Kara Higgins

In 2013, several years after adopting our sons internationally from Rwanda, and after learning the nuances, needs and heartache that often encompasses children who have experienced trauma, we volunteered at an unregistered orphanage in the hills of Kigali, Rwanda. Realizing that the children in the orphanage did not go to school, have access to basic necessities, or even know what they liked to do for fun, or who they wanted to be when they grew up, we decided to launch an educational sponsorship program. As we launched our non-profit and began to get to know the children better, we learned that they were being trafficked. After 9 excruciating months, we were able to help the government shut the orphanage down. Now, 11 years later, we have our own trauma informed school, foster care community and hundreds of kids known, loved, learning, healing and dreaming.

Parenting a child who has experienced trauma isn't going to look or feel the same as the way we raise children born into healthy homes and relationships. I would never have said it aloud, but I believed that God messed up when he matched my son with me. We were like oil and water. If I said the sky was blue, he would argue it was red. Learning to parent him, giving him the nurturing he missed out on, the safe spaces to exhale and the space to feel his voice was heard was a complete transformation in how I thought about mothering.