Month: November 2021

Categories
Relationships

Ruby Wedding Anniversary

1981-03 NZ embassy

This year’s celebration of our 40th wedding anniversaries on October 31 and November 28 is a good time to reflect on why we are still married. (And yes we do celebrate two church weddings: one in Papakura, New Zealand and the other in Stuart, Florida.) We are certain that God not only brought us together, but also was the reason we stayed together.

Many assume that we met at a conference for Little People and that we were a ready-made couple given that we are the same height. But we actually met at the New Zealand Embassy in Washington, D.C.

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As President of Little People of America (LPA), Robert extended an official welcome to me as the President of Little People of New Zealand (NZ). I had reached out to Robert as a resource during my Winston Churchill Fellowship which brought me to the United States for three months to study disability civil rights laws and public relations programs designed to improve attitudes towards people with disabilities.

When Bobby walked towards my desk in the NZ Embassy library, he was all smiles. For some inexplicable reason my heart beat faster as he got closer to me. I don’t remember a thing he said. I was unnerved by the proximity of his brown eyes gazing directly into mine. We were eye-to-eye because we were the same exact height.

Our lives were about to change forever. We had no idea that our business meeting would blossom into romance and marriage seven months later. Thankfully we understood that being the same height would not help us understand, love, and communicate with each other. All height gave us in common was to know what it’s like to be short. It taught us nothing about living together ‘happily ever after.’

Yet for 40 years we have kept our marriage vows to:

stand by each other no matter what happens, respecting each other’s individuality, understanding the other’s needs, accepting our changes, and enjoying our love until death parts us.

And these vows sure have been tested by cultural differences, disasters, disability, disappointment, discord, discrimination, disease, and dishonesty.

The traditional gift of rubies is not part of our 40th celebration. (We unwittingly jumped ahead on that one with ruby rings on our 10th, 15th and 25th anniversaries.) Instead we acknowledge the fulfillment of the benediction given by Reverend Andrew Bell at the close of our NZ church ceremony:

May God the Father bless you,
May Christ the Son take care of you,
The Holy Spirit enlighten you,
And the Lord be your Defender and Keeper,
Now and Always, Amen.

In this season of thanksgiving, we are grateful for God’s faithful guidance and protection through many detours on our road to sustaining love and faith.

A full account of our marriage memoir is told in “PASS ME YOUR SHOES: A Couple with Dwarfism Navigates Life’s Detours with Love and Faith.”

BARGAIN HUNTER’S ALERT: the “Pass Me Your Shoes paperback is discounted below the cost of printing and, in honor of our anniversary, a newly released Kindle edition is available for only $4.99.

Categories
Guest Little People of America

Little People of America and Adoption

Colleen Gioffreda
Colleen Gioffreda
LPA National Adoption Coordinator

Happy National Adoption Day!

Little People of America (LPA) provides information and support in a variety of ways. The one that’s closest to me personally is the adoption program, which helped my family find our daughter 19 years ago. (She’s awesome, by the way.)

The LPA Adoption program, or some variation of it, has been around since about 1961. Since that time, there have been hundreds of children with dwarfism who have found their families through adoption and LPA. 

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Some parents with dwarfism adopt because they worry about the health implications of having dwarfism and being pregnant. Others look at this possibility because adoption has been such a significant part of LPA’s culture and they are called to become adoptive parents. Typically average height parents adopt within LPA because they already have a child with dwarfism, and they would like them to grow up with a short-statured sibling (or two). However the family decides on adoption, most of the time the decision is solidified when they see the picture of their child for the first time and fall in love. I’ve had the honor of watching that moment several times in my role as adoption coordinator, and every single time it happens, it’s simply magical. 

LPA’s role in adoption is more of a facilitator, rather than what a coordinator at an agency does. We don’t provide services like home studies or dossiers, but rather we find children who need families from all over the world, and let LPA members know what the next steps would be in adopting a particular child. 

One of the most important topics that LPA helps with regarding adopting a child with a dwarfism or a disability internationally is knowing and emphasizing the correct wording to ensure that the prospective parents’ application is not rejected due to their disability. In China, for example, there are several rules about international adoption–but the one most relevant to our community is that a parent with a disability will not be allowed to adopt a child, unless the parent and child have the same disability. This means that a person with dwarfism will theoretically not be able to adopt a child who has a limb difference or visual impairment.  This rule is important to keep in mind when even the disability of the parent and child match, because the paperwork must match as well.  

