Day 10: Joanie Needs A Family… Forty to Forever…

Today at Forty to Forever, beautiful Joanie needs a family… she an adorable little girl with HIV and she is a wonderfully helpful and responsive girl who loves hamsters. Her special need is so very manageable! Please help her find a forever family; share her story and contribute to her adoption grant.
Today’s Lent Devotion begins with a shocking statement, “You have failed.” Yep, but read on and find out that God sees not our failures… He sees what Christ has done for us on the Cross. Have a read, digest and be blessed… syc

fortytoforever's avatarForty Days to Forever

Our Goal is to raise $500 for Joanie and Lina… $339 to go!

JoanieJoanie is HIV+.  She is also a charming little girl with beautiful wavy brown hair. She is growing into an obedient and responsive girl. She is happy to help the nannies arrange the toys, water the plants and care for the fish. Her favorite animal is hamsters. She is a joyful and emotional girl who genuinely enjoys any attention, but when left alone she can play with toys by herself for long periods of time. The biological mother was deprived of her parental rights. Additional photos are available for inquiring families.

Joanie is being advocated for by Elaina Lawrence.  She shares her story below…

“I never really knew or cared about the orphan crisis, until a student of mine showed me a picture of her “new” little brother. A little boy in Eastern Europe with a big smile…

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It Has Been A Year…

Yep, it has. A whole year since i stepped into the world of orphans with special needs.

12 year old Heath, is a cutie who needs his family asap.
12-year-old Heath, is a cutie who needs his family asap.

My beloved Heath was the one who led me into this wonderful yet frightening, beautiful yet terrible, amazing yet sad world where children are in so much need my heart was broken and remains so. Their stories are frightening, some of the conditions they live in are terrible, the lives they have in the institutions are simply too sad. But the children themselves are so wonderful and beautiful, and the parents who pursue them are so amazing.

This was the post which led me to Heath and i reblogged it as my first feeble attempt to help Heath. And then donations followed and then i became his Prayer Warrior and Advocate. i still am and will never stop praying for my beloved Heath.

My heart remains broken because my beloved Heath does not yet have a loving family to care for him. He is still sitting in his shared wheelchair, doing nothing all day, sometimes having a dirty old string to play with. This wonderful lady who brought Heath the attention he deserves; Wonderful Julia who has worked so hard to help grow his adoption grant shares my heart… hear what she has to say about Heath here. (She has a few other posts about Heath, this is just the most recent one.)

My dream for Heath still stands… you can read about it here. i dream of how it would be for Heath in a family situation. What love they would give him and what a joy he would be to his forever family.

i wrote a letter to Heath’s family-to-be, telling them how much i love Heath and how many others also love him and are committed to helping him find a family and would be willing to help that family bring him home.

i celebrated Heath’s birthday for him from afar. i hope and pray that Heath‘s next birthday would be celebrated with the good news that he has a family!

God Himself has worked wonderful miracles for Heath, the fact that he is alive now is a miracle, the fact that he has food when many other orphans in his home country have to go without is another. But God truly moved mountains, moved hearts and hands when Heath‘s adoption grant grew within a year from a couple of hundred dollars to a FULL GRANT! See here and here for how it came to be.

That’s right, Heath has a FULL grant! Which means his forever family only need to come up with the initial commitment fees, home-study fees and a few other fees for documentation, finger-prints etc. … but all the travel and most of the agency fees are already funded!

i am praying for Heath‘s forever family to step forward as soon as possible. There is a possibility that Heath‘s home country might be closed to all international adoption as they may need to compile with the Hague Convention of 1993 (we don’t know if it would actually happen or when). While a country works to compile with the Hague Convention, they have to close all adoptions and it could take anywhere from a few months to years before they open again.

So please be brave, Heath‘s Family… please step forward and come bring Heath home.

Fear is easy, but love is hard

i read this on A Place To Call Home… she wrote about how fearful she was to step out again to try to adopt (her heart was broken twice before), she showed how wonderfully God reached out to her heart and comforted it, strengthen it and helped her to be brave and step up and out to love once again. Please go here and read her story.

Heath‘s Forever Family… Heath waits for you. Please choose to love him and come bring Heath home.

Click on his name or picture to go to his profile page on Reece’s Rainbow. You can contact Reece’s Rainbow for details should you be interested in adopting Heath.

Do continue to pray for him!

syc