black friday

Black Friday is such an interesting thing to me....don't get me wrong, I love a good trip to the mall, and we will be giving Christmas gifts to family and friends this year so it's inevitable that I will do some (more?) shopping this weekend.  But why does this day fall immediately after the one day of the year that we should be most Thankful?


Will you please watch this video and tell me how black you think every day in the lives of these people are.  Here is some perspective for you: if Wes and I weren't on the path to adopt Danny this just might be his future.  No, he is not in Serbia, but he is in a country that makes similar decisions for it's children and adults who are mentally disabled.
 

Think you can't do anything to change this?  Let me be direct: you're wrong.

The most obvious thing you can do is to adopt.  But I know that not everyone is able to do that, whether financially, or otherwise.  Second, if you can't adopt, you can support someone who is adopting.  Don't know anyone who you want to support? How about you sponsor a child on Reece's Rainbow?  Not that either?  How about this: think about these different organizations: World Vision, where you can sponsor a child, or feed a family, or drill a well for a community.  Samaritan's Purse, where you can show the love of Christ to a child through a Christmas Box.  Living Water,  works to provide clean drinking water around the world.  Want something closer to home?  Where we live there are a number of places you can volunteer your time or your financial resources, just google it!

More than anything you can pray.  Here are some specific things to pray for:
1. for the hearts of the government officials in countries like Serbia to soften to the least of their society
2. for the people who work in these institutions to treat the people in their care like the human beings they are
3. for your heart to break for what breaks God's heart (I caution you on this one...He will bring you to your knees)
4. pray for families like ours who are choosing to adopt and save a life from the black-ness that is institution life
5. pray about donating!!!!  it doesn't have to be to one of the organizations I referenced.  Have one you love? Share it please!


Thank you from the bottom of my heart for reading this little rant of mine.  As we get closer to traveling my heart breaks just a little bit more because I know when we meet Danny we will meet many other children who we can't bring home with us.  I don't know how God expects me to do that, but I do know that He is doing a great work in me, and I'm thankful I get to see what is next!

sick day

I'm home from work today sick, and Wes is still in Connecticut working.  There is no-one to take care of me.  But I'm an adult, and I'm capable of taking care of myself, even when not feeling well.

However, it makes me wonder.  When Danny is sick who takes care of him?  We know that in 6-7 months that we will be happily shouldering that burden.  But what about now?  Honestly I pray that he just doesn't get sick while he is still in the orphanage, because then I don't have to think or worry about it. We know that he is very close to his "baba" so I pray that if he doesn't feel well that she loves him enough to let him curl up in her lap and rock him and love him.

Just something that was on my heart today.  Hoping and praying our little man is as healthy as an ox!

(Baba: the term in his country for grandmother.  He is in a "baba program" meaning a grandmotherly type comes to the orphanage to play with him and help care for him 4-5 days a week.  I pray she loves him as we do, and that she promises him we are coming!)

reflections

Not only is October Down Syndrome Awareness Month, but today, October 15th, is Pregnancy Loss & Remembrance Day.  If you have read any of our back story you realize that the path which brought us to Danny includes the loss of two pregnancies during 2010.  The first was very early, but very much wanted at 6 weeks.  Our second loss (equally wanted, and a daughter) was at 16 weeks right before Christmas.  Not a day goes by that I don't think of these two babies and what they mean.

A few days ago I was thinking how strange it was that I would have had a daughter who was four and a half months old at this point.  How strange that honestly, I can't imagine what that would be like.  What I can imagine is that sometime in the next six months or so Danny will come home with us.  He will be 4 then.  How different it will be than what I truly expected my life to be at this point.  Do I wish that one (both isn't possible) of those babies we conceived was with us?  Absolutely.  But do I also have dreams for our son, who probably wouldn't be in our future without those losses?  There is no doubt!

So as I cry, I thank God for the experience of those two losses, because I know that we are on His path for us.  I also pray that His path includes biological children for us, someday.  And today, I pray that our babies are looking down and proud of us and excited to see their brother in our home soon.

it doesn't always feel real

**I wrote this yesterday, and didn't think I would post it for anyone to read.  But then a friend reminded me that this blog is as much for me as it is for the people who read it.  I want to remember these times, and this is where I am right now!  Enjoy...or think I'm a raving lunatic.  Just don't tell me if it's that last one.

The past few weeks I have felt very disconnected from this adoption.  Don't get me wrong, I love my son and can not wait to meet him. However, I am not in love with the process that it takes to get him here! Since we finally got our homestudy completed and our USCIS application sent off I've just taken a break from the whole thing.

It was not intentional, or planned, it seems as if my brain (and my heart?) have taken an adoption vacation!  I feel guilt about it!  I want Danny here so much that I cry about it, so my guess is that it's unconscious self preservation that brought me here.  I will give myself some credit, there has been a lot going on, and I have been shouldering the bulk of it, as Wes has been out of town for two weeks now.  I've still been doing things for Danny, and with him in mind, they just aren't paperwork things.  His closet and bedroom look amazing!  His bed is so cute, and I can't wait for Wes to get home to build his headboard and footboard.  I've been procrastinating, so now I need a plan!

Here is my plan: my USCSIS fingerprints are completed, and hopefully tomorrow Wes's will be too.  After that I really need to get cracking on the paperwork monster again.  Will you please join me in praying for focus and endurance to get it all completed in the next two weeks?  The "plan" includes working on one item per day until it's all done.  I think two weeks should just about do it.

Once the paperwork is complete another trip to Austin will be in order to get it all apostilled.  Hopefully by October 15th (arbitrary date I pulled out of the air) we will have our "Golden Ticket" from USCIS, and that is the point at which we will be able to send our dossier to Danny's country. That means we could travel sometime around mid-November.  Ever wanted to visit Eastern Europe in winter?  Ha!  Me neither!  But if it means seeing, loving, hugging my boy?  I'm all in.

Thank you for continuing to pray for us through this crazy, heart wrenching, bonkers adoption.  We love you all!

PS: Don't forget to pray for the Hinzes, they left today to go meet their son!