Loving the Rapist's Child by Heather Gemmen Wilson

This story is a dramatic  testimony to the value of life--even life that results from a rape.  It was featured in Amazing Grace for Survivors. 

It had been more than a year since Casey was stillborn, and it seemed Steve and I would never be able to have the third child we wanted so badly. The nurse in the doctor's waiting room was used to seeing me there. She knew how hard we had tried since losing Casey. I guess that's why she just couldn't resist giving me a sly grin while practically singing her words, "The doctor will be right with you … and I think you'll like what she has to say."

The poor thing had no idea what I was really going through. The doctor came in to share my dilemma. I was pregnant all right. And neither of us was smiling. We both knew that I had been raped.

Our Sons from Kenya

We never officially said "yes" to taking in a boy from Kenya, but had promised to pray about it. One thing led to another and in the end, many lives were changed.

Calvin’s coming to us was an amazing answer to his seemingly impossible prayer.  Years earlier, he had read a book about a boy who left Kenya to go to school in the United States.  ”Maybe I could go there someday,” he dreamed and prayed, “Dear God, please let me go to the United States.”  

Calvin prayed with the faith of a child, even though long ago, at thirteen, his childhood had been lost.  Both his parents had died of AIDS, leaving Rogers, 15, Calvin, 11, and Joash, 8, among Kenya’s 650,000 AIDS orphans.  When Calvin revealed his prayer to his older brother and an aunt, they laughed at him but he kept praying.

BLESSED BY MELISSA by Patricia M. Devlin

When I was collecting stories for the Amazing Grace for Survivors book, I came across this heart warming story by a friend of a friend who was  born blind. Here is her story.

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I suppose Melissa would be called a child in a PVS state these days.  About fifty years ago, a  professional called children like her "vegetables" because they couldn't do anything for themselves, and the phrase unfortunately stuck.  Today, PVS stands for "persistent vegetative state."  

 Melissa was certainly not like the other children in the station wagon which picked us disabled kids up from all over Oahu, Hawaii,  including the outlying areas around Honolulu to take us to our respective schools.