This morning my sister Anna and I stayed home from church and baby-sat our younger brother Andrew.Andrew has autism and is also blind.He was adopted from Bulgaria few years ago.Andrew was mistreated at his orphanage.He was kept in his crib everyday of his life until my parents adopted him.He was bottle-fed two times a day for the five years of his life.He was hit and it became normal for him to hit himself.Because of all the mistreatement he got, the way he is now just isn't normal.He has improved so much since we first adopted him.He wasn't able to eat on his own, now he can.He wasn't able to walk, now he does.God has given Andrew a better life! He has taught us all what it means to care for someone that was so hurt.Andrew is a special needs child,he will never have a life that is considered normal.None of us can make him perfect, but what we can do is love him.Love him by helping to take care of him.He is very hard to take care of,it takes a lot of courage too.He is very strong willed and can test you.If you always give him what he wants you aren't really doing what is best for him.One way to love Andrew is by doing what is good for him even though it might be something that he doesn't like.My mom calls it tough love and we all need it if we are truly cared for.God has put Andrew into our family for a reason,to change us all for better.When we were trying to adopt Andrew, we also owed money to a man named Jeff who built an addition to our house.It was a lot of money and we thought that our adoption would not work out, because we couldn't pay for it.I remember one day my dad was praying to God to show us if this adoption was something that he wanted us to do.The very next morning my dad got an e-mail from Jeff.Jeff has said in it that he does not want us to pay what we owe him.He has said many other encouraging things to us.We were in shock! We were so amazed and knew right away that the adoption was a God thing.My parents traveled to Bulgaria as soon as they could and adopted Andrew along with Gracie who is also autistic.They are now a part of our family,because God wanted them to become.We never forgot Jeff and what he has done for our family.It's one of those stories that we keep telling over and over again!
