Barbara Frank

I met Bobbi Bandy nearly 15 years ago, after she and her family joined our church. We got to know each other through a weekly women’s Bible study class, where I was wowed by her knowledge of Scripture and her love of it. The fact that she daily cared for her disabled adult son as well as four younger children in their teens and preteens made her a something of a role model for me. Over the years I’ve been blessed by her example and her friendship.

Concordia Publishing House recently published Bobbi’s book A Mother’s Search for Meaning: The Dance Goes On…. It’s the amazing story of how God used Bobbi’s son Rob to spiritually grow Bobbi and her husband Phil, as well as others that Rob touched during his lifetime.

As the mother of a developmentally disabled young man, I highly recommend this book to those who have someone with special needs in their lives. Yet I also recommend it to those who have never known or loved someone who is mentally and/or physically disabled, as it clearly demonstrates that God has a purpose for everyone’s life, even those who are viewed as imperfect by the world.  

I recently interviewed Bobbi. I believe her witness will be a real blessing to you:

Rob was your first child, born when you and Phil weren’t all that old yourselves.  Was there anything in your background or Phil’s that prepared you for the birth of a child with disabilities?  If not, how did you cope?

Most of us would have a hard time describing the ways we have been equipped for the life we live in Christ; whenever we give credit, the first must be to HIM before all others. My heart was made tender through the miracles of Jesus: the healings and tenderness that He had for those born blind, mute, and lame that I learned about in Sunday school as a child. 

There were significant times in my life when I thought I was meant to see things of importance.  Phil and I both had contact with children who had contracted polio and who struggled physically. I think that was the first time that I thought about how thankful I should be to have the mobility that I had.  When I was in first grade, a class member’s teenage sister was killed in a car accident and I realized how fragile our existence is. (We both grew up accepting and appreciating differences of ability and age to the credit of our parents.)  One of my college classes took me to a residence for handicapped adults and the memory of them stays with me to this day.  I do believe God was equipping me for the gift of Rob’s life, though I wasn’t able to see it at the time. 

In your book, you wrote that when Rob was born,”…we grieved over the loss of the life we had dreamed of, the man we thought he should have become.”  This type of grieving is common in parents who have a newborn with special needs.  What can you say to these parents, given your own experience with Rob? 

If we rely on our own wisdom and our own knowledge in such circumstances we will most assuredly miss the mark.  Our dreams are not God’s plan.  His plan is greater than our dreams.  As I stated in the book, “Later, after God had revealed His better plan for us and we had seen the beauty and goodness of His ways over our dreams, we grieved the loss of the life we had come to love and value and cherish.”  To parents I would say give yourself time to determine the meaning of the struggles you now experience.  A life has to be fully lived to be fully understood.

You dealt with the pain of secondary infertility for years after Rob’s birth, but you eventually had Elisabeth, Bryan and your twins, Katherine and Christine. After that, you became immersed in the very busy family life that resulted from having five children.  What advice can you give to other mothers about juggling so many responsibilities, particularly when you’re also caring for a child with special needs? 

Because of the ten years between his birth and the births of our other children, Rob’s routines were well established.  Until our move to the Chicago area, he attended school from morning till early afternoon, which gave me time to spend with the younger members of the family; later the younger ones participated in Rob’s care.  We learned to savor the joys of each and every one of our children.  Rob added such a dimension to our family that no other child did, but each of our children added personality, ability, character, love, and life unique to who God created them to be. Rob’s life actually helped us to appreciate each child for who they are. 

My best advice would be to try to see what is really essential in each child’s life and try to let go of the trivial.  Read together, say prayers together, have family dinners together-share your life with them.  Remember that the high demand days will not last forever, but once they’re gone they cannot be recovered.  Everyday is a memory for your child and for you. Determine to make them ones to be cherished rather than ones to regret.

You were told that Rob would only live to his early teens, but God gave you and Phil 30 years with him before taking him home.  It hard to believe it’s been ten years since that day, but how well I recall Rob’s funeral, with its unmistakably clear message of celebration, of both Rob’s life and of the One who created Rob.  You once told me how much you you’ve missed caring for Rob since then.  What are the blessings of caring for a disabled adult child?

The first that comes to mind is the sense of servant mentality that completely takes over.  Next comes an awareness of the things of this world that would entice us away from the servant role: fame, fortune, beauty, power, intellectualism.  Caring for and loving Rob on a daily basis helped us to see that the greater things were peace, humility, and love.

