FeaturesNovember 10, 2017
Chantelle Becking strives to make a difference through her family and community
She describes herself as a one-time business woman for a Fortune 500 company who might be annoyed by a woman with a child sitting behind her on an airplane. For those familiar with Becking, her self-assessment might bring a smile. If the 1992 graduate of Dexter High School were as depicted, she surely crash landed somewhere along the way...
Chantelle Becking can be humorously self-deprecating.
She describes herself as a one-time business woman for a Fortune 500 company who might be annoyed by a woman with a child sitting behind her on an airplane.
For those familiar with Becking, her self-assessment might bring a smile.
If the 1992 graduate of Dexter High School were as depicted, she surely crash landed somewhere along the way.
Maybe it was in Thailand, where she finally nailed down an elusive college degree. Or possibly somewhere on the continent of Africa, where she roamed alone on a "personal mission."
Somehow, somewhere, her illusion of what life should be went down in a trail of smoke.
"It was never my goal in life to have five kids, but it's just taken a totally different turn," Becking says with a smile.
Smiling is something she does quite often, and quite beautifully at that. She's one of the annual models at the VintageNOW Fashion Show, a benefit for the Safe House for Women.
It's the smile of letting go and trusting, whether it be in gut or God.
It led her and husband Eric to adopt a first daughter, Bianca, from Guatemala, then a second, Solie, from Ethiopia, then daughters Ari, Dolly and Lennyx through foster care, five girls ranging in age from 11 to 2.
It also led to donating a kidney on July 26 to a person she previously didn't know.
Becking was contacted for this story about that donation, after public posts were made on Facebook shortly after the procedure, but she still remains hesitant to talk too much about the experience.
The donation is part of a philosophy she's also adopted, and something she wants her children to see.
"Even to me, with this kidney donation, I'm committed to not wasting a day," Becking says. "We kind of joke around about it, but it's true, I'm not leaving anything on the table in my life."
She and her husband own a weight-loss clinic, Becking Clinic. It's a 13-year-old business where they attempt to transform outlooks and lives, which in turn affects outward appearance.
Her own personal transformation happened over time through a series of worldwide experiences that gave her perspective and opened her eyes to the needs of others, and the trivial nature of her own worries.
She was living in St. Louis, where Eric was attending school to become a chiropractor, when a mentor challenged her with the idea of continuing to pursue a degree abroad. The piece of paper had eluded her grasp at both Southeast Missouri State University and the University of Missouri.
She traveled halfway around the globe, but attained a degree in media communications at Webster University's study abroad program in Thailand, a country where she could not read signs or speak the language. She learned to trust people, and it inspired her to see more of the world, including going to Africa, where she traveled from country to country with basically a backpack and trust.
"It was just a personal mission of mine," Becking says. "God was with me, but I'm not a missionary at all."
Traveling the likes of Uganda, Kenya, Zimbabwe and South Africa, she saw the circumstances and dire needs, ones fundamental to life.
"There was a baby at one of the orphanages that was HIV positive and I just fell in love with her," Becking said. "Actually I came home from there thinking we were going to figure out a way to adopt her, and she didn't live. So I think the relationship I built with that child specifically, it just changed my perspective on kids, and even just wanting to have a kid. I never really wanted to have a kid before that, and so when we decided to have a family, we decided to adopt, and at the time Guatemala was a really solid adoption program."
About 10 years into their marriage, Bianca arrived, just months before the adoption program was ended with that country, reaffirming her mindset to act quickly on instinct, which soon led to Solie.
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Her attention then turned inside the borders of her own country, although she said she initially was not on board with being a foster mom.
"What I found is I would go places with my own girls, and a lot of the feedback I got from people is, 'Well, why wouldn't you do something here locally?' And I was so offended, because this is where I feel like God led me," she says. "But after a while, I thought I should at least know what is happening here, because you just don't know. No one knows here until they're exposed to it."
She learned about the drug epidemic in Southeast Missouri and its young victims -- children removed from homes due to the problem and caught in an ongoing cycle.
"We thought we'd just get licensed and see what happens, and that literally, like, changed my whole life," Becking said. "I mean it was radical. I had no idea what I was getting into, but it's probably, I don't know, it's probably been one of the more painful things and also just, like, the most amazing thing we've done in our lives, because the children that have been through our home. ... Man, it's just been crazy."
