For The Benefit of Those Who See

In 2009, before we adopted our daughter Kate, who is visually impaired, I don't think we knew anyone who was blind.  I had met a few people along the way, but didn't have any friends that were blind, or even low vision.  I remember when we first started meeting people through Kate's VI program at school, I called a white cane a "stick".  The more I learned, and the more blind people I met, I became kind of fascinated.  Personally, I think that God led us to Kate (who was listed on a special needs list as having PKU, not albinism) to open our hearts, home, and minds to blind people-- including Charlie. 

In the adoption world, there are many people open to multiple special needs, but not many open to blindness.  I went to a conference this weekend for adoptive moms and spoke with 2 different people who said on the SN list, they had checked pretty much everything except vision issues.  For me now, that is so hard to understand, because I personally feel like that is one of the most manageable special needs out there, but I remember 6 years ago, picking a little girl off the SN list because she it said she had PKU and I thought that didn't sound *that* bad.  Would I have picked her then, if I hadn't seen her precious picture and all it said was "Visually Impaired"?  Probably not.

So, now that we are apart of this world of the blind and visually impaired, I feel called to educate the world of the sighted, and that many people (maybe you?) need to change the perception and low expectations that they put on people that can't see the same way.

Last night, talking to a blind friend (who has a college education, a job, and lives independently), he said that he had recently been asked how he takes a shower if he can't see?  Really?

For this adoption, we received a matching grant for people adopting older children with special needs from www.brittanyshope.org.  They ask that you raise half of the grant amount yourself and they will match what you raise.  They encourage you to have an event, so that more people are exposed to them and what they do, instead of just asking people for money.  At the same time that I was trying to figure out what kind of event we should do, I was reading the amazing book "For the Benefit of Those Who See" and I got really inspired to host an event for the sighted, by the blind.  We are having this next Friday night, and I am so excited!  We have 2 awesome speakers, who are both blind, and we are inviting all of our blind friends to come and hang out with our sighted friends.  We are providing food and charging admission so hope to make some money for our adoption while educating and inspiring our friends to change the way they view the blind.

Who knows, someone may leave and want to adopt a blind orphan!  (But that's not the point.) 
Stay tuned for pictures of the event!  Email me at dawn_seabolt@yahoo.com if you want to come!