Last month I received a precious lesson around the swimming pool when my kids participated on the Marlins Swim Team. Curious moms like myself stepped out of our SUVs and minivans and stared with wide-eyed wonder at a woman driving an old Caddy, eight children in tow.
Her name is Lynn Clater but many of us simply referred to her as, "The mom with eight kids." Everyone, the husbands included, could picture the dishwater blonde with this colorful brood of children—Asian, black, white and somewhere in between. The seemingly close-knit group of all clean, smiling siblings looked like family.We leaned our heads in twos, our eyes on their entrance, their departure, speculating that she was a foster parent. Regardless, we were amazed by her patience and kindness and touched by the mutual love that flowed so easily between all of them.
"Mama, look at my backstroke!" one of them would yell, and with a kind of delicate grace she'd sashay toward the blue waters packed with kids, most often with an eight-month-old strapped around her waist and a two-year-old on her heels.
"Great! I see ya, sugar," she'd bellow over the tumult.
One day, curiosity got the best of me and I boldly asked her how she came to mother so many children. I was surprised to find that she was not a foster parent, received no government funds, but years ago decided to start Noah's Ark Children's Ministry, Inc. in her home, to care for children of imprisoned mothers.
"But why so many?" I asked her, especially after discovering she had abandoned a high-paying job and her husband had suffered heart problems.
Her good-natured response was, "Why not? We live by faith and God always provides."
For her faith and her commitment, for her love and dedication, I'd like to bestow the good neighbor award on Lynn Clater of Marietta. Thank you, Lynn, for showing my family and others what happens when you open up your home and heart and extend love and caring for the good of many.
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