Autism Awareness- God's provision

So when I started this blog I thought I'd keep up with it weekly, but here I am finally starting my second post seven months after my first. About every two months I start a blog post and then never finish. (In fact, I started this post in February..) So, you all missed my unpublished posts about surviving Hurricane Sandy, hosting my in-laws for Thanksgiving, learning how to celebrate Christmas without Christmas decorations and how to love being super poor newly-weds.

And that brings us to April-- autism awareness month. Four years ago I was completely unaware of autism, people with autism or families affected by autism. This is the story of how God has directed my path towards people with autism, autism intervention and a path closer to Him.

Photo by Lauren Guy Summersett 

The spring of 2009 I was a sophomore linguistics major at Baylor without any career ideas. I was just as confused as my first-grade self that had aspirations of being a "nun and a mom." I was in the middle of final papers when I ran into an acquaintance (now friend) at Common Grounds who was writing a paper for "Child Language Acquisition" about a little boy she worked with who had autism. She told me a little about her job doing in-home ABA therapy and I asked if her client needed more therapists because I was desperate to stay in Waco over the summer. Long story short, I was hired less than a week later.

Photo by Lauren Guy Summersett

Photo by Lauren Guy Summersett

I expected to enjoy my new job, but I was surprised at how quickly silent little Adam became my friend, my secret keeper and my teacher as well as my student. It only took a few months for me to realize that I wanted to become a "Board Certified Behavior Analyst" to continue working with children with autism as my career, my passion and my ministry. By the next spring Baylor's educational psychology department started a specialization in ABA and opened the Baylor Autism Resource Center. I graduated a part of the second cohort.

Chris deferred from Princeton so I could finish my masters degree but I knew that once we got married we'd be moving up to New Jersey for Chris' graduate school. We had no connections up here but I figured that with 1 in 88 kids diagnosed with autism in the US, I'd be able to find some work. Little did I know that I was moving to the state with the highest autism rate in the country and that my apartment would be 15 minutes away from one of the oldest and most renowned clinics/schools in the world for people with autism.

Although I applied to dozens of clinics/schools months before our move, I moved up here unemployed. Chris' tuition bills were coming in quickly and my student loan debt was not going to pay itself, so I began applying for every nannying job on the Princeton job board, hoping to buy myself some time to make more connections in the autism world and begin my career. Unbelievably, the first family to call me back was a Christian family with 4-year-old triplets... two of the kiddos have autism and both go to Princeton Child Development Institute (PCDI), my ultimate dream job. Not only did I get to nanny for the family but I also was involved with the kids' home-programming and got training from their PCDI behavior analysts. 

In January a temporary position opened up at one of PCDI's group homes. The hours were a little weird, but I thought that perhaps I could get my foot in the door for a full-time position the following school year. So I applied to PCDI for the third time. This time I got an interview and got a job-- but not the temporary job that I originally interviewed for. Instead I was hired as a full-time behavior analyst/trainer in the adult life skills program at the school!! 

I love my job. Love PCDI. Love my coworkers. Love my clients. Love the top-notch training that I am receiving. I even love my cubicle. (I also love having a salary and benefits... it's way easier to pay off loans with one of those.)

I used to be worried that I would never figure out "what I wanted to be when I grew up," but God answered that question through an iced Cowboy Coffee and a final paper. I used to have no idea where to get the training I needed to work in behavior analysis, but God answered that question by beginning an ABA program literally in my backyard. I used to worry that I would fill my time during Chris' graduate school with "filler" jobs, delaying my career. Instead God brought us to the best place in the world for my career without me even knowing it. I used to worry that I'd never get the chance to work at PCDI and that I'd be stuck looking from the outside in, but instead my job position enables me to shadow and learn from one of the best behavior analysts in the country!! God is so faithful. 

I'm a super-planner, type A, control freak. I have always struggled giving up control and listening to God's direction. I am grateful that He continues to guide my path even when I'm looking the other way or am too busy "figuring it out" by myself to listen. I cannot wait to see what God has to come for me and all of my friends with autism.

-Brigid