Wednesday, March 26, 2014

UPDATE!

A family is coming for Wesley!  Such a blessing!  I sure hope they blog so that all those who love and cherish Wesley can watch him come home!

Monday, March 24, 2014

Danny's Story

It's been remarked to me over and over that the story of how we found both our boys is fairly remarkable and I keep meaning to share, but both of them are long stories so I have been putting it off in favor of advocacy, but today I decided to get started.  They are too long to post in the same blog, so I will do two.  This first one is geared towards our oldest son to be, and the first child that we picked for this actual adoption.

We started out this journey inadvertently.  It was never our intention to adopt internationally.  It was always our intention to adopt, but only in America, and only from foster care.  In early fall of last year, we'd been waiting on a foster care placement for a little over a year, I think.  It was hard because we were only interested in children who were already legally free for adoption.  We do have a son, who is 13, who has special needs that make it extremely difficult for our family to have changes.  We spoke extensively with him and he was eager for more siblings, but a revolving door would never work for him.  So it was essential to find children who could definitely be a part of our family.  We were not worried about our chances of having a placement quickly, since we were looking for a sibling group of older children, above the age of five, just what most people DO NOT want.  The thing we did not bank on is New Mexico's policy for dealing with foster children.  They desperately need more foster parents and don't have the time or resources to deal with children who are legally free, as those separations take time and that means those children already have a foster home.  Moving them would take time.  Their focus is entirely on new foster homes.  Occasionally, they would approach us with children and we would ask to move forward with full disclosure.  In every occasion, CYFD would never offer up full disclosure.  They would not return our emails as a general rule, and then, after a couple of months, they would call and ask if anyone had gotten back to us.  We would say no, and they would say, oh, someone will get back to you.  Rinse and repeat for months and months.

Occasionally, we do respite for foster care, and we do enjoy that, but a legal risk sibling group was definitely not for us, so we were content to wait.  We have three lovely bio children and we love kids, but growing our family wasn't our primary purpose in looking to adopt.  Our purpose was to help give children a family, especially children we thought would be hard to place, older sibling groups.  If not for one "random" event, we'd probably still be there, just patiently waiting. 

In, what I believe was, September or possibly October, of 2013 I was scanning Facebook.  I have been a strong adoption advocate my entire life, literally.  When I graduated from high school, I sang in the senior recital.  The song I sang is a song about adoption told through the perspective of the birth mother, "From God's Arms, to My Arms, to Yours" and I cried all the way through it.  In retrospect, everyone in my school probably thought I was pregnant lol.  But really I've always been just that emotional about adoption.  So I like to scan FB looking for information about adoption that other people could potentially use as a resource.  A friend of mine, and for the life of me, I can't remember who that friend was, or which family the FSP belonged to, posted about a friend of theirs who was adopting and posted a link to that family's Family Support Profile on a site called Reece's Rainbow.

I had never heard of Reece's Rainbow and had never considered international adoption really at all.  I had known exactly two people who adopted internationally, and neither one happened while I was around.  One was a girl from China, non special needs, who had been adopted probably seven years before I met the family, whom I met in 1993.  The other was a family who had adopted two boys from Russia who obviously had FAS and were extremely hyperactive.  They'd adopted the boys probably five years before I met them, back in 1998.  Those were my only exposures to international adoption, and both families were extremely wealthy.  If I thought of international adoption at all, I thought of it as something that only the very rich did.

I scanned Reece's Rainbow, and had never heard of most of what they were talking about.  I tucked away the information and left.  But, I kept going back.  I kept looking at and thinking about those children.  I started to do little bits of research on the situation in other countries.  I started reading a blog here or there that illustrated the truth about the international orphan crisis.  Once I began to learn more, I started to think maybe it wasn't something I should ignore and assume was a problem for the wealthy to deal with.  I inquired after a sweet girl in Ukraine, who is now coming home.  The response I got was unbelievably complicated in my mind, and I said to myself, whoa, that's way too much! 

