Article written for Missouri Baptist Children’s Home

While the child they loved set his own heart ablaze, Kyle and Amanda were not afraid. 

Adoption always sounds sweet from the outside. No one tells you about the children who don’t act grateful, blasting their trauma across your living room in a rage of defiance and broken picture frames. At the age of nine, Liam had already found two families who offered him forever—and then brought forever to a sudden end.

It’s easy to judge those families when your only experience of foster care and adoption has been syrupy memes on social media. The movies make adoption look straightforward, if not easy. In the real world, both families loved Liam enough to grit their teeth through his storm, but they didn’t feel equipped to help him process his trauma in healthy ways and gain better functioning skills. It was time to try something else. 

That’s when Liam made his way into the care of Missouri Baptist Children’s Home (MBCH). We train foster parents to jumpstart the process of healing through the Treatment Family Care (TFC) program. The goal is always long-term placement, ideally reuniting the child with parents or relatives. If parental rights have been terminated, adoption becomes the next-best outcome. 

In the meantime, TFC uses foster care to help kids gain hope and practice constructive behaviors so that when the doors open for permanent placement, they feel confident enough to stroll inside and claim a chair at the dinner table.

All TFC foster parents complete state-required training as well as our Trust-Based Relational Intervention training, which coaches parents to respond to trauma with connection, empowerment, and correction. MBCH provides each family with 24/7 support from a TFC specialist, who meets with TFC families in their home at least once a week.

TFC parents understand that with every child, they’re facing uncharted terrain. Even though no clear map exists, their training serves as a compass helping them feel their way forward as they invite kids into the risk of relationship. And whenever exhaustion makes them shake, their TFC specialist is right beside them with the support they need to take one more step for one more day.

Before Liam connected with TFC, the only way he knew to protect himself was by striking first, before anyone else could. He stole, broke things, and hurt himself and others. The neglect and physical abuse that had dragged its claws across his past didn’t let go when he moved roofs. He acted out abuse against himself—all he’d ever known—and chased his own pain into a hospital bed, surrounded by the same sirens and beeping that had played all his life as lullabies.

Kyle and Amanda helped him process mixed feelings of loss and prepared him for the idea of calling someone else Mom and Dad. When Liam’s emotions overwhelmed him, they used strategies they’d learned through TFC to help him reroute anger into better responses. They knew to calmly wait through the worst of the thunder before trying to engage in a conversation. They understood when to ask key questions versus when to sit beside and not have to know. Of course, all they could offer most days were their best guesses; this kind of healing looked more like the Oregon Trail than a straight-shot highway. Whatever color the weather turned that day, they simply kept their direction and plodded on.

When the time came for Liam to meet his new parents, he was ready. Kyle and Amanda tagged along on visits so he’d feel safe. By now, Liam had the emotional capacity to form a positive attachment, setting the whole family up for the kind of closeness you can’t just wish into existence.

One day, Kyle and Amanda pulled into the garage, took a deep breath, and walked into a house that had found a new silence. Liam wasn’t coming home anymore. He was home, of course, unpacking his t-shirts into a bedroom that would start to feel normal in a couple of weeks. He was stable enough to be off medication. These days, he used his words to talk out big feelings and resisted the behaviors that used to define him. 

Many foster parents don’t have the satisfaction of a happy ending. Kyle and Amanda felt privileged to know their boy was growing in the right direction. Still, the quiet that filled up their kitchen was a strange thing. Some hard nights, before, it had been all they’d wanted, but now the peace was making them restless.

Every week after that, they met up with Liam and his parents, and he told them his adventures and frustrations. They’d take pictures together with silly filters and high five him for his grades. One afternoon a few months down the road, they would answer a call, put it on speakerphone. And before they even heard the next child’s name, Kyle and Amanda would already say yes.

The city had gone perfectly perfect at last, after all the long decades of social reforms and civil campaigns. They had solved hunger, poverty, and disease; they had smoothed out social inequality and tidied up the smears of old pollution. The people never asked one another, “How are you?” because the answer was a constant: “I am happy.” And so Sir Evolution slipped in quietly and erased their unused tear ducts, a trait no longer relevant for social survival. The mayor used it as the city’s slogan for some years: “The people who outlived tears.”

But even happiness has its hidden curse: it breeds boredom. The youths had always been happy, and their parents had always been happy, and happiness was always the same. The youths wanted to play a game of sorrow, and so they chased down the old men, the only relics from an age of inconsistencies and dripping heartache, and did their best to make them cry. They jeered at the men and mocked them from street to street, calling out all the worst words they knew, hunching over in exaggerated age. The old men mostly grouched back at them; one even laughed. But none of them cried.

