"Good morning!” shouts 15-year-old Tom, the self-proclaimed human alarm clock, as he bursts through the bedroom door at 5:30 a.m. Shelby and Leonie Goertzen smile as another day begins, grateful for their new life and a bit overwhelmed, too.
Tom, who is autistic and recently learned to sleep all night, has been living with the Goertzens since April, along with six siblings and his mom, who is fighting breast cancer.
Three years ago, Shelby, a speech language pathologist, and Leonie, an occupational therapist, had a plan — to quickly get out of school debt and start a family by their early 30s.
Then Shelby was asked to help with the Pathfinder Club at Fresno Central church. “My parents did an excellent job as leaders,” he says. He wanted to give that to other kids. Leonie, the organized one, agreed to help, too.
About 60 percent of the club members were from the neighborhood. That’s how the Goertzens met this family. “I saw that these were very smart kids and they caught on quickly,” Shelby remembers.
He met their single mom and learned that there were nine children, ages 7-15, living in a two-bedroom apartment. Mom, a Hmong, came to the United States from a Thailand refugee camp when she was 14. Putting food on the table and getting the kids to school was this survivor’s daily focus.
Home visits began as needs beyond Pathfinders surfaced. Last year, John started to get into trouble. “He was a leader without a purpose,” says Shelby. Structure and attention might make a difference so John moved in with them for the summer.
“It changed my life,” says John. “I didn’t have the same thoughts to get into trouble.” All agreed he should stay during the school year, too. His biggest adjustments were a “too quiet” house and the food. “After about six months, you get used to it [food],” he explains. Leonie’s upside down pizza/cornbread dish and haystacks are now his favorites, and the Goertzens have learned to eat more rice.
In December, the kids' mom mentioned that she didn’t feel well. She was diagnosed with breast cancer (stage 4) and treatments immediately began. She soon was too ill to care for the children.
The Goertzens had another idea — joint guardianship. “Their greatest fear was loosing their mom and their family,” says Shelby. “No one in the foster system takes seven children. To them, being separated was a fate worse than death.”
“How can we not take them?” they asked each other. Remember their family plan? In April the last payment on their college loans was made. The next week, they got the children.
Michael (17), John’s twin brother, James (16), Tom (15), MaivnKauj (12), Mai Ying (11), Na (10), and their mom moved in. (The two oldest boys live with their dad in Wisconsin and an uncle in Fresno.)
Everyone’s life changed. Some kids changed schools. Shelby and Leonie felt like taxi drivers, shuttling kids to and from four schools and mom to chemo treatments. Leonie was “shell-shocked” after the first grocery story trip and the gasoline budget went “through the roof!”
(Their church family helped, giving clothes and donating a 15-passenger van. Member Joyce Tara helps with the younger children and Tom.)
“This is a high-stress environment. It’s a challenge for the kids and us as well,” Shelby says. Discipline is based on a point system with an allowance as a reward. Everyone has chores which rotate weekly. “I hate wiping counters and love feeding the pets,” reports Na.
Sabbath-keeping is also a new experience. “We will not tell you what to believe,” they told the children. “The best we can do for you is to help you come to know Jesus. Going to church is a part of getting to know Him.”
Shelby says he’s grown so much in the last three years. “I was busy doing whatever I wanted to do, now I’m doing what God wants me to do.”
And he and Leonie have no doubt that this is God’s plan for them. “If God asks you to do something, are you willing or not? We are willing.”
