The King Family
Meet baby Simon
Meet Simon and Family
“From the moment my son, Simon, was born, I felt like God had been preparing my family for Jill’s House.
Peter and I are longtime attendees of McLean Bible Church and participated in fundraising events to build Jill’s House. This was before we had children. We attended fundraising banquets and Peter participated in a marathon to raise funds for Jill’s House. I was pregnant with our first child at that time, and we were excited about Jill’s House coming to the community. While we were supporting Jill’s House financially, we did not know God was preparing us to experience Jill’s House firsthand!
Young Simon
Fast forward several years, and the organization we grew to love and support, is now a respite for our own family and a safe haven for our son, Simon.”
“When I was pregnant with Simon, the pregnancy progressed as expected, however, toward the end, the pregnancy changed quickly. Simon appeared to be in distress, and as a result of an emergency C-section, was born 5 ½ weeks early. Shortly after delivery, we were shocked when the doctor told us Simon had physical features consistent with Down Syndrome. The room became still and quiet. The doctor peeked over the curtain at me and I said, “He is my son, and I will love him forever!” I knew in that moment God had given him to me, to us, to our family; we trusted in the promise that God works all things together for His good. A few days following Simon’s delivery, I read in the birth file, “Mother has accepted child.”
When Simon was born, he had significant respiratory issues and remained in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) for 5 weeks. When we finally brought him home, we adjusted to life with our fourth child. In addition to the typical needs of an infant, we initially focused on managing Simon’s medical needs: numerous specialist appointments, medications, speech therapy, occupational therapy, and physical therapy. Over time, as his medical needs stabilized, and he developed physically and cognitively, it became apparent that he required constant supervision to keep him safe. The amount of supervision Simon required exhausted Peter and I and left us with little energy for each other, or for our other 5 children, ages 3-12.”
“Simon is now 7 years old and is extremely active. He enjoys playing outside, swimming, going to the beach, and building with Legos. In addition, he plays Challenger Baseball, which is for children with differing abilities, and participates on the neighborhood swim team. This fall he trying football, too. Regular physical activity is essential for Simon!”
Meet Simon King
“We enrolled Simon at Jill’s House when he turned 6, and this past Spring, he had his first day camp and overnight experience. The timing was perfect; we were physically exhausted from his high level of activity, coupled with mental exhaustion due to a constant fear of elopement. We were discouraged by our limited options for respite.
During Simon’s first overnight at Jill’s House, we took our other children to a Japanese steakhouse for dinner. Since Simon’s initial camp and overnight stay, he has participated in school weeknights stays, summer camp, and another weekend stay at Jill’s House. Jill’s House has revolutionized our life! When Simon is at Jill’s House, we know he has a blast participating in activities he loves, and we can spend more focused time with each other, and our other children.”
“I joined the Jill’s House Moms Community Bible Study, and my husband participates in the Jill’s House Dads gatherings. Other Jill’s House moms have been an encouragement to me. On the weekend retreat, one insightful mom shared that we live our life forward and understand it backwards. Looking back on our life with Simon, I can see how God has guided us through each and every day. God has never let go of our family.
Because of Jill’s House, our church, and local community, we have established relationships that love and support our family. We are eternally grateful to be part of the Jill’s House family.”
Thank you for making stories like Simon’s possible.
“Before moving to Virginia, we lived in Oklahoma, which is where Charleigh was born, New York, and Texas. Charleigh was much younger when we received the first diagnosis of Severe ASD.”
“Shortly after arriving in Virginia, Charleigh’s developmental pediatrician asked if we had heard about Jill’s House, which of course we hadn’t. Hearing about Jill’s House was a complete blessing!! We were so focused on providing the best care for Charleigh, that the idea of respite had never entered our minds.
Meet Margot and Family
“Margot has a great friend group of kids who have special needs and some who do not. Margot would say that she and her friend group are ‘Really cool!’ . They do typical teenage things like go to the movie theater, go to McDonald’s, or hang out at each other’s home. Though she has great time with her friends and her family, we also know that she needs something special and just for her. Margot’s special place is Jill’s House Windy City Camp!”
“Now that Margot has been going to camp for several years, she has developed some favorite things about camp. For starters, Margot considers herself a foodie and says the food is really good! She also loves having a camp buddy. But hands down, her most favorite thing about camp is the Talent Show. Margot will carefully prepare for the Talent Show. She plans what she will do and what props she will bring. She will sometimes dance or sing along to a favorite song.