Soon after our son was born with Down syndrome, I read that in more than half of all marriages where there is a special needs child, one spouse (usually the husband) will leave the marriage because of an inability to cope with the realities involved in having such a child. In your book, you shared that Phil comforted you after discovering the extent of Rob’s physical problems by hugging you and saying, “There has to be a reason.”  Today Phil is a highly esteemed elder in the church and a loving husband, father and grandfather.  How did God use Rob to grow Phil as a husband, father and Christian?

God brought Phil to his knees.  He brought us both to our knees.  Every parent wants to be able to provide for all the needs of their children.  When we are placed in situations where all the needs cannot be met through us, we have two choices: to give up because the task is overwhelming or to look up and accept a greater power.   

After Rob’s birth, you (a Christian since childhood) did not attend church for many years.  Yet today, you’re one of the strongest Christian women I’ve known.  Would you mind sharing a bit about how God used your circumstances to bring you to where you are today, and what He will do for others going through very tough times?

The seeds of faith were planted deep in my heart from my baptism, His gift to me.  God has always spoken to my heart and called me even when I was unfaithful.  The process He used to draw me closer wasn’t an easy one after I wandered but it was a personal one–He bent down and touched me, embraced me, and comforted me when I was the most broken and vulnerable. Brokenness became the door through which He would fully enter.  He became very real to me in my sorrow.  

I’m reminded of this as I think about so many young people who are ‘wandering’ in our families throughout our country.  I’m reminded and reassured that God is faithful even when we are not. 

I was delighted to learn recently that you’ve begun working at a job for which you’re uniquely suited, thanks to your life experience as Rob’s mom.  It’s a wonderful example of how God weaves His tapestry and uses us for His purposes.  Please tell us about your new job!

I’m privileged to be working in a contained classroom of children with special needs in a local school.  I feel like everything has come full circle since Rob’s passing.  After his death I wrote my thoughts about his life and their meaning so that my children would remember the value and importance of their brother’s life.  The writing helped me process all the years and events. 

I then worked for nine years as a preschool teacher, working with 4- and 5-year-olds.  Tracing hands, encouraging young minds, planting seeds filled my days. But it was always the child who was struggling, the child who couldn’t connect, the child who needed more who really called out to me in the classroom.  So now I’m home again, back to where God seems to have a place for me.

Thank you so much, Bobbi, for taking the time to answer these questions. I encourage everyone to read Bobbi’s wonderful book, A Mother’s Search for Meaning: The Dance Goes On…

If you’ve read my last book or visited my website, you know that I’m a huge fan of keeping extra food, household supplies, and medicine in the house. (I call my stored supplies my stashes, and I think they’re invaluable to busy homeschooling moms.)

But once we decided to move, I started using up my food and supply stashes, figuring it made more sense to consume them than to pack, move and unpack them.

Using up what you have at home certainly makes for reduced bills. Not only do you not have to go shopping much, but staying out of the stores reduces impulse buys, so your bills are even lower than normal.

That’s the good news. The bad news is, now that we’ve moved, I not only have a hundred “moving in” things to do all at once (change addresses, banks, etc.), but I also have to go shopping for items I’d normally find at home in my stash.

To make it worse, no matter how many times I’ve run to the store since we moved in, I inevitably come home to hear someone say, “We’re also out of (fill in the blank).”

Sigh. I’ve moved “Restock the pantry and cabinets” to the top of my list.   :0

(Learn more about stashes HERE.)

We’ve spent the past week packing and now unpacking, and the result is that we’re eating lots of fast food and prepared meals from the grocery store.

This is not how we usually live. I’m frugal and prefer home cooking (i.e. meals made from scratch), so I’m accustomed to cooking all of our meals. Our transition from old house to new house may have given me a break from cooking, but it’s also shown me how much waste there is in eating this way.

First off, it’s a waste of money. For example, I spent $16 for breakfast for four at McDonald’s our first morning here. All we had was coffee or juice and Egg McMuffins. I could have made that much cheaper at home!

Then there’s the garbage that little breakfast created. Wrappers, paper napkins, plastic and paper cups and lids, cardboard cup holder….we had quite a little mountain of trash to pitch afterwards.

