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Show Up Early

Author: admin
August 27, 2009
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Dixie van de Flier Davis

Dixie van de Flier Davis

Dixie’s Adoption Blog 

Show Up Early

Wayne was adopted about 27 years ago.  He has overcome incredible challenges and is an inspiration to everyone who knows him. 

 Despite significant physical and developmental disabilities, Wayne worked at a Wendy’s near his home for several years.  As a bus-boy, his job was to keep the front of the store clean.  The customers loved him because he was always positive and friendly. 

 Wayne had a habit of arriving for work about an hour early.  When asked why he did this, he said he wanted to clean up and have the store spotless when his shift began.

 What a work ethic!  What an attitude.

 When it comes to serving the children who wait for adoptive families, I like the notion of arriving early, symbolically and literally.

 What would it mean for us to show up early on behalf of the kids? 

  • It would thinking ahead and planning for permanence and safety from day one.  In the lingo of the adoption profession – we would be doing concurrent planning as a matter of course and not as a special project. We would always have a “plan B” in mind in case the first adoption recruitment effort didn’t bring results, so there wouldn’t be any lag time in our efforts to find a permanent family.


  •  We would treat every parent who contacted our office as a possible family for that child we had just been thinking about.  Every family just might be our “plan B.”


  •  We would be asking ourselves, “Who else do I need to talk to?  Who should be motivated to help us find this child’s permanent family?”  Then we would call or go visit those people and enlist their involvement.


  •  We would work each day on behalf of the waiting children as if our lives depended upon our efforts – because their lives in fact do.

    •  
    Wayne recently moved on to another job.  I imagine he took his work ethic with him.

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    One Response to “Show Up Early”

    1. Yaya Says:
      September 3rd, 2009 at 4:37 am

      Sounds amazing!

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