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the baby’s body causing injury. This condition is usuallydiagnosed during a prenatal ultrasound, giving the parentstime to prepare themselves before birth. In Evan’s case,however, the diagnosis was missed and was quite a shockto his parents.“Initially, we were devastated,” explained Wendi, “It wasjust such a shock to us, and we were worried about what hisfuture held.” Wendi admits that she really struggled thefirst year of Evan’s life, mourning her expectations of what“normal” would look like for her son. But she continuallyprayed over him and eventually found some Facebooksupport groups where other moms whose children sharedsimilar conditions helped her see that Evan could not onlysurvive this challenge, but could thrive with only one hand.“We decided early on that we would not let him feel sorryfor himself,” said Wendi. “We don’t even call it a disability.We call it a limb difference. He is not disabled at all. Hecan do anything and everything other kids can do, he justhas to do it in a different way.”Sometimes figuring out that “different way” wasincredibly frustrating for Evan and his parents. “There weretimes I would see him struggle to learn how to do somethingnew, and I mean, really struggle, but I never let him see meupset about it. Of course as a mom, it broke my heart toseem him struggle or hurting or to watch as he had to fightfor what came easy to other kids. But if I was upset, I wouldgo in another room to process those emotions, and wouldcome back out when I was ready to encourage him to keepworking. We always told him to get back up and try again.Keep trying until you figure out what works.”That strategy has paid off immensely as Evan nowsuccessfully plays many sports, plays guitar, and even ridesdirt bikes with his younger brother, Drew. He uses a specialprosthetic for a few select activities. His dirt bike prostheticis specifically designed to release if he loses control or hasan accident, so he is not trapped in a dangerous situation.However, he mostly just makes due with his “little arm” ashis family calls it. The prosthetics feel heavy and bulky andhe has learned to accomplish daily tasks without one. Andwhile archery may seem like one of those tasks that Evanwould require a prosthetic, Evan simply learned to shootwithout his right arm entirely.About two years ago, Wes Teten saw some videosonline of one-handed archers shooting the way Evan haslearned to shoot–with his mouth. He showed the videosto Evan and they got excited to try something new. Wesdesigned all the mouthpieces that Evan uses to pull backhis bowstring and, simply through trial and error, theyeventually came up with a design that was a perfect fit.Evan then joined the Discovery Christian School archeryteam, where he is a student and Wendi is the head ofschool. Coach Dennis Adams, the owner and head coachof Mississippi Archery Academy is also the head archerycoach at Discovery Christian School. Coach Adams hasworked with Evan from the beginning and taught him to“pick his spot” and aim just like all the rest of his archerystudents. Coach Adams believes that archery is the mostinclusive sport there is because it doesn’t take specialathletic ability or skill to be good. It only takes practice,and Evan has been successful because he loves the sportand works hard at what he does. Evan loves archery so muchthat he is beginning to train in Olympic style shootingand hopes to compete in archery professionally one day.It is obvious that Wes and Wendi’s strategy of raisingEven to not feel sorry for himself has been successful. Evanis a happy, confident kid with a big heart and a great attitude.Clearly, there is no bitterness or self-pity regarding his limbdifference, and he has figured out that God allowed thisin his life for a reason. Some people have even tried to tellEvan that one day in Heaven he will be “fixed” and willhave both his hands. But Wendi insists that is the wrongway to look at it. “That implies that something is wrongwith him,” she explained, “And that really isn’t the case.He’s perfect just the way he is. He can do anything he putshis mind to.” Evan even says that he likes his “little arm”so much that he hopes God lets him keep it in Heaven.Although COVID-19 changed the way archerycompetitions were held this school year, Evan and his DCSarchery team were still able to compete and they achievedsome incredible awards in spite of all the challenges andchanges from the pandemic. The DCS elementaryarchery team won first place overall in the South Statetournament and second overall in the state tournament.Individually, Evan received overall high score, top malearcher, and overall top archer because he had the highestcombined scores for both tournaments.Hometown RANKIN • 53