But I still kept hanging around, reading about families in process.  Reading about children who needed a home.  Reading about what these children go through.  I joined the Reece's Rainbow Facebook group and started giving money to families adopting and then started advocating for children who were waiting.  I still felt it wasn't for me though.  I read about the same kids over and over, but it was purely academic.  Then one day, I read, for perhaps the third time, the profile of a girl in Ukraine (not the girl listed above, a different child).  I won't tell her name because I am telling her country.  She has significant special needs.  She is non-mobile, she's non-verbal.  She has a brain difference, and there was no way for us to know what she would ever be able to accomplish.  But suddenly, it was like a lightening bolt.  I knew, without a doubt, that this was our future and this was what God wanted us to do.  I had absolutely no doubt that I was being commanded.  I had no fears and no hesitation.  This happened very quickly, without any warning.  I had already read this girls profile, as well as all the other RR children, many times.  I don't know what was so different about that time, but it was as firm as a testimony.  We were to rescue this child. 

My husband came home and discovered me crying, as I had been for maybe half an hour to 45 minutes, since the moment I read her profile again.  I said, "this girl is our child."  I think he was slightly alarmed at first lol, but he agreed that this was something we needed to do.  We knew we had no money really, and no clue how we were going to pull it off, but when God called so loudly, it wasn't ours to question, it was ours to go and do.  We started calling around and chose an agency to do our Ukrainian homestudy.  We had no doubt we would be approved.  We gave the homestudy agency a piece of information about a way we did not qualify to adopt from Ukraine.  I have a history of generalized anxiety disorder.  Ukraine says flat out that anyone with a history of anxiety disorder or depression is ineligible for adoption from their country.  The homestudy agency felt this could easily be waived, especially considering that I'd never had any real treatment, just a diagnosis.  However, once we paid our first amounts and got energetically started, it was brought to our attention that Ukraine had absolutely no intention of approving us, despite the lack of tangible anxiety issues.

It was devastating.  I won't pretend that our hearts weren't broken.  I couldn't understand why Heavenly Father had lit such a powerful fire under us, only to have it be an impossibility.  People suggested to us that it was to get us geared towards thinking about international adoption, but I just couldn't wrap my mind around that.  Why not just give us the message that this was our calling, and not specifically call us to bring this little girl home?  After a few weeks in agony, we received conformation together that it was true.  That without a child to focus on, I would never have had such clarity, and that international adoption was our calling.

But that left us in a situation where we planned to adopt, but we knew very strongly that Heavenly Father would tell us which children were right.  If this was his will for us, he would guide us to find the child or children that he meant for us to rescue.  We pulled away from our homestudy and it was put on hold.  Without a country to focus on, it was useless to work on the homestudy, which are country specific and can easily been done incorrectly if you don't have a specific country in mind.

We set out to find the right child or children.  We knew they were out there.  We had literally no guidelines from which to work.  We had no age level we wouldn't accept.  We had no special needs we refused to consider.  We had no genders in our mind.  We didn't even have a country in mind!  In case you're curious, that's a lot of potential children.  We looked at literally thousands of children, in dozens and dozens of countries.  I knew that if the child was the right one, we would know, with the power of lightening confidence, the way we did with the girl from Ukraine.  I can't even explain to you how many profiles I went through.  None of them were the ones.  Occasionally, I would find one and put it aside, but a second reflection still didn't bring the feelings I had felt with the girl we had hoped would be our daughter.

Eventually, I began to despair that we'd ever find the right children, but we refused to move forward with a child that God wasn't directing us to bring home.  We had felt it before, we knew it would happen again, when the time was right.

In late November, or early December 2013, I saw Robert Molloy, a wonderful advocate for Chinese children, especially older boys, who works for two huge advocacy and orphan groups, Defend Me and Bring Me Hope, post about a group of aging out boys.  Tragically, nearly all of those boys have now aged out, but I have never made a secret of the fact it's older children who really touch my heart.  I sent a message to Robert asking how I could help.  We spoke for a long time.  He asked if I was adopting and I said, indeed, I was not.  But that we hoped to.  We would when we found the right child.  He engaged me in a conversation about our family and asked what our children were like, what we were like.  What we enjoyed doing, where we liked going.  What we considered important.  I really just thought it was a conversation.

