Tag: teamwork tuesday

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God and Adoption and You…

i read in August a lovely blog post a mother’s reflections a year on after adopting two older kids. My favourite part of her post is:

Is adoption easy? No it is not. Is this simple? Nope. Complicated and long-term. Will bonding be immediate and seamless? Maybe, but probably not. Will you struggle with guilt and fear that first year? Yes, but you shouldn’t. You’ve agreed to partner with God in some difficult, heart-wrenching work, and it’s no kum-by-yah party. Give grace to yourself; God already has.

Anything worth fighting for is worth fighting through, and adoption is one of them. I can hardly think of something closer to God’s character, who is the “Father to the fatherless, defender of widows — this is God, whose dwelling is holy.” Certainly, we are his difficult children who spaz out and pull away and manipulate and struggle. We distrust His good love and sabotage our blessings, imagining our shame disqualifies us or that God couldn’t possibly be faithful to such orphans.

But He is. We are loved with an everlasting love, and it is enough to overwhelm our own fear and shame and humanity. In adoption, God is enough for us all. He can overcome our children’s grief. He can overshadow our own inadequacies. He can sweep up our families in a beautiful story of redemption and hope and healing. If you are afraid of adoption, trying to stiff-arm the call, God is the courage you don’t have. If you are waiting, suffering with longing for your child, God is the determination you need. If you are in the early days of chaos, God is the peace you and your child hunger for. If your family feels lost, He is the stability everyone is looking for. If you are working hard on healing, digging deep with your child, God is every ounce of the hope and restoration and safety and grace.

In Him, you can do this.

He is enough for us all.

Yes adoption isn’t an easy path. But if you are called to it by God, then you have more than enough. November is National Adoption Month in the US. And i would like to borrow Jen’s words:

Anything worth fighting for is worth fighting through, and adoption is one of them.

From the 1st November till 31st December, Reece’s Rainbow has it’s annual Angel Tree fundraising period. Previous years, this special time was a special effort to highlight the kids 0-5 years old with Down Syndrome who needed families, it was also a time to do some very special fundraising for these kids so that their forever families would have less to fight through to get to them.

This year, through voting within the Reece’s Rainbow community, 3 children from the other age groups and with other special needs were also picked. Each child is then paired with an Angel Tree Warrior, whose goal is to raise awareness for this specific child as well as to raise US$1000 for the child’s adoption grant.

Teamwork Tuesday will spend the weeks in November and December showing off one of these Angels and their Warrior’s fundraising project each week.

This week meet Abbott.

Abbott has a matching grant, please help him meet it.

He is 5 years old and is reported to be a very kind and cheerful child who is active and likes to run and see new places. He was in a fairly good orphanage but was recently transferred to an institution and we have not been given any updates since. i pray and hope that he is ok, that the institution he is at is a good one with enough staff and facilities to care for him. (Such an institution is rare where he is)

His only special need is Down Syndrome, which in this day and age is very manageable, if he lived in a country with the facilities to provide the support he needs, if he had a family who would go that extra mile for him.

His Angel Tree Warrior has a wonderful matching grant for him; US$200 will be given to his grant once his grant total reads US$2985. Every dollar you donate will be doubled.

She also has a couple of fundraisers going on for him.

  • A Crochet Shop called Hooked on Hope, where 25% of sales goes to Abbott’s grant. Click here.
  • A Walk/Run-a-thon. Click here for details.

Help reduce the obstacles which may stop his forever family reaching him. Buy from the crochet shop listed above or if you are in the area, join the Walk/Run-a-thon. These will all help grow his grant. Please go to his Angel Tree Warrior’s blog for details or click on his name or photo to donate directly.

Thank you very much.

Please follow this link to the full blog post i quoted from at the beginning: Jen Hatmaker – The Truth About Adoption: One Year Later.

syc

Do also remember and take part in my Precious One Fundraiser for Wesley.

