Welcome to Holland

My wife found this story – from a parent with a special needs child. I hope this help you understand.

I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability - to try to help people who have not shared that unique experience to understand it, to imagine how it would feel. It's like this......

When you're going to have a baby, it's like planning a fabulous vacation trip - to Italy. You buy a bunch of guide books and make your wonderful plans. The Coliseum. The Michelangelo David. The gondolas in Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It's all very exciting.

After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands. The stewardess comes in and says, "Welcome to Holland."

"Holland?!?" you say. "What do you mean Holland?? I signed up for Italy! I'm supposed to be in Italy. All my life I've dreamed of going to Italy."

But there's been a change in the flight plan. They've landed in Holland and there you must stay. The important thing is that they haven't taken you to a horrible, disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence, famine and disease. It's just a different place.

So you must go out and buy new guide books. And you must learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you would never have met.
It's just a different place. It's slower-paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy. But after you've been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around.... and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills....and Holland has tulips. Holland even has Rembrandts.

But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy... and they're all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the rest of your life, you will say "Yes, that's where I was supposed to go. That's what I had planned."

And the pain of that will never, ever, ever, ever go away... because the loss of that dream is a very, very significant loss.

But... if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn't get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things ... about Holland.

Emily Perl Kingsley 1987

 

Weather in Wausau Cancels City!

People in Wausau are hardy people, that is what make what happened today so difficult for me to process. Tonight it is forecast to get cold, at 8 PM it should be about -5F on the mercury (note to kids… thermometers used to actually have mercury in them, and were not digital). With wind chill it will feel like it is -20 to -25F. That is cold but hardly justifies closing down the city. To make matters worse I was personally part of the decision to cancel our ministries tonight. Our official policy is we cancel when the school system cancels. They canceled this afternoon, and after much debate we followed our policy. Working backwards I see how this happened. The forecast for tomorrow AM calls for -36F with wind chill, anything below -35F triggers an automatic cancelation. When you think about kids waiting outside for a bus in that kind of weather, wow that will either kill them or make them stronger. The school system then called off events this evening, locking in our decision at IBC. Any church in Wausau could meet tonight without putting kids in danger, but I don't think any will. We get into the "What if" thinking…what if my car breaks down, what if I can't get a tow truck, what if my fuel pump is frozen, what if my coat is not warm enough…. And so on. What is that? Is it genuine responsibility, wisdom or is it fear? I am not sure? It will become evident tonight if canceling Wausau was a good idea. Here are a few predictions, tonight restaurants and shopping establishments will be full, tomorrow as I drive to work (unless it is too cold for me to get out of bed) I will see kids outside playing in the cold. Here is an idea maybe churches should change their cancelation policy to close when Walmart closes rather than the schools? Well enjoy the night with your family and we will see you Sunday.