As many of you know I have been advocating for children with Down Syndrome who live in Easter Europe. The reason I feel so passionate about this is because these children are sent away to adult institutions to live out the remainder of their lives when they turn 4 years old. Some of the institutions are better than others, but for the most part, these children are considered throw aways. They are seen as burdens to their society with no real potential.
So in my effort to educate and raise awareness about these beautiful children, I stumbled across this interview. Now I do realize that not all children with Down Syndrome will turn out like this amazing young woman. My point is to show that there is so much potential there. So much that they have to give. So much that will be wasted if they are just locked away in an institution somewhere.
So when you think of these children, please stop and think of this video and ask yourself if you could be blessed by adding someone like this to your family.
Thursday, February 17, 2011
Monday, February 14, 2011
Love Is
Love is
a sweet, nutty husband who comes home after a long day at work
and massages my head and shoulders to help get rid of my sinus headache
even though he is not feeling well himself.
Love is
a sweet son who gets up every morning to make breakfast for me and his sister after
he returns home from early morning church.
Love is
a charitable son that cares enough about what I care about
to donate his own money to an orphan on the other side of the world and
to fast for him to find a family without me knowing about it until after the fact.
Love is
a compassionate son that plays with and reads to a very active toddler for me
when I am not feeling well and need to take a nap.
Love is
an active Princess who says in her sweet little voice
"Aw, no worries mama, I'll help you clean upa my mess."
Love is
a grandma who stays up late to make beautiful dresses for all of her little
granddaughters and a grandpa who drives her to delivery it and has to sit in
traffic for over two hours because of a freeway closure and then has to turn around
and go right back home.
Love is
a grandma and grandpa that send Valentine's Cards with special notes
written inside.
Love is
a grandma and grandpa that call to check up on their family
even though they are having health problems.
Love is
taking the time to move a birth family to their new apartment after
they have been homeless for over 6 months and visiting with them on Valentine's Day.
Love is
what I want more than anything for this beautiful orphan with a heart condition
on the other side of the ocean.
Love is
my family.
Who support me in everything I do.
Happy Valentine's Day
Matching Mondays
Please hop on over here to see who Brenda has listed this week. These darling children are adoptable from the Foster Care system.
There are three beautiful little sisters that are looking for a home together that live in California.
And this little guy is also from California.
Please take the time to post this link on your Facebook account or Blog so that others are made aware of these children. That would make my day!
You never know who will have the seed of adoption planted in their hearts. It may not be today but you never know about tomorrow.
If you would have asked me 7 years ago if I would ever be a foster parent and then adopt, I probably would have told you no.
There are three beautiful little sisters that are looking for a home together that live in California.
And this little guy is also from California.
Please take the time to post this link on your Facebook account or Blog so that others are made aware of these children. That would make my day!
You never know who will have the seed of adoption planted in their hearts. It may not be today but you never know about tomorrow.
If you would have asked me 7 years ago if I would ever be a foster parent and then adopt, I probably would have told you no.
But look what I would be missing out on!
Monday, February 7, 2011
Matching Mondays
In my attempt to help others save the one, I have decided that every Monday and Friday I will be posting pictures of children who are in need of forever families.
Brenda, of Another Small Adventure, post pictures of children who are in the foster care system and available for adoption on her blog every Monday. I will provide a link to her blog so others can share with their friends and families those children who are in need of a home.
http://anothersmalladventure.blogspot.com/2011/02/matching-mondays.html
I honestly believe that most families out their could find such joy in adopting a child into their lives. They just need to find that perfect child for their family and be made aware of them. This is my goal. To make every family aware.
We do not have to concentrate on the masses, just look to save the one.
Which one will you save?
Or better yet, which one will save you?
Brenda, of Another Small Adventure, post pictures of children who are in the foster care system and available for adoption on her blog every Monday. I will provide a link to her blog so others can share with their friends and families those children who are in need of a home.
http://anothersmalladventure.blogspot.com/2011/02/matching-mondays.html
I honestly believe that most families out their could find such joy in adopting a child into their lives. They just need to find that perfect child for their family and be made aware of them. This is my goal. To make every family aware.
We do not have to concentrate on the masses, just look to save the one.
Which one will you save?
Or better yet, which one will save you?
Friday, February 4, 2011
Helping the Masses or Saving the One
A few years ago my husband and I were having a conversation about a talk we head in church. A man told a story about another man who was doing incredible acts of service and helping people all around the world. That night, my husband and I started to discuss the talk. My husband made the comment that he wished he could be more like that man and needed to look for more opportunities to serve others in a grander way. He was feeling really down that he didn't have the time or resources to do more.
I then commented that the man was helping the masses but we were saving the one. He looked at me confused. I tried to explain what I meant. It was great that this individual was helping so many people by providing them clean drinking water and medical care. It was wonderful that he was using his fortune to help the less fortunate. But what we were doing was really important too.
I asked my husband how many he people he knew who had taken in a foster child and loved them like their own. How many people did he know who were willing to love a child for 18 months, clean up their throw up, change their poopy diapers, play with them, love them and drive them back and forth to do parental visits twice a week with parents that had them taken away because they had been accused of beating and shaking them.
We were in the process of saving the one. No one would write stories about us or call to interview us for what we were doing. No one in our large society would ever really even know what we had done.
Now you may ask how it is that we saved Nevaeh. Surely someone else would have stepped forward to adopt her sooner or later. After all she is really adorable. It always amazed me that while she was our foster daughter people would comment "I'll adopt her." The thing was that Nevaeh never had a lack of people who wanted her. Her birth parents were trying their hardest to get her back and we of course we growing more attached to her by the minute.