Her family lived in proximity to the Missouri Children's Division and often served for overnight emergency placement.
"Man, it's just so humbling. You just see these kids ... they just need ... and even for their parents. I think I went through phases of my life where I thought, 'Well, how could any parent be ...' but a lot of times it's just a cycle," she says. "You know, so maybe their parents were raised in the same situation. It's not like they had an opportunity to change their lives."
It's a situation both she and Eric could relate to, noting they both grew up without fathers in their lives.
Somehow they ended up with five girls, which she says started off by design but progressed by happenstance.
"When we adopted Solie and Bianca from those countries, specifically, I wanted to adopt girls, because I knew what was happening to young ladies growing up in those countries that were underprivileged. So to me that was very clear," Becking says. "But then when we became foster parents, we didn't really care. But we always seemed to get placed with girls."
WShe said they fostered about 13 children, one a boy they hoped to adopt but the situation did not work out.
"It's not that we didn't want boys, 'cause I would have loved to have had a boy, especially as my girls are starting to get [older] ... I'm like, 'Whooh, we should have had one fellow in here.'"
November is National Adoption Month, and Becking is a staunch advocate, mainly through experience.
"A lot of times people unintentionally say, 'Oh, they're so lucky to have you,' and I do a lot of writing about adoptions, and I always try to help people understand that that's probably the last thing you want to say to an adoptive family, because the truth always is we're the one's who are always so lucky," Becking says. "They're the ones who've changed our lives. We didn't change their lives. They just showed up. They're just kids. They just need to be loved, which is easy. But they have just shown us so much. They are resilient and strong and capable.
"Honestly, at the core of every kid that I had, they just want to be loved, just like grownups, but people don't talk about that. And really it's just our mission to love people and make a difference in the world.
She talks about each of their five children like a snowflake, each landing in their own space: Bianca is the responsible oldest sister, very driven; Solie is a free spirit in no rush for anything, with an infectious way of enjoying life and living in the moment; Ari has a fierce will, a survivor and fighter; Dolly is both blessed and cursed with cuteness -- "Her life is not very realistic because everyone thinks she's so adorable, and she is," Becking says; and Lennyx, a "total personality" who gets away with everything and runs the show -- "We swore we wouldn't be that family, but we are," Becking says, laughing.
Like any family, she admits they're not perfect. There are the mad dashes to get everyone ready for school, and there are even funny pictures on Facebook of two daughters sharing a large T-shirt with "Becking Girls Get Along Shirt" on the front.
"It's challenging to raise five kids, especially with all under the age of 11," Becking says. "But with my girls, the best thing I can do for them, and this is still kind of new to me, the best thing I can do for them is to live a good life for myself. To really just show them. I mean, I can tell them a thousand things, and I can raise them to be strong and powerful and in touch with their emotions, but if I'm not ... And that's one thing we see in our business everyday."
She and Eric were in the same graduating class at Dexter, dated in high school, and she refers to him as "The love of my life." They've been married 20 years and opened their business 13 years ago.
"So many things I dreaded telling him because I thought, 'What is he going to think?'" she says. "And every time I've said, 'Hey, I really think we're supposed to do this,' he's said, 'OK.' Even if it's probably stressed him to the max, he still has just always had my back."
This even with her radical decision to help someone in the community despite having five young ones at home.
The kidney donation, which appeared spontaneous to many who knew her, was six months in the works after she found out she was a unique match with the potential recipient. Much of the "spontaneity" was because she knew it was a radical decision and there would be a multitude of opinions. With the relative short span of time since the surgery, for both her and the recipient, she is guarded on the subject but steadfast in her conviction.
"Now I'm just grateful that in the scheme of things it's a certain amount of time for healing and emotional healing and stuff, but if it makes a difference for somebody else, like, yeah, you do it -- if you're meant to do it," Becking said. "I'm not saying everybody should give a kidney or adopt or foster care."
She laughs at the words, then pauses.
"I just don't want to live a regular life. I want to live in my passion, and my passion and my heart and my husband, too, we really live to make the world better, in our own little space. In our little-bitty space of where we are, you know, and just live a life that is happy, and just truly being happy with where we're at."
Or in another "word," one with which she closed an adoption post on her Facebook page and one that reflects her philosophy to roll with life: #BeckingPartyofSeven.
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