Our older children range in age from 32-18, and after them comes our son, Peter, who is 11! Peter has Down syndrome, and once we learned all about the joys of Down syndrome, as well as the need for international adoption of children with disabilities; we became interested in pursuing that option as well. Here in the United States, there is a waiting list to adopt children with Down syndrome, but in other countries those children are often institutionalized. In Russia, at that time, children with Down syndrome were often sent to a psychiatric institution after the age of 5 or 6. That reality tore at our hearts. On top of that, Peter is much younger than his siblings, plus making friends requires lots of support, so we could see the value of a special inter-family friendship. It was a process that we started hesitatingly and prayerfully. Our agency happened to have a strong connection to China, so we eventually met our son Stephen through an assortment of little pictures and finally brought him home in 2014, which means he has been a part of our family nearly 7 years!
Peter and Stephen have grown up together! Stephen, who just turned 10, teaches Peter to be gentler, and Peter teaches Stephen to be more adventurous. Like Peter, Stephen has Down syndrome, and he has autism as well. He is almost completely non-verbal, although he can make noises to mean “Home” and “Mama”… we’re working on one for “Papa”, too!
The boys are little buddies, always playing together, inside and out. They are very different but have a lot of the same interests—which means they LOVE going to Jill’s House Blue Ridge Camp together! They’ve always gone together, which they really prefer. Their friendship is very sweet, which has been so important for each of them to have during the pandemic. We cannot even imagine what it would have been like for them to be on their own during this time.
The boys were planning on going to Blue Ridge Camp on March 13th 2020, the weekend that everything shut down! That was such a big heartbreak for us, that the world shut down on that particular weekend. That morning we had the boys’ bags packed and we thought that time at camp would be how they spent their weekend. We are SO glad to say that we have been able to come to Jill’s House Blue Ridge Camp since it reopened, which has been a joyful highlight for both the boys and for us.
Jill’s House is a place that we really have confidence—the staff are familiar with the disabilities that our children have, there is full understanding of the medical needs of our children, and the combination of fun and structure of Jill’s House is amazing. We are very fortunate that our boys are physically capable to go adventure around outside. We were stunned that there was a place that even existed like this, and the glowing recommendation of a friend is what drew us to it initially. She referred to it as “a spa for special needs children”—how accurate!
Jill’s House is such a unique operation. When we have told people in other places about Jill’s House, people who don’t have access to what we do through Jill’s House, they are amazed, because it’s hard to find programs like this. We are so grateful that we have such a wonderful thing—there really is nothing else like it. My husband, Chris, and I don’t have parents who are able to take the boys and care for them, and it’s helpful when an attendant comes to our home, but it is certainly nothing like what Jill’s House frees us up to do, including special events with our older children. It meant so much to our daughter that we drove up to her college to attend a parent’s event, were able to spend the night, and spend the next day with her—things we absolutely could not do without our boys staying overnight at Jill’s House Camp!
January 29 | 3 minute read
Respite opportunities are very hard to find—especially in Illinois. There is very little funding for it, especially in Illinois. Children who have special needs carry their own challenges, so that certainly impacts the options for someone to provide respite care. There is no other organization we know of that facilitates nights away like Jill’s House does. Jill’s House is tackling and pioneering a very challenging task, and for that we are very grateful.”
Trevor is very unique—I don’t think we’ve ever met a child with Down syndrome like Trevor. He is very high-functioning, very verbal, very involved in all parts of life, and is very athletic (he loves doing high intensity workouts!). Trevor loves to play his drums, he is deeply loyal to his high school (he is super proud to be a Tiger!), and absolutely loves movies. In fact, at Windy City Camp he will organize the entire Jill’s House staff into all the parts and characters of movies, and then they reenact the entire film, wearing costumes, as Trevor narrates!”
At home, there is pressure on our other kids to include him, or on me to entertain him. While he is having his own weekend adventure at Windy City, we can all relax. We don’t have the added level of “Well, what’s Trevor going to do? How is he going to engage?” We miss him when he’s gone, we are always ready to have him back, and we love hearing about his fun times at camp, but it is very lovely to just have that brief time of relief from the ongoing stress and tension we feel each day.”
“Churches are often looking to bless families like ours. They have big hearts, they are well-intentioned, but the ways they are typically able to help is not what we truly need at the core. They will do a big Saturday morning activity or show a movie for families affected by disability. But that limited time is not true respite. What our family really needs is a weekend off. That is too hard for a church to pull off without the help of a place like Jill’s House.