Once I found the paper plates, I did buy some prepared meals that I could just microwave or throw in the oven. They’re cheaper than eating out, but not by all that much. And again, there is waste in all the packaging involved that you then throw out. Tonight’s dinner of Stouffer’s Chicken Alfredo resulted in a large box and a large plastic pan being thrown out.

Finally, whether we eat in a restaurant or buy prepared food at the grocery, I know what we’re eating is not nearly as healthy as eating home-cooked meals. In some ways, it’s a waste of calories. Who knows what’s in the stuff we’ve been eating? At least when I cook, I know what’s in our meals: less fat, less salt, few preservatives……and more nutrition.

Buy at AllPosters.com

It’s good to be back online, even though I have no business doing so since I’m surrounded by boxes and chaos everywhere I look.  But sometimes you just have to take a little break here and there to keep your sanity.

If you’ve ordered a book directly from us, bear with us. The printer isn’t hooked up yet (don’t know where it is but it has to be around here somewhere!) so we can’t print invoices and shipping tickets. We’ll get your order out soon, I promise.

Dd18 begins tech college on Monday, and soon after that I’ll start another year of homeschooling, but this time with only one child, our youngest, ds16. What a strange feeling! I’ve been homeschooling at least two children for so long that I can’t remember what it’s like having only one child to work with!

This year we’re homeschooling in a new place. We loved living in Door County, Wisconsin the past two years. While the area we just moved to is not nearly as scenic (not many places in the Midwest can compare to Door County!), it’s three hours closer to friends and family, including our adult children. So that’s a big plus 

The house we just moved into was built in 1920. It has only ever had two owners. The first was a school teacher who never married. The second is our landlord, and she’s also a school teacher. I think having homeschoolers in this house will be a nice change of pace! It’s a very pretty house with high ceilings, original woodwork and lots of character.

We’ve never lived in a city before and never lived in a historic district, so this is a continuation of our adventure of living in new places, which began when we left suburbia two years ago for life in a vacation town between a bay and one of the Great Lakes. Once we get settled in, I think we’re going to like it here. But we’ll never get settled in if I don’t go back to unpacking boxes, so offline I go……

Today my husband and I celebrate 30 years of marriage 

I don’t know where that time went, or how we got old enough to be married 30 years, because when I look at him, he still looks like my boyfriend. But numbers don’t lie.

For me, it’s been a remarkable time, full of fun and challenges and all sorts of things I never expected. Soon after we began dating, I told him I didn’t want to get serious with a guy because I had big plans to be a reporter in New York City, with my own apartment and a baby blue Chevy Camaro (17-year-olds are nothing if not dreamers!) Instead, I’ve spent the bulk of our marriage as a stay-at-home, work-at-home mom. I’m grateful that it worked out this way.

The odds were against us from the beginning. Firstborns aren’t supposed to marry each other because of their perfectionist tendencies, and supposedly people who marry young don’t have good odds for lasting marriages either. I’ve also read that there’s a pretty high divorce rate among parents of special needs kids.

But statistics mean nothing when it comes to God. He brought us together, and kept us together. There’s really no other explanation.

The past 30 years haven’t always been easy, but there have been far more good times than hard times: watching our kids grow and develop, learn to ride bikes, read and write, dance and play basketball, and later, learn to drive, get jobs, and become independent. Over the course of a few exciting weeks we saw our son graduate from college with honors and marry a nice girl from a Christian family. We pray for happy Christian marriages (if God intends for them to marry) and blessed futures for our daughters, one of whom begins college in a few weeks. And we’re enjoying each sometimes-slow-moving stage of development of our youngest son, who did indeed have Down syndrome and who has brought more joy to our lives than we could ever have imagined.

We look forward to watching our family expand with new family members in the future. Maybe someday someone will call us Grandpa and Grandma. Maybe we’ll even call each other Grandpa and Grandma (grandparents tend to do that, I’ve noticed). But no matter how old we’re allowed to become together, my husband will always be the calm, quiet, stable person in this marriage, my beloved best friend and yes, still my boyfriend.

Thanks, God!

We have a couple of medical issues in our family lately, plus we’re having trouble finding a house (we’re supposed to be moving in a month!) So please pray for us, if you feel led to do so. (Thanks!)

In the meantime, I’m looking for smiles wherever I can find them. Here’s something that made me smile, and I want to share it with you:

Little Boy with Toy Machine Gun and Cake

I have a friend who has six children: two in their 30s, two in their 20s, a teen and a preteen. The eldest and youngest are girls, and she says those two girls were (and still are) harder to deal with than all four boys put together.

