Notes from a Dragon Mom

And at that instant I thought of my dad!  He has been the best example I have ever met on this earth of only gripping the gospel.  He cannot be convinced that THINGS, or even GOOD THINGS will bring life and hope.  When someone asks me to describe my dad, I always say that He loves Jesus and He loves people.  There is so much more to my dad that is great, but those two attributes are so huge that they overshadow everything else!

Dad, Me, and My Friend Dottie Running to Fight Leukemia and Lymphoma

You might have already been praying for Tucker and Becky’s adoption process.  God has decided to bring them a child another way at the time!  They will put the adoption on hold for a year or two or until God shows them the right time to start the adoption process again.

For many years God has given us a vision for a multiethnic family.   We are so thankful that He is allowing us to fulfill our desires through adoption.  I feel so loved by Him that He would bless me in this way.

If you are pro-life, you are pro-adoption!

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I often remark that it’s had both blessings and difficulties; that I am learning all the time.  But I rarely have time to expound on our history, which speaks into our ability to operate Habitat for Hope together.

Mark and I have been best friends since we were 15 – we’ve ‘dated’ over half our lives. When we were both 19, we were hired to manage a lovely little coffee shop called Kona’s Coffee Beanery in Wilmington, NC. We would open the shop and bake together at 5am – watching the sunrise – and open the doors at 7am to our faithful customers. We scheduled our college classes around our morning work schedule. Shortly after, the owners allowed us the privilege of opening their second location closer to our college campus. Additionally, they rented a small space to us in the shop for us to start our first ‘small business’ – Innersoul Creations.  We sold handmade clothes and jewelry – and tie dyed tshirts. I promise you this is not a joke. I think we still have the LLC receipt somewhere.

Once we were married (at the ripe age of 20) we did closed captioning typing together –we shared the work – and actually made decent money at this! When it came time for my thesis project, a one-act play – Mark jumped in as my technical director.  After our first child was born, Mark founded a company called Horrocks Consulting, which was quite successful in logo design and website creation. This was night/weekend work, and when we were overloaded, I jumped in here.  Once we began the process of founding HFH, we slowly dissolved Horrocks Consulting by sending jobs out to contract.

I share this because it’s sort of funny, but also because it speaks to a larger thing – Mark and I have been working as a team and playing off of each other’s strengths for 13 years.  Some things have obviously come easier to us because of our history together, but we have certainly had our difficulties.

One major hurdle we’ve faced is separating some sort of existence for our family from that of Habitat of Hope.  Since both of us live and breathe HFH all day long, and are entrenched in its work, it is very easy to let it encompass our reality.  We have made some concerted efforts over the past 12 months to distinguish ourselves from HFH – and the addition of incredibly valuable staff members has been the key component.

Another difficulty in our work pattern has been the inclusion of “others” into our circle of trust. Mark and I have functioned as a team for so long, typically tackling some pretty major projects together – that we can almost “forget” about those around us that desire to take part in the work of HFH.  As we have learned to delegate and value the important work of others around us – we have realized that this component gives us the framework we need to rest and separate ourselves for a time – so that we CAN come back into the life of Habitat for Hope and love families well, alongside each staff member that God has drawn to work here.

Growing, stretching and learning alongside you,
Mylissa Horrocks

Abigail turned three years old May first. It feels like the last two years have flown by; whereas the first year, well really the first two months… still seem like they lasted forever.

Abby was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor in the newborn nursery a few hours after her birth. It shattered my understanding, my faith, my reality, everything…to go from the peaks of joy at her birth to the valleys of despair that followed. The first hospital that we went to sent Abby home on Hospice care. They didn’t think she could ever beat the cancer. It was a grade four Glioblastoma. And they worried that if by some chance she did make it into remission, her quality of life would be devastating.

So when Abby was three weeks old, we were sitting at home waiting for her to die. I wish that I could say I didn’t accept their opinions. I wish I could say that I always knew she would see her healing, but I can’t. I was wallowing in my own pity at that time. My life felt so miserable, so exhausting, that just to get out of bed every day was the most I could mange. Thank God I married Michael. He wouldn’t give up, when we were signing the DNR (do not resuscitate) orders, when the Hospice nurse came to visit, he kept believing.

He believed in the promise of God that he received the night before my ultrasound. That night he said “I think it’s going to be a girl, and I think we’re supposed to name her Abigail. (We later found that Abigail means “Her Father’s Joy” in Hebrew.) That was his promise, and he would not give up.

He emailed her information to various medical centers during Abby’s time on end of life care. He prayed that if it be God’s will to attempt the surgery, that the gates of Heaven would open and we would have surgeons knocking down our door. They didn’t come knocking, but they came calling. Within two days, three surgeons had called eager to perform the surgery.

We decided on Dr. Boop in Memphis. Abby underwent the surgery when she was five weeks. She started chemotherapy at six weeks. She was given less than a ten percent chance initially. She soared through twelve rounds, finishing just before her first birthday. She has been in remission almost two years now, and as for her quality of life- it’s a miracle. She is walking, running, jumping, singing, dancing, fighting with her big brother, and wrapping her Daddy and I around her little fingers. She is the happiest child ever! We are so very, very blessed. There are many times that I have seen God work in Abby’s life. There are so many specific prayers that have been answered that I don’t think I could ever list them all. But the first answer, the first miracle came before Abby had ever been conceived. God had already written the journey out while Michael and I were still dating. Even before that He had planted the seeds of stubborness and determination in Michael, the very traits that he would need to fight for his daughter’s life. He had given Michael a promise before either of us could ever know what it would mean. It’s in the looking back that I am always amazed. It was always part of God’s plan for Abby to get sick, for Michael to fight for her, for me to trust in God and my husband even when I was getting no answers in prayer. His plan is still unfolding, and it is magnificent to behold. I don’t know for sure if Abby is cured forever, I don’t know what the future holds, but I do know that her life, our lives are all part of his perfect plan.
Rachel Steer