So the youths pushed further to break the old men. They spread gossip about the men through all the local pubs and housewives; they whizzed stones to sting the men’s exposed arms. And every time the smallest old man laughed at them good-naturedly or cheerfully whistled away. Soon they found themselves centering around him, though he would clearly be the hardest to hurt, perhaps from the youthful cruelty of attacking that which is most innocent, perhaps for no more reason than because he intrigued them with his triangle grin and ready jokes. They shadowed him from his flat to the dim Italian café where he played long nights of poker, always jeering and hissing and pulling at his clothes. They broke into his flat, stole his picture albums, and smashed the china figurines that lined his windows. But the old man never cried. Sometimes he sighed and splayed his fingers in a shrug. Often he tried to reason with the children, either firmly or gently rebuking them for their disrespect. He never quite lost his smile; even when he scolded them, it lingered in a dimple tucked caddy-corner to his chin. 

The smartest boy began asking around town until he learned the name of the old man’s wife, Helena, buried for twelve years now. They pressed with their clumsy thumbs on that wound as well, and the old man grew silent, his regular chuckles finally stilled, but it was a solemn sweetness rather than a rushing pain that claimed him. “My Helena,” he murmured, “the finest of all my memories.” And the dimple went on taunting the youths from the side of his face, begging to be put out. More than one boy felt a dark thought squeeze its fingers tight around his mind then: the dimple must be extinguished, and the bruises that must first come, must come.

You will be relieved to know that they never had to beat their kind old friend; he spared them the trouble and cried all on his own one day. They found him sitting on the sidewalk in front of his flat, dribbling away for no cause they could perceive. They whooped and rushed to burst the intimacy of his grief, smearing their crude fingers in the rivulets on his cheeks so they could feel each tear’s coolness and lick off its salt. “What was it, then?” a stick-shaped girl asked him. “What made you cry?”

“You did,” he said, and they smiled in cold triumph. “You’re so foolish, and who could ever teach you? How could you ever learn? You don’t know the reverence of emotion. I was waiting for you to come to me today and walk together, and I thought about all your faces and your future— how small must it be! And I thought, perhaps joy itself will die with me.”

“He’s cracked! He’s crying because he’s cracked!” a little one giggled. “We’re the happy people, not you. We never cry.”

The old man nodded and wept afresh at her words. “My poor children, where will you find your wisdom if you never know your grief? Someday you will learn— but no, you won’t. You might have learned, once, that after the blackest years have all passed, life herself for the first time comes to you—“

But who can listen to so much vague moralizing at once? The kids, of course, couldn’t, so they shouted silly rhymes over him and made a new game of painting his tears in lines down from their own eyes. 

Thus the trend was decided: the youths tripped about town after that with water clumsily splashed on their cheeks and eyelashes. Sneaking a quick squirt out from the eyedropper when no one was looking was the easy part; faking tragedy when they wished to laugh at their own cleverness was much harder. They turned to the old man for dramatic inspiration; now that they knew his weak spot, they paraded their idiocy in front of him daily and earned back all the heartache they could hope for. Now it was only too easy to make him leak: they could mock one another in front of him, giggle endlessly at a joke that no one had told, or just thrash a dance to songs of bleating chaos. Then they would study the shapes his face made and imitate their director.

It was cool to cry, cool to stretch their faces long and sigh at intervals. They wrote dark poetry and turned the color of their shirts down. 

Always the old man was alongside them, even when they did not seek him out to pinch his heart between their black fingernails. He followed them, though he cried as much as smiled, giving them bits of wisdom and buttered bread.

And then the old man died.

Old men tend to die, you know, and the games died too without their favorite star. He died as suddenly as he had started to cry— promptly and without reason, on a hot Thursday afternoon. 

And the children, the poor children! Oh, his old poker friends were just fine, but what could tearless teenagers possibly wear to a funeral? They felt— but they knew not what they felt. They tried carrying on with their elaborate tragedies, but the shows weren’t any fun now. They tried joking instead, but no one ever laughed. They stared at one another out of dehydrated eyes. They threw rocks against brick walls and listened to them clatter to the ground. They smiled when the forecasters predicted another blue sky and the news anchor said employment was definitely up this year.

If the old man had been here to finish this story, he would have said that after many weeks of denial the youths would have wailed with anguish for their dearest friend. Some of them would have stopped eating for a while; others would nightmare themselves into insomnia. The taste would fade from all they had once loved, and their hopes would have crumbled like the clods of dirt in front of his headstone. 