I’ve had a different experience. I have four children, two in their 20s and two teens, and they go like this: girl, boy, girl, boy. One girl and one boy are strong-willed, while the other girl and the other boy are more compliant, though not completely so. I always believed that the sex of the child doesn’t mean much in how easy they are to raise, that’s it’s more a matter of personalities, both the child’s and the parents’, and how they mesh (or don’t, as the case may be).

Here’s an article that compares boys and girls (which is good, because that means people are finally getting back to the common sense theory that the sexes are different!) and discusses which sex is harder to raise. What do you think? Are girls harder, or boys?

Breakfast under the Big Birch

Here’s my favorite part:

Do things your mom used to do. Remember how your mom and her friends sat around the kitchen table drinking coffee, rather than meeting out at a local coffee shop? Or how you’d be forced to bring your lunch to the ballgame or museums? That’s probably why your parents have money in the bank now. One mom suggested buying a bag of Starbucks coffee for $8 and then brewing enough for everyone.

Some of my fondest memories are of sitting around a kitchen table having coffee: with my grandma when I was a kid (yep, Swedes let the kids drink coffee with lots of milk in it), or with the other playgroup moms when I had little ones and we met weekly at each other’s homes. Who says you need money to have fun?

Sick Child is Offered Some Sustenance from a Girl Acting as Nurse

All the furor over the swine flu (which may or not be justified, we’ll have to see how it plays out) is resulting in news reports suggesting that people should stock up on food, water, medicine, etc. in case a pandemic wipes out our already struggling economy.

Of course, if everyone followed this advice, it would become a self-fulfilling prophecy, because most grocery stores keep very little in reserve, instead relying on a steady stream of deliveries to keep their shelves stocked. It only takes a little fear-mongering to quickly clear those shelves.

Nevertheless, it’s always wise to keep a small stash of necessities in your house. (Learn more about stashes here.) I learned this the hard way when my husband and I were struck by a rough flu bug at the same time. Back then we had two toddlers; keeping them fed and their diapers changed was all I could do because I had a fever and was so dizzy. But my poor husband was even sicker than I was. So when we discovered we were completely out of acetaminophen and pop, guess who got to drive to the store to buy more? I was the logical choice, being the less dizzy of the two people in the house with driver’s licenses.

That was over 20 years ago, but I remember well driving down the highway and then trying to aim at the parking lot of the store and thinking, “I have no business driving in this condition.” It was all I could do to stumble into the store, buy what I needed (imagine the clerk’s joy over waiting on someone as sick and probably contagious as I was) and make it back home.

That experience made me decide I would never let my family be caught sick without supplies again. Since then, we always have acetaminophen, ibuprofen and aspirin in the house. I keep spare containers of drink mix just in case. Crackers, applesauce and rice are also good things to keep in the pantry for recovering patients.

So, should you stock up in case the swine flu makes it to your neck of the woods? That’s up to you, but I highly recommend that you make sure you at least have the basics in good supply at your house, because even if the swine flu turns out to be just another bug, you know how families share germs. Sooner or later, you’ll be glad you don’t have to run out for supplies when you’re feeling awful.

Having my own homegrown techie available to help me with my site and blog is really convenient, but it has its hazards. She can do things that I can’t do, and I can’t undo.

Case in point: Dd17 was going through one of my childhood photo albums when she suddenly decided my blog needs a photo of me….hence the new addition to the upper right corner of this blog.

“Mom,” she says, “You still have bangs, and you still make that face sometimes!”

Yep, some things never change 

Just got back from a four-day road trip that included an Easter visit with relatives in Chicago. One highlight for me was Friday night, when our immediate family got together for dinner: my husband and me, plus all four kids, our daughter-in-law and our daughter’s boyfriend. It’s so nice to have everyone together! I’m sure grateful that we had all those years of homeschooling. My memories are a comfort to me now that my adult kids live in other states and it takes planning to put us all around one table again, if only for a few hours.

If you’ve read The Imperfect Homeschooler’s Guide to Homeschooling, you’re aware that I came from a pretty messed-up family. Lots of dysfunction there. In fact, when my husband and I were raising our own kids, I chose to maintain a certain distance from the chaos of my family, in an effort to keep the latest generation on an even keel.