However, at the end, he said, here's a child for you.  Then he posted a link. 

I thought he simply meant, here, I'd like you to look at this child.  I almost overlooked the link.  We'd talked about dozens of children I could advocate for, but none that regarded me in particular.  It took me a few minutes to remember he'd posted it and scroll back up to read it.  Really, though, he was right spot on.  He had a child for us.  The singular suggestion he offered after listening to what I said about us was exactly the right one.  I read this boy's profile, whose advocacy name was Daniel, and it was instant recognition in my soul.  He was the one.  Finally, after all of that time, and all of those countries, and all of those many, many children, there was finally the reinforcement from God that here was the right child.  I was so excited I could hardly wait until Mike got home.  I called him upstairs, had him read the profile and he knew instantly too.  This time he was the one with tears.  Like the girl in Ukraine, there was no doubt or hesitation.

Daniel, or Danny as he came to be known, because there was another Daniel or two on Reece's Rainbow when we set up our FSP, is about 11 years old (within a few weeks) and has been on shared list for a long time.  He's been sitting and waiting, looking for the day when someone would finally notice him and make him a son, a brother, and a grandson.  It's so hard to be noticed on the shared list.  He's far beyond the age where people are even going to scroll down the shared list just looking.  And his file is a hot mess.  It's years old.  Last updated when he was FOUR!  He is eleven years old!  I'm guessing that's about when they gave up on his ever being adopted.  His file was full of frightening brain issues.  But I didn't have to panic, because I had already spoken to Robert at length about him.  Basically, without advocacy, this boy would have had no chance at all!  

We were so excited that we moved forward without even telling Robert!  He was totally shocked to discover we had submitted our LOI for Daniel after I asked him to say hello to Daniel while visiting his orphanage over Christmas!  While he was there, Daniel asked him if he had found a family for him yet.  Robert wasn't able to tell him about us, but it was a sad commentary on how aware these older children are that their time is running out and that they have the potential to age out without ever knowing the love and safety of home!

It would have been so easy for Daniel to be lost in the shuffle if not for the advocacy of a lone young man, only just turned 21, trying relentlessly to find a home for these children.  That's why I spend so much time trying to find homes for other people's children.  I am so thankful that Robert does what he does and so thankful that Heavenly Father gave us the endurance to wait for the right child and the confidence that he would whisper to us the truth. 

So, that's the story of our sweet boy, Danny.  And after that epic novel ;) I will wait to write about how we found "Wayne" until another day!

Amber

Friday, March 21, 2014

Wesley is Waiting

Tonight I'd like to tell you about a boy.  Sometimes, there's a particular child who touches my heart, or who tugs at my soul in such a way that I would love to be able to bring them home myself.  It kills me to know these particular children are desperate for a family, in a way that is much deeper than the general feeling of sorrow I have for a child without a family.

One of those children is Wesley. 

Wesley will age out in late summer, in August 2014.  He's approximately 13 years old.  It's hard for China to know how old a child is when they aren't abandoned as a baby.  With babies, it's much clearer what you're looking at.  Wesley was not a baby when he was abandoned.  He was not even a toddler.  Heck, he was not even a preschooler.  He was found, standing alone in front of the orphanage, left behind by his family, when he was six years old.

Can you imagine?  Can you imagine being six, old enough to know, old enough to be congizant of the fact that the person you trust the most has turned from you and left you without anyone?  In my mind, the scenario plays over and over.  Did they tell him anything?  Did they promise to be back to get him to stay?  Did they say they loved him, or just tell him to get out and stay there until someone came?  Maybe someday he'll tell his adoptive parents what really happened, when he's home and settled in and comfortable, and, finally finally, safe.  For us, all we can do is know that his sorrow and trauma must have seemed insurmountable to his little heart.  I tear up when I think about it.  My heart is broken by this boy and his experiences.  Such a hard world for a child so young.