Then, somewhere past the harsh turning point, one by one they would awaken. Perhaps the youngest would have skipped out first and caught a dragonfly; then a girl might have hummed a lusty concerto or two. Every stop along the city would still remind them of their loss, but each moment they would walk the taut, wild freedom of choosing either mourning or rejoicing, grief or gratitude. They would cup their hands gently around the fragile leaves of someone else’s sorrow, and they would choose— oh, choose!— to relish every flick of evening light, to laugh so well and often that their laughter formed its own language. And by the time they were grandparents, they might have lived to see Sir Evolution return the tears he stole back to the newest babies’ eyes.

None of this would ever happen, though, because the old man has died.

They remembered him in an uneasy way, but they didn’t fall apart. They just found something new after a little while. They danced. They swapped trading cards. They laughed at the kid in too-formal clothes. Nothing ever touched down deep. Nothing ever hurt too much. 

And the story ends with their grandchildren again, this time born into the world without an agonizing shriek, sometimes staring blankly at the hospital walls and sometimes not bothering to open their tiny desert eyes. The grandparents leaned forward into the tension, waiting for the doctors to check while the new mothers cried, “Are they stillborn? Can you tell if they’re alive?”

Article written for Baptist Homes

Sometimes, God changes lives through missionaries blazing gospel trails through the cold unknown. He’s been known to restore hearts, minds, and bodies through teachers and nurses, all the usual saints. But then there are the ordinary folks. 

Bob Maple’s just a simple country guy. He was working as a maintenance director in nursing facilities, but something felt wrong about driving to the city every day. He was itching to stick closer to his farm when he saw an ad on Indeed for a maintenance director for Baptist Homes – Adrian. All he’d been hoping for was a shorter commute, and here he’d found a chance to work for the Lord.

That’s how Bob sees his job maintaining the facilities at Adrian. The background work of bringing a building up to code may not look particularly spiritual at first glance. But if something isn’t working properly, the residents suffer. “God gave me the ability to maintain these facilities, structures, and equipment,” Bob said. “This is the way I give Him glory, because through serving these residents, it’s like serving God.”

Bob never seems to stop serving, either. He single-handedly made the biggest difference during the Adrian remodel, tackling projects from painting the exterior of the Independent Living building to power washing and patching the roof to prevent leaks. When most people would have called a contractor, Bob applied his own skills and experience to install cabinetry, countertops, and sinks, saving the facility more than $10,000. 

Bob takes pride in finding ways to make buildings and systems operate more efficiently; everything should work smoothly and look beautiful. Now he’s cutting costs across all facilities in his new role as Regional Maintenance Director. He’s busy converting the maintenance systems over to a building management app called TELS, which keeps track of code requirements for state surveyors and fire marshals. Bob has seen other buildings end up with too many tags—and too many fines—after depending on the chaos of pen and paper, so he knows the importance of setting up a more reliable system that lets all workers stay on the same page with other facilities and the corporate office.

For some people, faith seems to float in the sky, just a lovely collection of spiritual words that don’t intersect with their daily lives. But Bob understands what the apostle James meant when he wrote that true faith always turns into action. He’s constantly pulling it out of his toolbelt, using faith like a hammer or a caulking gun to keep residents comfortable and safe.

In Bible times, God used servants, prisoners, and slaves. He accomplished great works even through wicked kings. He has used fishermen—and one remarkable carpenter. So when you glimpse His goodness in the humble grin of a maintenance man, you shouldn’t be too surprised.

Article written for Baptist Homes

There’s nothing more satisfying than finally pushing a puzzle piece in place after a long, long search. And there’s nothing more frustrating than finishing a puzzle you’ve worked on for quite some time, only to realize a few of the pieces are missing. An almost-masterpiece that still holds a few dark spots of absence; a mystery you can never wrap your mind around.

Yvonne Swadley loves puzzles. She loves them so much, in fact, that they don’t all fit on the shelf she bought to store them. Ten are stacked in the corner, and several others are wedged under the bed. A long search followed by satisfaction; a question that comes with a perfectly crafted answer at the end.

Yvonne knows a lot about questions. For many Christians, the truth can only be black and white: everything is perfect; everything is wonderful. For Yvonne, however, it’s okay to acknowledge both the highs and the lows, while still proclaiming that God is good.

The missing pieces in her own life puzzle still bring an ache she can’t always ignore. So she clicks together gorgeous landscapes, piece by piece, building beauty on her coffee table like a shaft of light into the darkness.

From Belief to Complete Surrender

Yvonne grew up in Clever, Missouri, about 20 miles west of Baptist Homes – Ozark. Her family raised her in the Baptist church, and she was saved at the age of 13.

As she matured into adulthood, Yvonne grew restless for a deeper encounter with Jesus, realizing that she was only going through the motions of religious observance. She knew that mere belief in God was only the beginning of the full, abundant life Jesus offered, so she made it right and devoted herself completely to Him.