Adoption is magical and lovely and amazing and fantastic, and I feel lucky every day that I have not only made my family complete through adoption, but that I have had the opportunity to watch the magic happen hundreds of times. I am so thankful to have had a front row seat to such love.

For those of you who really think numbers are cool, here are some statistics from the last 15 years:

  • LPA has advocated for over 400 children. 
  • Approximately 350 children have found their forever families. 
  • About 10% of adoptions through LPA are domestic (USA) adoptions, and 90% are international.
  • LPA has advocated for the adoption of children in more than 20 countries.
  • Children from China represent about 60% of the international adoptions with Bulgaria coming in a distant second, at 15%. 

Anyone interested in discussing an LP adoption with Colleen can email her at adoption.lpa@gmail.com.

Categories
Little People of America

President Angela: Last Leg of Relay

Gavel

November 13 marks 16 years since I was elected as President of Little People of America (LPA). A surprising scenario given that LPA elections typically happen in July, three Presidents had served in the position in the prior 16 months, and I was elected by the Board of Directors not the general membership. I was chosen to run the last leg of the presidential relay team to complete the two year term in July 2006.

I never aspired to be President and had declined to run for the position in July 2004. Indeed as I said in Always an Advocate, “I didn’t see politics in my near future. I much preferred to return to my original plan of writing our marriage memoir.”

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However, due to a series of disturbing events, I was persuaded to serve as Vice President of Membership on LPA’s national board. Past president Gerald Rasa expressed his confidence that I could “galvanize the group, heal breaches . . ., and keep the membership on balance.”

To say it was a turbulent time in LPA history is putting it politely and evidenced by the need for four faces to get the gavel across the finish line. After being elected as President, I received congratulatory emails in which people expressed comfort and confidence in my ability to lead LPA. What they didn’t know was that my strength and courage came from God. In pursuit of Solomon’s wisdom, I added his words as part of my email signature paragraph. For example, in February 2006, my 220 outgoing emails closed with this quote:

Pleasant words are a honeycomb,
Sweet to the soul and healing to the bones.
∞ Proverbs 16:24, NASB

As president, I determined to finish the work the original Executive Committee began in 2004. In addition to chairing LPA Board meetings, my time as president was primarily spent as it should be:

  • encouraging LPA leaders and members
  • supervising staff
  • coordinating with the development director
  • coordinating with the Medical Advisory Board on research studies
  • ensuring completion of the annual report
  • writing proposed bylaws

Among the things I did to help plan the 2006 national conference in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, I sent written invitations to international delegates in support of their visa applications, hosted an appreciation reception for national leaders, and presented the 2006 awards for Media and the Kitchens Meritorious Service at the closing banquet.

In a private ceremony, I presented an unofficial gavel to the other members of the 2004-2006 Presidential Relay Team engraved with all four names. We had held to our expressed campaign values of respect, integrity, accountability, and inclusiveness.

About 2,000 volunteer hours after deciding to run for national office in April 2004, I was delighted and relieved to pass the official LPA gavel to the newly elected President for the 2006-2008 term.

This post is excerpted from Part I, Volunteer Leadership Challenges, in “Always an Advocate.” Find out why so many reviewers recommend the book at https://angelamuirvanetten.com/always-an-advocate/.

Categories
Open

STRESS MANAGEMENT: Moving the Business Out of Our Home

Let’s not stress about being five days late for National Stress Awareness Day on November 3rd. Today is as good a day as any to identify and reduce the stress factors in our lives. After all, stress management is critical for maintaining physical and mental health and protecting relationships.

Ten years into our marriage, Robert’s business—Adaptive Living—had become a huge stressor on our relationship. For six years he operated out of a home office where he worked day and night. Finally in November 1991, he saw the light of day when he moved out of his basement office into a commercial office building in the Erie Canal district of Rochester, New York.