But as foster parents our job was to love her like our own while realizing that she belonged to someone else. When she did finally come up for adoption we were informed that there were over 75 people on a waiting list who would gladly give her a home.
So what did we save her from? How were we any different than these other people?
We took the risk. We agreed to care for her and love her for up to 2 years without knowing if we would be able to adopt her or if she would return to a life that we wouldn't wish on a dog. We cried and prayed for her safety when we had to leave her for overnight visits at the halfway house. And comforted her when she returned to us and had night terrors about those visits.
We had many people tell us "I don't know how you do it. I could never love a child and have to give them back."
That is why so many babies in the foster care system get bounced around. Not many people are willing to take that risk. They want to wait until the baby is already freed for adoption. Which, like Nevaeh's case, takes about 2 years. In the mean time, those little babies are bounced around from foster home to foster home never learning how to bound.
Of course, I look at my beautiful daughter and think of how much joy she has brought to our lives. I don't really look at it as saving her but really we did. Since we have adopted her, her birth parents have been homeless, have lived in a motel for a while, have had domestic violence where one of them ended up in jail and the other one looked pretty beat up. That would have been her life. Instead she is our spoiled princess who gets up every morning and ask when we are going to Disneyland again to ride the spinny cups and when does she get to see Minnie Mouse again.
The other night this topic of helping the masses came up again in our house. This sports player has done incredible stuff for the masses. My husband talk about how he wished he had the money and the resources to fly off to Russia and help the orphans.
In my mind I had to laugh. Here my husband was once again wanting to help the masses and I was looking to save the one. I had been looking at all these sweet faces on Reeces Rainbow and thinking of how many of these children with down syndrome need a home. How many of them will be looked over? How many will go to institutions while a whole group of people wait on list for their perfect child? What amazed me was the people who are adopting them. These people either already had children with downs or have adopted many times before. They are scrapping together all the money they can to pay the ransom on these precious little ones. Below you can see a small glimpse of what it is like for them once they go to the institution.
So I have decided to concentrate on saving the one. I may not be able to go over and bring a child home right now, but I can raise money for those who are and I can raise awareness for those who are looking to adopt and hoping that they will look this way. The plight of the special needs orphan has become my challenge, and I hope I can make a difference even if it is only saving the one.
I then commented that the man was helping the masses but we were saving the one. He looked at me confused. I tried to explain what I meant. It was great that this individual was helping so many people by providing them clean drinking water and medical care. It was wonderful that he was using his fortune to help the less fortunate. But what we were doing was really important too.
I asked my husband how many he people he knew who had taken in a foster child and loved them like their own. How many people did he know who were willing to love a child for 18 months, clean up their throw up, change their poopy diapers, play with them, love them and drive them back and forth to do parental visits twice a week with parents that had them taken away because they had been accused of beating and shaking them.
We were in the process of saving the one. No one would write stories about us or call to interview us for what we were doing. No one in our large society would ever really even know what we had done.
Now you may ask how it is that we saved Nevaeh. Surely someone else would have stepped forward to adopt her sooner or later. After all she is really adorable. It always amazed me that while she was our foster daughter people would comment "I'll adopt her." The thing was that Nevaeh never had a lack of people who wanted her. Her birth parents were trying their hardest to get her back and we of course we growing more attached to her by the minute.
But as foster parents our job was to love her like our own while realizing that she belonged to someone else. When she did finally come up for adoption we were informed that there were over 75 people on a waiting list who would gladly give her a home.
So what did we save her from? How were we any different than these other people?
We took the risk. We agreed to care for her and love her for up to 2 years without knowing if we would be able to adopt her or if she would return to a life that we wouldn't wish on a dog. We cried and prayed for her safety when we had to leave her for overnight visits at the halfway house. And comforted her when she returned to us and had night terrors about those visits.
We had many people tell us "I don't know how you do it. I could never love a child and have to give them back."
That is why so many babies in the foster care system get bounced around. Not many people are willing to take that risk. They want to wait until the baby is already freed for adoption. Which, like Nevaeh's case, takes about 2 years. In the mean time, those little babies are bounced around from foster home to foster home never learning how to bound.
Of course, I look at my beautiful daughter and think of how much joy she has brought to our lives. I don't really look at it as saving her but really we did. Since we have adopted her, her birth parents have been homeless, have lived in a motel for a while, have had domestic violence where one of them ended up in jail and the other one looked pretty beat up. That would have been her life. Instead she is our spoiled princess who gets up every morning and ask when we are going to Disneyland again to ride the spinny cups and when does she get to see Minnie Mouse again.
The other night this topic of helping the masses came up again in our house. This sports player has done incredible stuff for the masses. My husband talk about how he wished he had the money and the resources to fly off to Russia and help the orphans.
In my mind I had to laugh. Here my husband was once again wanting to help the masses and I was looking to save the one. I had been looking at all these sweet faces on Reeces Rainbow and thinking of how many of these children with down syndrome need a home. How many of them will be looked over? How many will go to institutions while a whole group of people wait on list for their perfect child? What amazed me was the people who are adopting them. These people either already had children with downs or have adopted many times before. They are scrapping together all the money they can to pay the ransom on these precious little ones. Below you can see a small glimpse of what it is like for them once they go to the institution.
So I have decided to concentrate on saving the one. I may not be able to go over and bring a child home right now, but I can raise money for those who are and I can raise awareness for those who are looking to adopt and hoping that they will look this way. The plight of the special needs orphan has become my challenge, and I hope I can make a difference even if it is only saving the one.
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