It’s no wonder, then, that she married the son of the minister, who went on to spend his entire adult life serving as a Baptist minister himself. Over the years, they moved from church to church, everywhere from Conway and Fordham to Mountain Grove. They had two sons and were married for 39 years. For a while, anyway, the picture was complete.

Meanwhile, Jesus took Yvonne’s full surrender and turned it into a calling to invest in kids. She worked for Head Start for over 35 years, mostly as a teacher and eventually as a director. After retiring, she served as a foster grandparent, even as her kids gave her five wonderful grandchildren of her own.

God blessed her and cared for her at every step, and she had much to be grateful for. But life had a certain heaviness to it, too. Yvonne was aging—and she was alone.

Coming Home—All Alone

Yvonne’s husband was no longer with her, so she’d had to learn to manage on her own. Back when Baptist Homes – Ozark first opened in 1996, she thought it would be a great place to go whenever she needed it. Now she was beginning to wonder if that time was close. In 2016, she went through cancer, and in 2017 she had a knee replaced. Knowing it might take a few years to get in, Yvonne put in her application.

She’s been a resident at Baptist Homes for two years now. She likes it here; the staff is kind, and the only problem she can think of is that she doesn’t care for boiled shrimp. But otherwise, the food is great, and the staff gives her seconds of the cornbread when she asks so she can enjoy it with milk as an evening treat.

As fantastic as the food is, eating isn’t much to live for. Yvonne doesn’t get many visitors. It isn’t safe for her sister to drive anymore, since she’s been in two near wrecks, so Yvonne tells her not to come. They make do and talk on the phone all the time. The resident across the hall was recently joined by her husband, and they obviously care about each other very much.

As for Yvonne’s husband, he has simply become one more missing piece. 

Pine Cones, Beauty, and the Goodness of God

Yvonne sees beauty even in incomplete pictures. Before becoming a preacher, her husband sang in revivals. Both of her boys grew up singing, too. The younger one also played the piano, and his kids became singers just like him. She’s proud of their talent and thankful for a life filled with melody.

They aren’t the only creative ones in the family. When Yvonne isn’t reading or participating in group activities, she sews and makes crafts. She and her son planted a row of pine trees beside his house when he first moved in. That was 31 years ago. Now she cuts up pine cones collected from his yard to make Christmas wreaths. She uses nail polish to paint them, since the brush is small, and it gives them a metallic look perfect for December magic.

There’s nowhere Yvonne would rather be—except possibly for the new assisted living apartments they’ll be constructing soon on the Ozark campus. She already has her name on the list to get in, since she thinks it would be fun to get back into cooking.  

Even if she stays at the main facility, Yvonne knows she made the right choice moving to Baptist Homes. She advises anyone beginning the aging process to start thinking about what you’re going to do early, before you desperately need to make a decision. It’s important to prepare and at least get a conversation going with a facility. Filling out an application doesn’t mean you have to move right away, as you can always say you’re not ready yet. Many places, like Baptist Homes – Ozark, have a waiting list. The sooner you get your name on the list, the better. 

Faith in the Waiting

Yvonne has watched some Christians grow bitter at God over the years. Despite her own loneliness and loss, all she can say is, “God’s been good to me. I’ve been really blessed; everything’s gone well.”

Pain is hard to interpret, hard to come to grips with. Yvonne doesn’t always know what purpose God has planned for this season in her life. But even with her missing pieces, she radiates a deep, true beauty that doesn’t need any explanation. Yvonne Swadley is God’s work of art, her heart faithful through suffering, her whole life still devoted to Christ. 

Maybe she’ll get more visitors soon, or maybe angels themselves will one day come calling. Either way, she’ll be here, ready with love and a pine cone wreath for anyone who walks in. She’s seen too much glory in this fractured life to ever give up on beauty, hope, and love.

About every other year, I create something original (art, writing, or both), mass-produce it, and give it to friends. Lucky for you, it’s an on year. But this one would cost a fortune to print, so I’m gifting it as a funny little eBook.

A month ago, I wrote a choose-your-own-adventure story called Surviving the Anaconda for a school event. Once it was written, I figured I might as well do something with it, so I expanded it a bit, gave it a format and design, and wrote a few silly snake poems to tack onto the end. Page 2 includes more technical instructions on how to navigate the document. Don’t be intimidated by the length of the book because all those pages are just spacing for separate options in the choose-your-own adventure; it shouldn’t actually take more than a few minutes to play one round.

If you’re afraid of snakes or you don’t appreciate a dark sense of humor… then this book may not be for you. Hint: most readers do not survive the anaconda, at least not the first time.

So… merry Christmas? And good luck out there! Let me know how you die or survive.

View or download the book here: surviving-the-anaconda