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#driftwoodforts #whidbeyisland #milesandmilesofbeach (at Double Bluff Beach Off Leash Dog Park) https://www.instagram.com/p/B2KyUwUA6ZR/?igshid=1diicsl6z56wf

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Arrived https://www.instagram.com/p/BnwoFBZBjFv/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=c552uoavrah2

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Pre-birthday week: Hanging out with these two in #Bangkok @tonioh15

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Pre-birthday week: Hanging out with these two in #Bangkok @tonioh15

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Pre-birthday week: Hanging out with these two in #Bangkok @tonioh15

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Pre-birthday week: Hanging out with these two in #Bangkok @tonioh15

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Pre-birthday week: Hanging out with these two in #Bangkok @tonioh15

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Pre-birthday week: Hanging out with these two in #Bangkok @tonioh15

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3250 ft elevation gain. #hiking #pnw #mountwashington (at Mount Washington (Cascades))

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Because a trip to NYC is not complete without dinner at Peking Duck House

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Sleeping in #spoiledsophie

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So happy to spend Saturday morning with you Crystal! We baked blackberry cobbler, prayed and caught up with each other. Let's not wait too long to do it again!

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Sharing in the lives of our friends at Calvin Presbyterian's Sunday Evening Celebration

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On Inclusion and Belonging

I don’t remember the last time we went to church together as a family. It must have been more than a decade.

Church is the vehicle that unites and binds us to Christ. These beautiful lyrics by John Talbot sum it up perfectly:

“One bread, one body, one Lord of all...We are one body in this one Lord.”

The family, of whatever size, is the fundamental building block of any faith community. When I was growing up, my family went to mass together, as did most other families in our parish (at least until the teenagers got driver licenses and started going solo to Saturday night service). It was there that community was made visible and concrete, especially on holidays, which put us in our most charitable and festive moods. Weekly church was a stabilizing and grounding tradition that I looked forward to passing down when I started my own family halfway around the world from where I grew up.

My husband found ourselves blessed with three beautiful boys. Our family was off to a great start. But as with so many of the plans we lay out for ourselves, going to church as a family was not a given. Our youngest son, Joshua, while gifted with lightness of spirit and a bent for music, also had aphasia and autism. This made it difficult for him to understand what was going on at church or sit still and participate in services.

Click here to read more.

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Happy News

  Happy New Year! As we bask in the glow of the new year, I’d like to share a bit of happy news of my own. 

Effective January 15, I will assume the post of Executive Director for Bridge Disability Ministries, headquartered in Bellevue.

I have long sought to make my career an extension of my relationship with God so this opportunity in furthering Bridge’s mission excites me so.  I am eager to apply my professional experience and help a population I deeply care about build meaningful relationships in their churches and communities.

Indeed, Bridge’s enduring mission of alleviating isolation through improving mobility, promoting inclusion and enriching community is as crucial and worthy as it is daunting. But our God is big.

Click here to read more.

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Meet Papa John's new pizza box assembler! Fast, efficient worker bee.

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Back to School

It’s back to school tomorrow for my youngest son J.  He will be entering his last year at the district’s Transition Academy.  As he completes his academic career, he will participate in King County’s School-to-Work program – a collaborative program across multiple agencies that aim to help young adults with developmental disabilities segue into the workforce.  The School-to-Work program helped my older son tremendously; and I have the same hopes for J.

It overwhelms me to think of what will happen to J after this year, when he ages out of the education system. All parents with loved ones with developmental disabilities are acutely aware of the fact the yellow bus stops coming at age 21.  It’s a huge concern and the reason why a small group of parents including myself have banded together to partner with the city’s Parks & Recs to pilot a program that eventually will evolve into a full service day program for our young adults.  One where they can hang with their buddies.  One where they can continue learning new skills and develop new interests. One where opportunities to give back or be gainfully employed are cultivated.

The great 20th century artist Pablo Picasso once said, “There are painters who transform the sun into a yellow spot, but there are others who with the help of their art and their intelligence transform a yellow spot into the sun.”

We have been blessed to find these kinds of painters.  We belong to a community of unsung heroes and brave hearts who help each other find their way on this journey with autism and demand better for those to follow. Solid relationships -- be it parent to parent, parent to professional, professional to professional -- are what make the autism adventure, if not always enjoyable, at least doable.