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Robert saw a future in buying the property because it was close to downtown Rochester and Kodak’s world headquarters. The purchase was only possible because God graciously answered our prayers by providing as follows:

  • The Small Business Administration (SBA) loan program was funded the year of Robert’s application to buy a commercial building.
  • Robert was the first Rochester business owner in two years to qualify for the SBA loan for people with disabilities.
  • The SBA commercial loan interest rate was 3% compared to bank rates of 16% and the SBA mortgage term was 20 years compared to bank terms of 10-15 years.
  • Robert was approved at an affordable price for the life insurance policy required by the SBA; this had been a concern due to Robert’s dwarfism and lack of data on life expectancy for those with his type of dwarfism, Spondyloepiphyseal dysplasia.
  • Renovation funds were part of the SBA loan and matched by a City of Rochester community-development grant allowing for much needed building improvements.
  • The city cleaned up neighborhood debris, demolished a derelict building, and added a fence behind the property.

All was well until I learned that the SBA loan required me to sign as guarantor and use our home as collateral. I was distraught. If the business failed, my salary could not cover two mortgages and we could lose both the business and our house. For me it was a deal breaker. For Robert, not to do so was a marriage breaker. Amidst my tears and protest, Robert promised me that if the business could not pay, he would get another job to pay the loan. And so, I signed the loan papers with extreme reluctance.

The intent of moving the business was not only for Adaptive Living to grow and be physically more accessible to clients, but also for Robert to be more accessible to me.

So did the business move reduce our stress as planned? Find out by reading the rest of the story in “Pass Me Your Shoes,” chapter 12, Seeing the Light of Day, pages 83-84.

BARGAIN HUNTER’S ALERT: the “Pass Me Your Shoes paperback is discounted below the cost of printing and a Kindle edition is now available.

Categories
Open

NATIONAL AUTHOR’S DAY

Always An Advocate

November 1st is National Author’s Day and a great finish to the October 2021 book launch of “Always an Advocate” during Dwarfism Awareness Month. Thank you to those who liked, commented, or shared my Facebook posts. But with over 650 million books going into circulation last year, the only way to make a splash in the publishing pond is for readers to take the next step and go to Amazon to buy the book. A purchase is the best way to encourage an author.

According to markinblog, non-fiction is hugely popular right now and memoirs, biographies, romance, and suspenseful thrillers are the most popular genres in both print and digital editions. That’s good news for the many LP authors who are in the hunt for readers of their nonfiction memoirs.

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My first draft of this post included a listing and brief description of LP books dating back to 1988. However, there are just too many to list! Altogether I counted 18 authors with dwarfism who have written a memoir. I was surprised to discover I only knew about half of them. So stay tuned for a resource update on my website, angelamuirvanetten.

Although the memoirs all share the challenges we face as little people, the stories are as diverse as the people telling them. The authors are male or female; single, married, divorced, or widowed; different dwarfism types; with and without children; black or white; gay or straight, spiritual or not. They are employed or self-employed as coaches, dancers, doctors, entertainers, entrepreneurs, lawyers, leaders, musicians, professional wrestlers, public speakers, or teachers.

Many people tell me they want to write a book. And that’s great for the readers who are always looking for another great read. But before you venture into this world, be sure you’re ready for the ride. It’s not just a matter of sitting down at the computer for a few weeks and uploading a manuscript. Nope, before the writing comes the planning and after the writing there is editing, more editing, and proof reading. Then comes the decisions whether to seek an agent, publish traditionally or independently, or both.

It used to be that if you landed a publisher your work was done and your future as an author was bright. Not so anymore. Let me introduce you to a new “m” word. Marketing. Although not an offensive word, for those who love to write, marketing can cause great consternation. Both Indie and traditionally published authors must market their books. For example, an active social media presence on multiple platforms is essential. This is time consuming, self-promotion can be uncomfortable, and the shifting sands of social media make marketing outcomes unpredictable.

None of this is said to discourage you. If you want to write a book, “go for it.” But know what you’re in for. Start building your social media platforms now. Sign up for webinars to learn about the trade. And write, write, write. Authors are needed to educate, encourage, and entertain.

For more information on my dwarfism trilogy, blog, media, resources, and photos, go to my website at https://angelamuirvanetten.com.