This article was originally published in the Fall 2018 edition of Cardinal & Cream’s print magazine.
Sunlight poured through the windows of the living room in John and Denise Infield’s apartment, illuminating their faces as they talked about their daughter.
“Mariana has a gift for languages and for trying to communicate with people with other languages,” Denise said. “She will make you feel like you’re the most special person. She has that gift.”
Mariana Infield is a first-year student in Union’s EDGE program, a two-year transitional program designed for students with special needs to learn, develop life and social skills, enjoy the college experience, gain independence and prepare for a job in the real world. Her parents are currently in the process of moving from Wisconsin to Collierville, Tennessee, about an hour away from Jackson.
John and Denise, who have three older biological children, adopted Mariana from Romania at 16-months-old through a Christian adoption agency. Selecting a child was easy. After watching VHS tapes sent from the adoption agency, they took the first child on the first of the five tapes.
Though they were told she didn’t have special needs, Denise, who is a special education teacher, knew pretty soon that Mariana was behind developmentally. When she was little, Mariana bit herself, screamed nonstop and experienced seizures. She also had issues with attachment, a common issue for Eastern European children who don’t have a strong attachment to parents and typically experience a “break after break” of caregivers. Children like Mariana go from their mother to hospital nurses to orphanages to foster homes, until some — like Mariana — finally go to an adoptive family.
“You never want to adopt a kid to save the world,” John said. “You want to adopt a kid because you want to be a parent. That was a big thing that we began to understand as those first two years unfolded.”
Mariana always dreamt of going to college like her older siblings, but John and Denise were uncertain because there weren’t yet many opportunities for kids with special needs. This didn’t stop them from seeking out as many opportunities that they could possibly find and afford. After rejecting schools in Wisconsin and Illinois, John and Denise started to focus on schools in Florida and Nashville, which was where their older daughter lived.
Around Easter 2016, after having an interview and tour of the Nashville school, someone mentioned Union University to them. They decided to stop in Jackson. Although students were on Easter break and no one had any reason to be there, they kept running into people on campus who were excited to tell them all about Union. John was also impressed with the size and safety of the campus layout.
“I said, ‘This is right for Mariana. It’s safe. It’s strong in Christian beliefs.’”
Perhaps what impressed him the most was a speech made by Union’s president, who expressed Union’s commitment to the Word of God. Denise trusted John, but they wanted Mariana to have input.
“When we asked her where she wanted to go, she just said ‘Union. It feels like home.’ That’s all we needed to hear.”
Cheyenne Staten, EDGE student president and a Spanish and special education double major, was also a major influence on John and Denise’s decision. Staten co-teaches Mariana’s Spanish class, modifying the professor’s lesson plans to fit Mariana’s specific needs.
“You could tell they were excited, and you could tell they’re really putting a lot of faith into this program,” Staten said. “It’s a costly program and a very emotional process for [EDGE parents] to let their kids come here. They may never have been to a sleepover, and their parents are dropping them off at college.”
At the time, John and Denise didn’t intend to move. Denise was working with a great school district in Wisconsin and didn’t want to start all over in a different public school, in a state she knew little about. They planned to send her down to Union, knowing that her brothers and sister were close, confident that they would take care of her if she needed something. A year later, they visited Union’s campus again, got another tour and even met a couple of the first-year EDGE students. After talking to them, John and Denise knew that these students would be friends for Mariana.
“It’s not easy in high school,” Denise said. “She was in a good high school. She was in a very inclusive environment. But, you know, kids still are kids. She said just last week ‘I really feel like I have friends here. It’s not like high school.’ And I thought, ‘Oh my goodness. This is what we want.’”
With one son developing medicines for the University of Iowa, another studying to become a doctor and a daughter having served as communications director for a U.S. Representative, John and Denise admit that their older children were “easy,” but point out that Mariana is every bit as successful as their other children.
“Why would we say she’s not just as successful as anybody else in what she does?” Denise said. “She’s still got a plan and a purpose. God has a plan and purpose.”
John, who teaches at a drug rehab program called Teen Challenge and has taught everything from Sunday school to men’s ministry, loves teaching Mariana. He’s been teaching her the Old Testament most recently, and the two will frequently FaceTime and go through what she’s reading.
John always had dreams for his children, particularly for all of them to play baseball. While all four did end up being athletic in some way (Mariana being a gifted swimmer), other dreams have not been realized.
“The hard part is wondering when you stop and say to yourself, ‘Look, she’s not going to ever drive, so don’t think about it,’” John said. “You’ve gotta know where the limits are.”
“But then you don’t want to stop dreaming or give up on her,” Denise added.
“That’s the hardest part,” John said.
“Our [EDGE] parents are some of the coolest people you’ll ever meet, some of the strongest people you’ll ever meet,” Staten said. “If you think about any struggle that you would expect any parent to have to go through, it’s so much more when you have a student with a disability.”
Although life has been challenging, they wouldn’t have it any other way.
“Jesus could come here in the next 20 minutes,” John said. “What would it matter that our lives were so hard back then? It wouldn’t. Would I go back and change it? No. And I don’t say that flippantly, because anybody would like to say ‘well wouldn’t you like to have a normal kid’? But I would say no. I can see God in all of this. It changed us. God has a plan for her life, just like He has a plan for ours.”
John and Denise say they’ve already seen God do miraculous things for Mariana since she started the EDGE program and are thrilled to see her thrive. They take comfort in the fact that she’s got roommates and mentors looking after her, that she’s surrounded by a loving community and that she is in a safe and secure environment. Their next big prayer is that Mariana, who has already been on three mission trips of her own, would fulfill her dreams of becoming a missionary.
After talking to the photographer for two hours about Mariana and their story, they care enough to take the time to pray for us because, just like their love for Mariana, their faith is unwavering.
Photo by Campbell Padgett
