O is for Orphans 31 for 21: Day 23

This was my original O post.  I have been working through the alphabet, but not worrying whether or not I make it to Z, as long as I get 31 post in 31 days in.  (so far, so good!)  I am so lucky to be in such wonderful company as the families who have and are adopting children.  At any given time over the last 2 years, I have followed several stories  with those who have decided to answer the call to bring home a family member through the means of adoption.  My friend Christie, over at Welcome to Taylorville, has just gotten home about a week ago with her new son Jadon. Praise the Lord!  And my Facebook friend Ashley, over at The New face of Downs,  just brought her daughter home this weekend!  Welcome home Juliana!  I have some Facebook friends such as Suzanne, over at Our Chinese Butterfly and Faith, at An Angels Ransom to name a couple of ladies who are in the midst of adoption. There are more beautiful mommas and families to share and it is my hope that I will get to do that here as I continue to be more productive in writing on the blog. 

Last night I woke up around 2 am (and I had just gone to bed after 12!), but I always say it is because God has placed something on my mind that I need to pray about.  Well, I got on the Internet, maybe Facebook, I can't really remember how I found out the news, but the first thing I see is that Katerina's (or Katie bug as we will get to know her) adoption has gone through! Praise God!   I have been praying for this family and their story as soon as I started reading it.  Katie's mom had gone over to see her daughter in Europe and she was warned that it might be hard to see her.  You see, her daughter is 9 years old and weighs 10 pounds!  It is so hard to believe that.  Yet she has survived all these years waiting for her family to come and get her and the true blessing of God will rain down on her in just a few short weeks as she makes her way home to be directly admitted to Children's Hospital in Philadelphia and to start her new journey with her family at her side.  She has 10 loving brothers and sisters to come home to.  What an honor it has been to read this story and see it come to this point.  Please go and visit Susanna's blog at The Blessing of Verity.  I promise you will be moved to tears of joy and heartache as you read this story.  I can't wait to continue to read this story and to witness the Lord at work through this family and this child. 

The heartache is because as Susanna shares, there are so many more children waiting for someone to rescue them.  Some of these children have minimal interaction with any humans and this goes on for years and years.  How do you survive that?  How do we as human beings allow this to happen?  The problem is, we hear of these stories and yet there are hundreds, thousands more that we will never of.  I know people all over this world are starving, being abused and tortured, growing up homeless and parent less and just living a life that has to seem so unforgiving to them.  It is happening all over the United States.  People will tell me that we shouldn't worry about what goes on in other parts of the world when we have our own troubles here.  I don't believe God would want us to differentiate between one child or another.  They are all valuable and they all matter.  My heart and my cause is to these orphans particularly because I could see how the circumstances would have been if my Katie was born there.  How blessed am I am to live here in the States, to know that I have rights for her future and help for her future.  It is so hard to imagine how people could work in a place and not love on these children.  How they could not hear the children crying and not comfort them?  Would it just be too overwhelming for them?  Do they feel that there isn't enough of them to go around? I have read stories of some being very cold towards the children and it is so heartbreaking.  The society there in Eastern Europe do not value these children.  I have no doubt that there are parents who want to keep their children but  probably feel there is no good option from them at this point due to circumstances they have no control over.   Many of my friends who have adopted have said that they are asked why they would want to adopt a child with Ds.  If we continue to bring these children home, maybe we are helping to spread the message that these children will do just fine at home given the chance and that they can thrive when loved!

I just know that my heart hurts when I think of how there is no one to soothe their tears at night.  How quickly I run to my daughter when she starts crying to comfort her.  No one to read them a bedtime story and to tuck them in with snuggles and kisses as Katie bug gets every night.  No one to give them the time to just sit back and enjoy their meal like my Katie did tonight.  No one to praise them and encourage them when they need it.  I think of things like how my Katie loves to get a bath and how she loves for me to brush her teeth after and will sit and thoroughly enjoy having her hair blow dried.  These children have no idea what  a bathtub is.  I have heard that some of them have never had their teeth brushed. And this is just touching the surface of what they don't know because they haven't been given the chance to live.  How can that be?  No matter how many times I think about it, I still cannot fathom how we as human beings can treat others this way. 

I love this website, Reece's Rainbow.  You can see and read about the children who are ready to come home to a family, perhaps you?  If you are not considering adoption, please consider donating monetarily and sharing this site with your friends and family, pray for the families who are adopting, pray for the children who are waiting, waiting for a future that you can play a part in.  I always say this, but it is so true, you are helping to forever change someones future.  These children are like investing in an investment that yields high returns, only better, the return you receive in this investment can never have a price put on them.  It is a life that deserves to be lived outside of a crib, outside of a mental institution and inside the loving arms of a family who have love, comfort, kindness, patience and hope to share with them.  Please be a blessing to these children.  They are waiting....