Brent

One of my sweet friends asked me to post Sir Brent on my blog, so here is the information from Reece's Rainbow:

Boy, Born June 21, 2005

Look how darling this little one is!   Brent is HEALTHY, with no noted heart conditions.    He is active and an Orphanage favorite.   He is considered lower functioning than  Spencer or Kareen, but will truly blossom like a flower in a loving family environment.   

Brent has been transferred 

Please give Brent a chance! 

$3300.75 is available towards the cost of my adoption!

So, what can YOU do for little Brent?  

1) You can ADVOCATE.  Send my blog address to your friends and family, and ask them to read about Brent.

2) You can GIVE a donation into his adoption fund at this link.

3) You can PRAY, PRAY, PRAY!  Prayer is the big work.  God is Father to the fatherless, and He sets the lonely into families.  Pray for Him to move in the hearts of Brent's forever family to step forward to adopt him, even if they have no idea how.  (Every adoptive family has wondered how in the world they would afford an adoption, but God supplies the funds in miraculous ways!)

**BRENT HAS ALREADY BEEN TRANSFERRED TO A MENTAL INSTITUTION, SO IT IS VERY IMPORTANT THAT SOME PRAYER WARRIORS REALLY STEP UP TO THE PLATE TO PRAY FOR HIM EVERY DAY UNTIL HE IS ADOPTED***

(And thank you, C, for bringing Brent to my attention.  You are always so faithful to keep an eye on the Reece's Rainbow site.  You are a prayer warrior, and I am so thankful for you!  Prayer is the big work, and you're a busy worker!  :)  Keep us on our toes!)

What is the Value of a Life?

***This video would not display the entire screen here on the blog, so if you would like to see all of the screen, please CLICK ON THIS LINK.***

Rise Up, Prayer Warriors!!

Forgive my lack of posts.  I've been busy with helping a good number of people walk through the adoption process.  This is a "job" I thoroughly love!  If you yourself are thinking of stepping out to adopt, be encouraged that many are standing in your very shoes right now...looking down that long, winding, unknown path and wondering, "Can I do this?"  I encourage you to take that first step.  I've watched over and over again as people just like you step forward, and upon each step of faith, God moves mountains.


Now, turning to the "big work" in orphan ministry...  Many months ago, I asked my mom's cousin Meric to please pray for one of the orphans on Reece's Rainbow.  She prayed for him faithfully day after day for months on end, and she would ask me for updates often.  I loved her simplicity of faith and her determination to present this little guy before the Father.  There had been no progress, and this child was still without a family and in danger of being transferred to a mental institution.  Meric didn't care what the statistics were.  Instead, she just kept presenting this little boy before her King's throne each and every day, reminding Him that He was the only One who could raise up a family to adopt.  I have to admit that my faith wavered in the long wait, but Meric's faith stayed solid and sure.  Then, sometime during the Christmas holidays, God supplied that miracle in a big way.  He not only provided a family to step up to adopt this child, but He also provided an adoption fund that supplied almost every bit of the necessary funds for his adoption!  Meric was thrilled but not the least bit surprised.  And my faith grew.  Again, I realized the often overlooked aspect of prayer.  It is indeed the most important work in orphan ministry.


So, I come before you today, trusting that God is going to send someone to this blog who WANTS to be a part of helping orphans but simply doesn't know how.  It is YOU, my friend, that will play a huge role in aiding an orphan...right now...and right where you sit behind your computer.  I want you to see little Nathan's photos below, and I would absolutely love for you to commit to pray for him every single day until God places him into a family.  Pray with faith, and bring Nathan before God's throne every day.  Cry out to the Father of the fatherless on behalf of Nathan.  You may be the only one in the world praying for him right now.  PRAYER IS THE BIG WORK!!!  It moves mountains.  And Nathan needs someone's faith to move mountains for him.  Please commit to daily faithful prayer, and then check Nathan's process on Reece's Rainbow.

