There’s a Nor’easter here on the mid-coast of Maine. When I make it to the radio station, we will hear stories from ordinary and famous people about how they are second. Second to Christ in their lives. Listen in. You might just get addicted to I Am Second.
Here’s the story of Stephen Baldwin:
Listen this coming Monday, December 13, 2010 at 11 am.
I'm a homeschooling mom of five, four boys and one girl. Two of which have gone on to college. I've been married for 27 years and have been fortunate enough to have a loving, supportive husband who has allowed me to stay at home with the kids. My one desire is that my life and the lives of my children glorify our Savior. My family is my mission field. I was born and raised in Rockport and lived there until I was married, at which time I moved to Hope and have lived ever since. This past year has really tested our faith and strength as a family, but through it all, God has been faithful, growing us and stretching us in ways we couldn't have grown otherwise. Just over a year ago our oldest son Scott was in a very serious car accident that almost claimed his life. He received many injuries including, but not limited to a broken scapula, broken pelvis, broken ribs, and broken vertebra in his neck. We didn't know if he'd live or die, and once it was evident that he would live we were told by many doctors that he would never come out of the coma and if he did he would never be anything more than a "vegetable." He received all his nourishment through a peg tube for several months and didn't speak to us for five months. What a gift it was when, on Mother's Day, he called and said Hi. His speech continued to improve from that point on.Through it all we never gave up hope that God had a marvelous plan for Scott's life. Today, Scott is walking, talking, and eating regularly. We've been trying for the past few months to complete a renovation project that would allow us to bring Scott home to continue his recovery. By God's grace we've been able to complete a tremendous amount of work including rebuilding a portion of our home from the floor up. However, at this time we are nearing completion of the project but have run out of the necessary funds to do the finish work. If anyone feels led to give they can make a donation to The Scott Overlock Fund at the Camden National Bank. To read more about our journey of faith this year check out our blog at www.prayforscott.org. All posts can be found by clicking on the archives button.
My name is Lisa Zielinski and I just celebrated twenty years of marriage to my high school sweetheart John. We were both raised Catholic, but I came to know Jesus as a personal friend and savior when I was twenty-eight years old. I am the middle daughter of eight children and have always wanted a large family and planned to start our family just as soon as the honeymoon was over. God had other plans for my life and after suffering an ectopic pregnancy in 1992, I have never been able to conceive a child. John and I both threw ourselves into our careers to busy ourselves and dull the pain and obvious empty hole in our family supposed to be filled with children. Nearly fourteen years of infertility, multiple procedures and running ourselves ragged at our jobs, we both knew that something had to end or our marriage eventually would. At this point we had both come to know Jesus on a personal level and believe with all of our hearts that in that fourteen years God was orchestrating our family and just needed to lead us to them. Through much prayer we decided to radically shake up our lives. We decided to sell our big home, quit our big fancy jobs, sell our fancy cars and get debt free so we could call the shots in our life once again and make a fresh start. We decided to relocate from Ohio to West Michigan where we moved to a two bedroom apartment, John started classes to get his paramedic license a dream he had always wanted to pursue and I was going to embrace and fulfill my dream of being a full-time homemaker and mother. John and I befriended a lady named Sue at John's work who had independently adopted four children from Russia. She encouraged us against my fears and doubts to pursue an international adoption. John was all for it since he himself was adopted. Seeing my hesitation, she herself went through the process and in the fall of 2004, we both traveled to Ukraine and came home with little boys. She now had five adopted children and we were now parents to a nearly two year old beautiful little boy. Our sons shared a special friendship coming home within two days of each other and from the same country, so our friendship grew even closer. Sue was single and had never married. She was an only child and her parents had passed away and her only living relatives were elderly. She had adopted so many children because they were literally her only family. Since I was used to a large family and all kinds of chaos around the holidays, I so enjoyed having them all over to entertain them, feed them and share in their traditions as well as ours. In spring of 2007 and after just one week earlier sharing Easter together, Sue was taken from her home very ill to the local ER where she and John worked near death. John phoned me from work to inform me that Sue was there and that all of her kids were left alone and that he knew she would not be home that night or any night soon. I grabbed our son, flew through a fast food restaurant and went to her home to bring the kids dinner and check on them and essentially never went home again. Sue remained unconscience most of hospital stay and passed away eight weeks later. John and I through the help of the amazing hospital counselors, social workers, attorneys and God's grace were able to secure permanent guardianship of all five of the kids just eleven short days after her passing. We were now one big family and had to learn all about each other, our habits, values, traditions and way of doing things. It's been three years now and to most outsiders they would never know how God choreographed each step to making us a family, but we know and we are grateful and blessed. Through what would otherwise be considered a tragedy, turned out for us to be the greatest blessing and answer to prayer. Of course we were devestated at the loss of our dear friend, but looking back on all the little ways God's hands were preparing all of us for this new life and journey allowed us to celebrate His good and perfect will for our lives.