My relatives can take the most innocent holiday plans and turn them into a fiasco, even before the holiday arrives. That happened again this year. While most of the fuss occurred before I arrived in town, and all of it happened without my participation, it did change some plans I had made.

When I tried to explain the dust-up to my kids, they didn’t get it. That’s a relief! That tells me that they’re still not used to the dysfunction, that it doesn’t make sense to them. We may not be a perfect family, but at least we don’t operate the way my birth family does.

Many years ago, I heard someone say that a person who’s been abused as a child has to “break the chains” of abuse by making sure they don’t abuse their own children. It really struck a chord with me, and it was only due to the grace of God that I was able to break those chains. I’m not a perfect parent by any means, but I do believe that God enabled me to keep from doing what my parents did. He did so by bringing people and books into my life that gave me a vision for what to do.

He’ll do that for you, too. Just ask Him! That’s what I tell the homeschooling parents I meet at conventions or who write me and ask how to break those patterns of the past, the ones you don’t want to repeat but somehow find yourself doing just the same. Ask for help. You can’t do it alone.

We live in a really nice house. It’s made of wood and stone. It’s got beautiful woodwork in it, and lots of storage. There’s a big backyard full of trees and plants, and down the street a few blocks is the beach.

But it’s not our house. We rent it from a nice lady in Minnesota who bought it as an investment. We know we won’t always live here. But for now, it’s a very nice place to live.

We used to own a house, but had to sell it because of some financial setbacks. We considered that house ours because we watched it being built, and we picked out everything in it, and we lived there nearly 20 years, so it’s where most of our family memories took place. But it’s not ours anymore, and it never really was.

Funny how that house became a burden to us. As much as we loved it, we couldn’t afford to keep it. During the long ten months it was up for sale, it became an albatross around our necks. We were greatly relieved when it sold.

From that experience, we learned that nothing on this earth is truly ours. After all, nothing on this earth is forever, and that’s a good thing, because this is a fallen place. Our home in heaven will be forever. Still, it’s easy to think that what we have on this earth is ours.

Both the house we sold and the house we live in now have been loaned to us by God. And I must admit that there’s a certain freedom in knowing that whenever it’s time for us to go somewhere else, we can just pick up and go (without calling a realtor) and find the next place God is going to loan to us to live in.

I’m writing this because I know that some of you are losing your homes. You can’t make your mortgage payments because of a job loss or sickness or the worsening economy, and you’re faced with moving to a smaller house or an apartment, and it scares you.

I know it’s scary, and it’s also very hard to leave a place that you love. But don’t forget that God is in control. He knows the plans He has for you, plans to prosper you, not harm you, as the Bible verse goes.

No matter where you end up living, as long as you have your family with you, you’ll be fine. We considered our old house our family home, and this one temporary. What we didn’t realize was that the old house was temporary, too. Our family home can be wherever we happen to be together.

So don’t fear the future. If you’re forced to move, make a conscious decision to bloom where you’re planted. Then you’ll learn firsthand that a place doesn’t have to be officially yours to be your home.

….I was given the privilege of becoming a mom! Sarah Marie arrived as a beautiful, bright-eyed and noisy little person who was not at all interested in sleep. When I called my grandma at 3 am to share the good news, she heard Sarah wailing in the background and said, “It sounds like music!”

Happy Birthday, Sarah! Have a wonderful day….wish we could be there!

Many thanks to those who prayed for the medical mission team and our son as I mentioned the other day. They did get back in good shape over the weekend. Peter said there were 50 murders in Juarez last week while they were there. One morning they drove around a murder victim lying in a pool of blood on their way to their clinic site. Scary stuff. We thank God for keeping the team safe.

Peter also mentioned a young student of our ddil’s who had a stroke from an unknown cause a few weeks ago. Her name is Katie, and her family and friends have started a blog to update everyone about her progress. She’s still in the hospital. Please keep Katie and her family in her prayers.

Our son Peter is currently on a medical mission trip with the members of several churches, including the one we attended in IL. Today we received an email from the church secretary:

Please pray for the mission team now in Mexico. They have witnessed an increase in the crime in Juarez, which seems to be spreading past nightfall into the day. Please pray that all are protected while they continue to carry out God’s work; that their fears be comforted in knowing that their Savior is with them. Please also pray for the innocent residents of the area, that they, too, are free from the violence and know their Savior’s love.

If you have a minute, please pray for our son, his fellow team members and the people to whom they are ministering. Thanks—we appreciate it!