Nathan 16G

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Boy was born in November 2004

God, please don't let this happen anymore!  I can not bear to see these precious gifts wasting away before our eyes.   God, help Nathan and all of these children find forever families…let the world understand the gift they are, that they shuold not be hidden away and mistreated like this   

Look at Nathan, as an infant, and what he has regressed into….neglected, malnourished, but full of potential and life, even still.  God help him find a family who will accept him no matter what his needs are. 

An Adoptive Family's "Thankful Tree"

Every year we do something special in the days leading up to Thanksgiving.  Yesterday our children headed outside into the woods to find a tree branch that we could use for our "Thankful Tree."  We cut leaves out of construction paper, and everyone wrote several thing for which they are thankful.  Now our tree sits in the corner of our dining room and has been proclaimed as "my favorite thankful tree of all!"  :)

Along with the more typical leaves that were labeled with "Mama," "cookies," "my warm house," and all the pets names, we also have some leaves that are specific to our individual journey as an adoptive family.

Here are some of our daughter's leaves (which she doesn't understand just yet, but it is an ever-repeating part of our "family talk"):

In big and little ways, our family tries to incorporate her life story.  It is part of her.  It is part of us.  And we truly are thankful.

And as a side note...  Five years ago today, a precious birth mother in Taiwan wrapped up her little baby in blankets and placed her in a busy place where someone would surely find her and begin her journey to her forever family.  We honor that sweet birth mom, and we are thankful for her immense sacrifice.

Aging Out of the Orphanage

At the young age of 16 years old, many orphans "graduate" from the orphanage and are given nothing but their few worldly possessions and a bus ticket.  They say goodbye to friends.  (All photos provided by New Horizons for Children)

And head out on their own, having no idea what lies before them...

They leave, with no training in how to live in the world and no mom or dad to call when they run into problems.  And problems they DO run into.  One out of 5 will commit suicide within the first year of being out of the orphanage.  Two out of 5 girls will end up in prostitution.  And many will resort to a life of crime just to survive.

Please don't look at these children, feel sad and then do nothing.  Someone has to stand in the gap.  Someone is needed to PRAY for these children every day, laboring behind-the-scenes in agonizing wrestling prayer on their behalf.  Someone is needed to step forward to adopt.  Someone is needed to give of their financial resources.  Someone is needed to advocate for a child until he is adopted.  Someone is needed to go to these orphans and work alongside them.

You are needed.

I cannot help but wonder who it was that was supposed to step forward to keep this lonely teenager from the street-living that is ahead of him.  Are we indifferent to his life simply because it's not in our own backyard?

God, forgive us!  Do we really believe You when you say that when we refuse to help these children, we are really refusing to help YOU?  This is YOU walking down this road, and we refused to take You into our home...

"Then the King will turn to those on the left and say, 'Away with you, you cursed ones, into the eternal fire prepared for the Devil and his demons!  For I was hungry, and you didn't feed me.  I was thirsty, and you didn't give me anything to drink.  I was a stranger, and you didn't invite me into your home.  I was naked, and you gave me no clothing.  I was sick and in prison, and you didn't visit me.'

"Then they will reply, 'Lord, when did we ever see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and not help you?'  And he will answer, 'I assure you, when you refused to help the least of these my brothers and sisters, you were refusing to help me.'  And they will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous will go into eternal life."  ---Matthew 25:41-46

Reality

Today as we were driving home from church, I saw a dead animal on the side of the road.  It was really an awful sight, and I watched as the people in the convertible ahead of us turned their heads as if it wasn't there.  I shifted my eyes to avoid seeing all the details myself.  Car after car did the same thing.  If we look away, we can get the image out of our minds.  We can forget it.  We can go on almost uninterrupted with our happy plans.

Have you noticed that we tend to do this whenever there's a reality that we simply do not want to acknowledge?

Here's another reality.  This one involves human lives, and I want to share some pictures that I want to you face.  As you look at each photo, please ask yourself if you would ever want your own child to be in this situation.  (I have been given permission from New Horizons for Children to share these photos with you.)

How many pairs of shoes have you ever worn that were in this condition? This is what is provided to kids in one of the orphanages in Ukraine. 


