My husband and I met when we both signed up at our church to go on a mission trip to Russia in order to bring medical supplies to orphanages and hospitals. It was going to be my 2nd time and his 1st time. We knew of each other and I was actually really good friends with his sister. Well, we enjoyed spending time together and nothing has changed. We dated for 5 years before we got married. Most people are really surprised at that. First of all, he was 17 and I was 19 when we started dating, so we were young. I had a plan of finishing college with my teaching degree and teaching a year before getting married. My mom always said that if he was the right one, he would wait. She was right. So we got married exactly 5 years (to the day) and have never looked back.
Four years after getting married we were blessed with a son. I had been teaching in a public school for 5 years, but decided to stop teaching so that I could stay home with him. Shortly after I stopped teaching, we decided we were having a difficult time financially, so I had to look for work. We didn’t need me to work full time so I just needed to find something that would help pay the bills. I started by substitute teaching, which I really didn’t like. I got to give it to those people who consistently work as a substitute teacher…they have it rough. You don’t know what you are getting yourself into each day and I don’t do so well with that. Anyways, that only lasted for the rest of the school year and I went to look for something else.
One Sunday, while we were at church, it was announced that our new church building was going to have a Christian preschool in it. I thought that this was it! So I talked with my husband and he was fully on-board with it. He said that I would probably be the director after not very long. I thought, no way! So I applied and got hired. I had to start at a different location since our new building wasn’t completed yet. They started me in the three year old room. I watched for a couple of days and then went to the director to ask if I could change a few things. She said, “You’re the teacher, as long as you follow the health codes, you can change whatever you like.” So I did. I went in there, rearranged the furniture to make it work better, set up a schedule (and posted it), worked on a better lesson plan, and got the kids under control. The room wasn’t bad, it just seemed as though it could be better. After about a month of being a the preschool, everyone, but me, received a notice on their paychecks about an assistant preschool director position opening up at the new location. I wondered why I didn’t receive a notice, maybe I wasn’t qualified. I decided to ask the director about it and she said that I was qualified and that she was sorry about the mistake. So I applied and was promoted. I can still hear my husband saying, “I told you so. I knew you could do it.” Anyways, they started me working in the office at the other location to get some experience before the new location was ready. That next week, I was able to do a walk-through of the new facility with the preschool owner, the director of the new site, and some of the church staff. Little did I know that a few weeks after that, the man that they were going to have as the director quit and they asked me to be the director! What?! I can still hear my husband saying, “I told you so. I knew you could do it.” So I worked two years at the preschool starting with 6 children at the new location and, when I left, the school had 72 children.
I left the preschool when my husband took a Youth Minister position in Indiana. That is where we were blessed with another son. Three months after he was born, our oldest started kindergarten.
This is what I had imaged: growing up, getting married, having kids, our kids going school, and I would be the mom who would volunteer for parties and field trips. Well, that worked for about a few months.
Something happened to our son.
