WIDE AWAKE INTERNATIONAL Information

We have a wonderful team of Ukrainian friends who partner with us in this awesome work. Several days a week our teams bring love, hope, and dignity to the boys. We also have interns who work three days a week, providing therapeutic interventions to the lowest functioning boys at the orphanage. Our goal for the time spent with the boys is to be a consistent loving presence in their lives. We work to increase their quality of life and quality of care, and to increase the web of therapeutic support surrounding the boys. The boys have become our dear friends and we love them with a fierce love. In August 2015 our family had the immense joy of adopting one of our boys! Vladik is 15 and lived at the institution for 11 years. It is such a huge honor and joy to see him grow and change. He is a miracle! We want that so badly for each one of our boys. We don't want this to be just a story of sitting with the boys and loving them in their suffering. We hope and believe that this will be a redemption story. In the summer of 2016 we purchased a large piece of land in a village outside of Zhytomyr. The renovation of the property's existing home is just about complete and our family moved into that home in the summer of 2017. The big dream of Wide Awake is deinstitutionalizing the boys. We dream of getting them out into loving homes where they can live out their days with dignity and joy. Our family is currently working toward gaining guardianship of our first friend from Romaniv and we are hopeful that he will be home with us in 2018! This is a God-size dream and one that we know we can't accomplish without him. So, we put one foot in front of the other and simply say yes to the next thing He presents to us. Wide Awake International | PO Box 12642 | Salem, OR 97309 | © Sea Legs Media