Imagine these being your child's feet.

Here is a common bathing area. They heat water from the hanging hot water heater for use anywhere in the building. But, they fill this bathtub under it once a week and all the kids take turns to come bathe. The green bucket is used to pour water over the kids while sitting.  


Will you please for just one moment imagine sending your child into this room with other children to be bathed once each week?

Here is a ceiling inside a foster home in Latvia. Note the black mold growing on the walls. Since there are concrete walls in most homes, the plumbing was added later in this home and comes into the house by a single pipe and then goes to a couple of areas for indoor running water in this home.

Can you imagine your child living in this foster home?

Here is a typical interior staircase.  You can "see" it but oh, how you don't ever want to "smell" it!

Imagine your own child alone in this staircase.

This is a very nice bedroom in a typical orphanage. These beds were just replaced and they were all so proud of them! But, the smell! No plastic sheets for the beds means they wear out and become unsanitary very quickly!

Take a moment to simply close your eyes and imagine seeing your child sleeping in one of these beds tonight.

Really...did you stop and truly honestly picture YOUR CHILD in these photos?  Is that too far fetched or too hard to even begin to ponder?  Does it make you too sick to even consider?

This is REALITY for millions of orphans.  

And it has been found that once a family steps forward to adopt one of these children, they lock into that reality.  They really look at those beds and think, "Oh...my child is over there sleeping in that room that stinks so badly.  I wonder if his sheets are clean.  I wonder if he's crying alone in that bed right now."  They see the picture of the shoes and wonder, "Is my child wearing shoes like that right now?"  They see the bathing facility and cringe with the reality that, "My child has to face that room every week!"  

And something inside just propels them to fall on their knees and pray for their child...not a simple, "Please bless Billy" prayer...but a wrestling-on-my-knees-in-anguish-and-tears prayer.  Something compels them to go through a tremendous hassle of adoption paperwork, doctor appointments, fund raisers, headaches, weary travel and abandonment of all comfort zones...all for the single purpose of getting to their child as quickly as possible.  WHY??

Because that child is one of them.  It's not just "someone somewhere" who needs help.  It's a member of their own family.  And suddenly that makes all the difference in the world.  Suddenly those photos of beds and shoes and mold become personal.  And almost all of us would move mountains to help our own family.

These needs MUST become personal to us in some way, whether we adopt or host or give financially or pray fervently for one child until they are adopted.  These photos need to sink in at the heart level...not to depress us and leave us unable to breathe...but to PROPEL us forward, to COMPEL us for the sake of love.

This needs to become reality in our minds and hearts and lives.  Why?  Why should we even give up our time and energy and money and focus to someone on the other side of town or the other side of the world?  Why would we bother when their situation has nothing at all to do with us??

Remember those who are in prison, as though in prison with them, and those who are mistreated, since you also are in the body.  Hebrews 13:3 9 (ESV)

Why do we avoid reality, when we are called to enter into it?  God has called us.  Do we need any other reason? 

I close with a Casting Crowns' song.  And OH how I pray that we GET THIS!

But if we are the Body
Why aren't His arms reaching
Why aren't His hands healing
Why aren't His words teaching
And if we are the Body
Why aren't His feet going
Why is His love not showing them there is a way

Jesus paid much too high a price
For us to pick and choose who should come
And we are the Body of Christ 

Look at This Precious Asian Prince!

I was contacted today by someone who is very much wanting this little guy to find his forever family.  She is advocating for him, and I agreed to place him here for YOU to pray for.  To find out more specific information (as I'm unsure what specific information can be posted here), please CLICK ON THIS LINK.  From what I understand, time is of the essence, as he is now too old for the baby house and may be transferred to another facility.  Please pass this along to anyone interested in adopting this little guy.  He's in TAIWAN too!  :)  (We LOVE Taiwan and its beautiful people!)

Please pray, proclaiming Scriptures over his life.  It is GOD ALONE Who is Father to the fatherless and who places the lonely in families.  Join us in claiming that for this child.  In GOD ALONE do orphans find mercy.