I can't begin to speculate why Wesley's family left him alone in a strange place to the care of people he had never met on August 24, 2006.  I can't begin to imagine what they were thinking.  I hope that they were as heartbroken as he must have been, and I hope their reasons were good ones.  But in the end, that doesn't really matter.  Wesley was six.  A sweet little kindergartner, and he was left at the gates of orphanage that would become his home.  In his file it's noted that an employee of the orphanage found "a boy whom no one cared for" abandoned by the gate.

It's clear that these words were meant to mean something pragmatic.  That he was left alone, without any supervision, at the gate to the orphanage.  But the poignancy of these words is profound.  The boy whom no one cared for.  I'm sure that he felt every inch of that.  A child left behind by all he'd ever known in the world.  Unloved and uncared for.  And that's where he still is today.  Seven years later and he's still the boy whom no one cares for.  A boy without a family.  A boy without a home.  A boy who will lose any chance of finding the basic human need for love fulfilled by a family in just months.  

Look at this boy's face.

Wesley New

Look past the initial surprise of his being an albino, and see a little boy who deserves so much more.  His files say he is gentle.  Sensible.  Polite and easy to get along with.  After being left at such a crucial point in his life, he is still polite and gentle and easy to know and love.  I don't know that, with all of my blessings, a person would call me gentle and easy to love.  Wesley is a strong soul.  A special one.  I found this information about Wesley's file from a beautiful blog post written a couple of years ago, I would link it if I remembered where I read it.  And still, after years, he waits. (Updated to add: the blog post I found his file info from is here http://mad.ly/4bca94 and it's lovely.)  

Wesley's special need is visible for all to see.  His albinism makes his eyes sensitive and his vision slightly lessened.  He needs to cover up to protect himself from the brutal sun.  This is an easy, easy need.  Wesley is otherwise healthy, cognitively normal, and full of energy.  Every child deserves so much more than an orphanage, but Wesley could be such a blessing to a family.  I feel like while I am still breathing, I can't let this boy age out.  Someone please see him!  Let his face and his past touch your soul and know that he is your child.

Wesley has a TEN THOUSAND dollar grant with Reece's Rainbow.  That's a big grant.  Wesley is on the shared list, which means his file can be worked by any agency.  But WACAP, who is a wonderful, wonderful agency that I can't say enough good things about, has offered any parent who uses their agency to adopt Wesley an additional FOUR THOUSAND dollar grant.  That's a combined FOURTEEN THOUSAND dollars to bring this boy home.  Wesley is aging out.  It's not unlikely that, if asked, his orphanage will waive his orphanage fee.  Those typically run right around 8,000 give or take.  So it's very possible that this child could start an adoption process with TWENTY-TWO THOUSAND dollars already there for him.  That is most of an adoption.  Nearly all of it.

You can find out more about Wesley by clicking here and here.  Please see him, share him with your friends.  Help him to find the people who will make him a son, a brother, a grandson and a nephew.  The people who will make him something beside the boy whom no one cared for.


Amber
 

Thursday, March 13, 2014

Adorable Andrew/Andersen




This boy is so cute.  


Update:  Andrew has been returned to the shared list and is no longer with Great wall.  For more information on Andrew, please now email Rebecca Coleman at JCandRebecca@Yahoo.com


Two nights ago I was looking through the children on Reece's Rainbow and I noticed his profile, here  http://reecesrainbow.org/71204/andersen  He has all of $9 in his account, and I'm the one who put it there, yesterday.  What this tells me is that this boy doesn't get noticed.  And he's sososososososo cute.  And all boy.  He is 6 years old, with a repaired congenital heart defect.  Now he's healthy.  Currently he's with Great Wall of China, but his file is due to be returned soon.  I'd sure love to see this sweet boy find a home!  Here's what GWCA says about him on his profile, which you can find here http://adoptablewaitingchild.com/portfolio/andrew/