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10 Things I’ve Learned From My Child {With Special Needs}

That’s the title of the blog post i read a couple of months ago and was very touched by it.

In my eyes, before i read that article, even since i was a little girl, orphans have always had a special place in my heart. i had wanted to do something for them since the day i was kept from visiting an orphanage for a school outing. My mother didn’t want me to go. Not because she didn’t want me to help the orphans or learn about them but because she knew me so well and knew that i was be so teary upon seeing them that i would not be of much help. So this desire to help orphans found a very tiny outlet; i gave whenever i could to charities that did help them.

God has led me full circle and now i advocate for special needs orphans who live in countries where resources may not allow them proper care. Even if they had proper care, it is not the same as having a family to call your own; to belong to a group of people who love you regardless of your disabilities.

But this article has turned it around and looked at what a child with special needs could bring to the life of a family.

Have a read: 10 Things I’ve Learned From My Child {With Special Needs}.

i love all 10 points but my favourites are:

2.  Flexibility – I never thought I would allow my children to watch Barney while eating dinner, but Adeline does.  She eats and is not aware of what she is putting in her mouth, it works.

3.  Patience

4.  The value of uniqueness – My children have learned that we all have areas that are weak and strong, and it is O.K.

 

November is little Evelyn’s birthday – won’t it be a great gift to have a family step forward and claim her for their own?

i look at little Evelyn and just know that she has so much to give to a family who would love her just as she is. She is unique; she has weakness such as a short attention span and is limited in her speech. She has FAS (Fatal Alcohol Syndrome). It will require patience to teach her to follow instructions and to help her understand being calm. But with flexibility and a bit of creativity, it can be done.

She will blossom if someone would just take the time and effort to show her how. And i know she can and will be a blessing to the forever family who brings her home. i see in her the capacity to love unconditionally and to be a blessing to the people around her.

But her situation right now doesn’t permit her the opportunity to even think of others. She is an orphan, living with dozens of other kids and given very limited attention or encouragement. She, a 7-year old little girl, needs to look out for herself for now, until someone steps up to look out for her.

Are you that someone? Are you her family? Maybe you would like to find out about that possibility. Please contact Reece’s Rainbow for more information.

Maybe you are not in a position to consider adoption. But you can still help; you can share her story so her forever family can be found. You can donate to her adoption grant so that a lack of funds does not become a reason for her not having a family. Please click on her name or picture to donate.

Last but most definitely not least, you can pray for her; pray for her daily needs and that she would soon have a family to call her own.

Thanks for your kind attention and efforts.

syc

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Two’s A Company…

… that’s the way the saying goes… and there is definitely truth in that, especially when you have a sibling whom you love and who loves you right back.

Today i would like to introduce you to a pair of siblings; sisters who are in need of a loving family to care for them, to love them, to give them the opportunities that would enable them to get the best out of life.

Meet Karen and Chrystyna.

10-year old Chrystyna needs a family…
Karen’s only chance for a family is to be adopted together with her sister.

Karen is already 16 years old, she has no special needs and is a developmentally normal teen whose profile says she is smart and has no negative behavioural issues. Chrystyna is her younger sister who has FAS (Fetal Alcohol Syndrome) and developmental delays. She has been fortunate enough to be transferred to a place where they do care about her and teach her.

Karen has to be adopted together with her sister Chrystyna because of her age. They both have so much potential but they need a family to provide them with a truly loving environment, a family who would help them meet life’s challenges. Are you that family? If you are looking to add a sibling pair to your family, please do consider Karen and Chrystyna.

If you are not called to adopt (not everyone is), there are other ways you can help. You can share their story so their forever family might find them sooner.

International adoption is an expensive thing to pursue. You can help by helping Chrystyna‘s adoption grant to grow so that a lack of funds would not stop these sisters from having a family to call their own.

You can also pray for both Karen and Chrystyna; for their daily needs and most of all, for a family to come for them.

Thank you.

syc