As most of readers of our blog know, our children’s home is founded on the Biblical model of a family. Mark is Dad to these 17 children and I am their mother. We feel that with all our hearts and so do they. It is a different type of family than the Benz family is with our bio/adopted children…but it is a family nevertheless.
Still, the situation dictates that we live in seperate facilities. But one of the drawbacks to living with SEVENTEEN other children and staff in a dorm is that there is very little “personal space.”
That is another great blessing of using the ACE model of school with the Bykota Kids. Mark had the typical ACE school desks built. (or as we refer to them…their ACE offices)
We allow them a whole lot of creative license to decorate there own personal offices. We do ask that it be clean enough to be free of germs LOL…and that it be an area that allows for them to do school. They aren’t allowed to put something in there that gets in the way of studying. We have to sometimes speak to Bee because he will put his educational toys in there or coloring supplies and leave no room for his school books.
Today the Bykota Kids decorated their offices for Valentine’s Day. They had lots of fun and it really pleases me to see them enjoy their personal space and to do things in their own individual way.
We are certainly not busy over here trying to put out cookie cutter kids. They are all unique, special, WONDERFUL individuals. Each and every one of them are necessary to the body of Christ. They have a role that no one else can fulfill as well as they can.
Of course, because it is Mark and Rhonda Benz who are parenting these children, we are so often reflected in them. One of the funniest ways is the fact that these Cambodian children are learning to speak English and try as we might, we still sometimes see a little Southwest Missouri come out in their diction. Ät Bykota House you can hear Cambodian children saying “ya’ll dun with those scissors?” or “Mom, I fixin’ to go to my house now.” LOL
Breathing in, breathing out,
Rhonda
