We have a sweet little niece who has a very rare disease and as a result has the potential to lose her eyesight.
Because of this, we chose to participate with some family and friends in VisionWalk 2011. We are so glad we did.
We started early in the week with a family home evening where we talked about people being different. Hallie understood this pretty well. We then went on the explain some of the difficulties her cousin Lucy had especially with her eyesight. This was a little harder for her to grasp, but she related it to the story of Jesus and touching the eyes of the man so he could see.
Each day following that night Hallie talked about people that were blind. She wanted to know more details. Why couldn’t they see? When would they be able to see? How do they walk around? She took great interest in it. We then told her that we were going to go do a walk to help those that had troubles seeing. Once again- a little difficult to explain to a young child how walking around a park a couple times helps people with their eyesight! But all we had to tell her was that we were there to support Lucy and her family and that was a good enough answer.
We joined up with Steve’s brother and his family, his cousin and family, as well as some family friends in support of Lucy. It felt good. There’s obviously not a whole lot we can do about the situation so the love and support that we can give is very important. And after spending the morning at this event, Steve and I both agreed this was something we wanted to do on an annual basis. We want to rally more family and friends, make banners and shirts for future walks.
They made it a very fun atmosphere with bounce houses, games and food galore and the kids were so happy.
(Thank you Shawni for some of the photos!!)
I read about her on Mormon.org. I thought you had to be related somehow. What a great way to support her!
What an awesome event and teaching moment for Hallie.
Are you sure you're just about to have a baby? All I can see is a tiny little bump! Lookin' good girl!
Can't wait to see you guys in August!
You're awesome! I wish we were wearing shorts instead of parkas…