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Dear Parish Faithful,
Our parishioner, Jacob Boehne, shared this personal account with me recently. I was very impressed by it, and asked if he would agree to have it shared with the parish. Jacob graciously agreed, so I am now sending it out to everyone. It is about his personal journey toward embracing and defending the "sacred gift of life." Please contact Jacob if you would like to speak with him further about his experience.
- Fr Steven
LEARNING TO CHERISH LIFE
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| Jacob Boehne |
After leaving the festival I was full of rage and I was marked with a desire for change. I came home with my Rock for Life shirt and a handful of pamphlets. I told everyone about abortion and the need for it to end. I told my classmates, youth group, teachers, and, through the power of my shirt, everyone I walked past in my community.
One of the responses recommended by Rock for Life was to “cherish life.” In my young mind, I had to figure out what that meant. So, I asked to volunteer in my church nursery. I figured one way to love babies was to play with some. I volunteered in the church nursery for years and I worked with another ministry in Newport, KY that provided free meals and clothing for families in need on Saturday afternoons in the park. My main job was to push kids on the swings while the moms grabbed food and clothing to take home.
Some years went by and I started volunteering at a sliding scale daycare at the Brighton Center. The center was there to provide childcare for low-income families. Overtime I understand more about abortion, pro-choice opinion, and the need for much more in our society to change than just abortion being illegal. The pain was deeper and even more horrifying than what that binder of photos could reveal.
When I was 17, I went to work for a daycare as the “assistant infant teacher.” I spent all day caring for young babies. Over and over again I was reminded of the joy and wonder of human life. And at the same time, I was realizing more and more how complicated life is. I now knew teenagers faced with the decision of abortion or continuing as parents in high school with angry families and little resources. I knew about poverty, racism, and the divisiveness of politics; especially in regards to abortion.
At 18, I was living in Kansas City, MO and I was in an internship at a ministry called the International House of Prayer. They have a room for continuous prayer and worship and the services go 24/7. I was spending every night in prayer and worship from Midnight to 6in the morning. During the day I was in Bible classes and partaking in service projects around the church. During one of the services, I heard a man speak about adoption and the need for Christians to step up as parents for children in need. He also connected this call to action directly to a response to abortion. I knew at that moment that this was the next step in my journey of “cherishing life”. I sent an email to that ministry stating that I wanted to volunteer. I was invited to one of the staff meetings and that’s where I learned about foster care and adoption.
I began working for them as a “Transition Mentor.” I worked with children who were newly placed in foster homes or adoptive families. I did everything from driving kids to appointments, babysitting, dishes, house cleaning, and more. My role was to help make the transition easier for everyone. One important aspect of this work was understanding trauma and behavioral health. I attended workshops and training on those topics and I became a licensed foster parent in Missouri.
I wasn’t planning on becoming a foster parent myself because I was 19 and living in a shared bedroom at a house with 7 roommates. However, the training and license allowed me to be a respite provider for other families. When people needed a break, I could step in and stay with the children who were in foster care.
This awakened a whole new understanding of pain and the horrors of human existence. One of the first group of siblings I worked with were placed in foster care after being trafficked for sex out of their own home by their birth mother. I spent every day with those kids. All I wanted to do was offer some sort of safety and care that would hopefully restore some lost sense of love and trust. I spent a few years working with that ministry; mentoring at-risk children and youth. Offering support to families enduring a very honorable but difficult task.
After getting married and moving back to Northern Kentucky, my wife and I decided to become foster parents. We were going to take the next step in our journey. We became licensed in Kentucky and a short time later a young boy moved into our home. He was 3 years old and had already lived in several other foster homes. About a year later fostering became adoption and our son was with us forever. During this time, I was also in school at Northern Kentucky University studying Interdisciplinary Early Childhood Education. My goal, at that time, was to study early childhood in hopes of opening my own early education center or work for a group home for children in foster care.
After graduation, I realized that the best option, with my degree, for a young dad with a child who required a lot of extra time and attention was to become a teacher. I was working while he was in school and I was off every weekend and in the Summers. I found a job at a public preschool that was serving children with behavioral health needs. My whole life was still wrapped up in a response to what it meant to be pro-life.
After working in public preschool for a couple of school years I applied to work at Lighthouse Youth and Family Services. I got the job and I was working one on one with youth who were exhibiting severe behaviors and were in need of someone to be side by side with them at school. I received a placement at a behavioral health and education program in Cincinnati that was serving high schoolers who had been removed from public school. After working a few months, I knew it’s where I wanted to stay.
This is where I first connected with young moms who chose to keep their children. Parents who knew tragedy, pain, and abuse beyond what I could even imagine. Again, all I knew to do was offer a bit of encouragement and praise for the unnoticed love and resilience they were offering to their children every day. These young parents are my inspiration to this day.
That is also where I first encountered a different side of foster care. I worked with youth who had their children removed from their care. I saw the pain of losing a child to the system. I understood the reasons why, most of the time, that the state decided to place the child into foster care but I also saw how horrible that was for the birth mom, dad and family. I was no longer able to separate the child from the birth parent. Something that is so often done in the world of foster care and adoption.
People are so quick to demonize the birth families and to see themselves as the savior stepping in to rescue the child. But what about rescuing the parents? The whole, seemingly lost, mission of foster care is reunification with the birth parent.
Here was another moment of realizing how complicated life is and coming to terms with the fact that being pro-life or anti-abortion isn’t so clean cut. There is tragedy and pain in every corner. These are layered responses to generational poverty, societal and personal trauma, and miseducation.
I am turning 33 this Summer and I am still working at a behavioral health and education program. Last year I sat with a student who was living in a nursing home because they couldn’t find her a foster care placement in a home. She was a teenager and she was pregnant. So much her life was out of her control. She knew about her option for abortion but she wanted to keep her child. She had a name picked out for him and she would bring me updated ultrasound photos. Throughout the school year I watched him grow inside of her. When we would meet, I would always ask how the two of them were doing. We celebrated each moment of development and I always addressed her preborn child by name. Job and Family Services (JFS) moved this young mom from the nursing facility into an independent living situation. Youth in foster care, at the age of 16, can be placed in “independent living.” JFS assigns the person an apartment and they live on their own with vouchers for rent, food, etc. It was determined that at the time of birth, the child was going to be removed from my student’s custody. She was seen as an unfit mother. I understand why this decision was made but it broke my heart that we didn’t have an option that supports the mother and the child. She loves her little boy and she is currently in the fight to get him back. She needs support on so many levels and so does her child. Two generations in foster care at the same time.
Being pro-life has to be matched by action and compassion. I have been on a 20year journey of figuring out what that means. I am an adoptive father and a behavioral health worker. I try my best to offer some amount of support in these times of uncertainty and pain.
We have to care for preborn children, children, youth, and families, on both sides of the situation. I will not stop seeking ways to “cherish life.”
I encourage everyone who is pro-life and anti-abortion to find ways to actively “cherish life.” Especially the lives of people who are under attack, impoverished, and/or have endured trauma beyond the imagination of most.
As Orthodox Christians, we pray every week in the Divine Liturgy for the poor and hungry and for abused and abandoned and orphaned children. We have to turn those prayers into actions. People are Icons of Christ and image bearers of God. As Jesus said, feeding and clothing those in need is feeding and clothing Him. Become the "Amen" to your "Lord have Mercy." Agree with God in caring for those around you. Trust our good Father in the messiness of trauma, pain, and confusion. We do not and will not have all the answers but we can’t let that delay or stop us from being the body of Christ to a broken world in need of unconditional love and unending care.
Jacob Boehne
