I show you all this, is that they really go out of their way to make you feel welcomed. So when I went to my room I wasn't surprised to see a very modern and cool looking room. So I settled in turned on the TV and started touching base with reality as I caught up on the devastating oil spill. Brandon Rogers called to chat and see how the week went, which was great to catch up. After the conversation I started to look around the room and see what was there and what I was going to have for dinner. I notice a nice glass of wine by the ice bucket on a note from the hotel that says-"Why not that's what we say too". So I tried it and it wasn't wine but more of an after dinner drink of liquor-very strong. Then I check out the very modern bathroom-whoever design it did a great job. I sit back down and watch more TV taking a few more sips on the complimentary beverage. Watching sports center and relaxing I decide to unpack a little and wash up for dinner. I head to the bathroom and notice that the soap wasn't a new one. I thought that to be odd for a place like this, but I excused it and moved on. Dinner arrived, and after wards I went back into the bathroom and then I saw this little bottle on the shelf and thought it was odd that they left eye solution in the room. (there were many little bottles of soaps, lotion, etc.) I came back out sat back down on the bed and something didn't feel right. It was like I was in the movies and things were in slow motion. I felt a little uncomfortable so I grab the phone and dialed the front desk.

Let me stop for a moment and say that the W-Hotels are amazing and what I am about to explain could happen anywhere. Also let me say that I am alright, and I am typing this now!

Back to my night. The front desk answered the phone and I asked for the manager-quickly one responded. I told her that there was something strange in the room that I wanted to ask her about. I asked about the soap at the sink, if they always put a new one there-she said every time sir! Then I asked if they provided eye solution for their guest, she said she could have some brought up. I interrupted said no thanks, but asked if it was odd that there was eye solution in the room. She said yes that there should not be-then it hit me like a 2x4! I said "Please tell me you guys place a nice glass of liquor or wine in the room for the guest when they arrive"! She replied-what are you talking about? I sat down on the bed and started to explain to her what took place over the last couple of hours. She said she was sending someone to my room. I started to feel gross as I got up from the bed and thought that maybe it wasn't cleaned either. Quickly I jumped into the shower to clean up, as I was drying off I say a used bard of soap in the shower with hair on it. I got dressed and the manager of house keeping and the general manager of the welcome desk was at my door.

They brought in an investigator that works for the hotel to document, take pictures, etc. I asked them to leave me alone for a little bit so I could try and chill out. I was very warm and my heart was racing, but I didn't know if that was from something in my drink or just anxiety from the situation. I of course cant get sick so the thought of that or having my stomach pumped didn't really work for me. So i ordered bread and water to try and dilute anything that potentially was now in me.

I am in a new room now, trying to settle my nerves. I am glad they keep on checking in to see if I am alright, but hoping that at some point I can call it a night and get some sleep.

I know it is weird to drink and open glass of something in your room, but when you trust the hotel and it is the W-it never even crosses your mind as something dangerous. So here is to a very weird night!

Is this the last night? Day Four

Wow-I cant believe that this is the last night! Tomorrow is the final day, the cook off, the final exam, whatever you want to call it.....all things must come to an end at some point, and we are getting close to that point. As I was walking to my car tonight, I couldn't help but take a few more pictures to show how beautiful this campus really is.


Today was a full packed day but I do have to say that I never had an afternoon like this before....yes today we learned about wine and food pairings. We also found out earlier this week that there is only one place you can drink alcohol-without being old enough and that is here while you are in their wine class. They had to get a special pardon by the governor to be able to accomplish this, because most students are not 21-but they need to learn about wines, etc. That should help with enrollment!!



Yesterday I talked about all that the student learns, well that was just in the first two years (the associates degree), they also have a bachelors degree that you learn a whole lot more including marketing, running a restaurant, business development, human resources, and much more. After they leave here, they are not only a great Chef-but also know how to be successful.

And they learn how to flambe desserts without burning the place down!


Of course you need to see the amazing food from today.............. before that, here is my view for dinner tonight-really nice



I almost forgot, we also learned all about shallow-poaching and deep poaching. Along with Braising and Stewing, all moist heat techniques.

I have many new tools to use in the kitchen now, the hard part will be "what do I cook first when I get home"?

I am sure that people will ask me many different questions when I get home like "how was your trip", "what did you learn", "when are you cooking for me".......but if they want to know how this week impacted my life the most-they need to find out about 14 others!