Belated Update

For those who have e-mailed or Facebooked and chastised me for not posting more frequent updates, I apologize – things have been busy…

The past few nights, as I have laid down for bed, I have thought, “there’s a young woman from Afghanistan sleeping under our roof, in the bed right next to our daughter”…I must say, it’s pretty cool. As I have previously stated, this experience is way outside of our family’s traditional comfort zone.

All of the host families have faced challenges already… Some have dealt with homesickness and tears, some have dealt with immediate medical needs and issues…there is a 7 year old boy who cannot hear or speak… There have been cases of head lice – it’s simply something that happens. However, the support network between the host families has already proven itself to be incredible and invaluable. The host families are an extraordinary group of people – while most of us reside in the same area of Jacksonville, not all of us knew each other before Solace. Angie Cosper, the Coordinator for Jacksonville’s Solace program, did a fantastic job recruiting these families – what a giving, caring, enthusiastic group.

One more quick word about the whole “orphanage” concept… I have learned that this Afghan concept of an orphanage, which differs from our American understanding, has a definite basis... Children in Afghan “orphanages” may still have families, but these families have sent them to an orphanage, where they will receive an education, and are most likely to be kept safe.

Some have asked if I saw the anonymous online comments posted about the news stories on Solace last week. Yes, I saw and glanced at some of them – of course, the closed-minded, racist, offensive comments were unfortunate. Some folks asked why we are helping Afghan children and not children in our own country – I suppose that’s a fair question. My response is that we should be doing all we can for our children here and abroad…to simply ignore the global needs would be naïve and irresponsible. I would also recommend that those naysayers learn more about the plight of the war-torn Afghan people, especially the children – it is a very different world from what we know.

For those of you who share Rhodes College connections with Sara and me, I have to brag about a couple of our fellow alumni. Not only is Dr. Chris Emanuel serving as one of the lead pediatricians for the Jacksonville Solace program, but children with Orthopedic needs are seeing Dr. Rick Picerno (married to Andrea Rose Picerno), also Rhodes alums.

Sahar has quickly become a part of our family. Yesterday afternoon, Sara heard her yell “Stop!” at Willam (in a big sister kind of way), when he was incessantly bugging her. William wasn’t deterred, and continued his annoyance. Sahar has also discovered our Wii and managed to beat both Caroline and William in bowling (she says she’s never bowled before?). We’ve also learned that Sahar is extremely social. The other 15 Afghan children seem to flock to her, and are frequent visitors to our house.

There’s much more I want to say, but must save it for later – thanks for the continued interest. I will do my best to provide more updates soon.

Bryan