Hi, I’m Andrew!  I am 6 years old and I am the life of the party.  I had surgery when I was very young because I had CHD, and, since then, I have been feeling better!  I am able to play with my friends and I love to dance and sing.  I am very smart and love to ask questions.  I am a great eater and my favorite food is sweet fruit.  My caregivers say that I am typical boy that loves anything with wheels!
I met a very nice adoption advocate this summer and this is what she had to say about me.
“I met this 6 year old boy with CHD.   This little guy had so much energy and was ALL BOY running around and playing and showing off for us. I was alone in a stairwell with him and nearly fainted when he jumped from the halfway point on a flight of stairs to beat me to the bottom! I tried to scold him but he gave me one of those smiles that led me to believe he was gonna do it again on the next flight…yep… This little guy is so full of life and just adorable!!! I imagine he keeps his foster mother on her toes! He was very curious about us and followed us all over the orphanage building.”

You can see his information on GWCA's site or RR.  Or you can email louise@adoptablewaitingchild.com for more information about this adorable guy!

Just for fun, I want to leave you with a link to a video of Andrew being way too cute.   http://vimeo.com/84240016  It's a private video, and the password is Henry1

If you know someone who is interested in a little bit of rough and tumble, puppy dog tails, six year old cuteness, refer them to these resources and let's help this boy find a home!

Amber

Wednesday, March 12, 2014

Easter Blessings

I'd like to tell you about the Smith family.  I have a lot of affection for this family.  http://reecesrainbow.org/69314/sponsorsmith-9  They are adopting "Barry", an absolutely precious boy with some mobility issues, but he makes up for his lack of motion with an enormous personality.  I will flat out tell you guys that I adore Barry, and we strongly considered adopting him, but when we finally decided that he was a child we'd like to pursue, we received word back that his file was locked and another family had already decided to proceed with him!  That family was the wonderful Smith family, and I'm so glad that Barry will have such a wonderful home! 

The Smith's are one of the many tragic families barred from adopting their precious Russian children when the adoption ban came down.  Their sweet daughter is still trapped in Russia and they still wait for her.  But after more than a year, they realized they still have room in their home and hearts, even with waiting for the day when she can come home.

They are raising money for their adoption by doing a wonderful Easter fundraiser.  My in laws like to do this activity every Easter that my children love.  They fill a Styrofoam egg container with plastic eggs and when each is opened, it has some object that symbolizes the death and resurrection of Christ.  My children never get tired of this simple activity and look forward to it every year when it's time again to discuss our Easter blessings. 

The Smith's have made this felt flip book with pages for each aspect of the Easter miracle.  The front is beautifully embroidered with the words "He is Risen."  I copied and pasted their whole blog post about the fundraiser below, but follow this link http://welovelucyadoption.blogspot.com/2014/03/easter-fundraiser.html for ordering information. 


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Easter Fundraiser

My mother-in-law gave our family a felt "Jesse Tree" several years ago.  It included a book with devotions leading up to Christmas and a tin full of felt pieces.  Every day we would read scripture, go through the devotion, and the kids would place the appropriate felt piece on the tree.  It is now one of our favorite Christmas traditions. 








I have been wanting to do something similar for Easter and I finally put it together!  It will start on Palm Sunday and go through Easter Sunday.  Each day will include reading one or two verses, reading a short devotion, and placing the correct felt piece on the banner.  I have added additional verses for older children referencing the Old Testament.  This is the perfect Easter devotion for PreK - 6th grade.



After all of the felt pieces are added on Good Friday, the banner will be covered in black.
On Sunday, the last banner will be turned over.  
He Is Risen!



A dear friend has offered to embroider "He Is Risen!" and it is beautiful.  It can be displayed
for several weeks after Easter as a great reminder of our Risen Lord.
The devotional book with be a flip-book.  I include the reference verse but I did not type the verse in the book.  I love helping children open their Bible to search for verses.  For younger children, I believe it leaves a lasting impact to see Mom, Dad, Grandma open the Bible and read straight from God's Word.
Orders will be shipped between March 26th and April 4th.    Please make sure address is correct on PayPal to receive package before Easter.  Please contact me if you are local and I will not include shipping.  Thank you for helping us bring our boy home!

$35 donation, includes shipping.


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So please check out their beautiful felt books and their sweet son, "Barry"!

Amber