What Happens When You Give | Reece's Rainbow Families

I want to share with all of you what God has done recently, and why I believe - no, I know that when we choose to give out of nothing, God multiplies our gifts back upon us.

Before the beginning of this year, I was essentially unemployed.  I worked odd jobs for friends whenever I could, but I wasn't even making ends meet.  As the new year started, I was blessed with a wonderful new job, which would not only make ends meet, but leave some left over.  It took me a while to catch up, but by the start of Spring, I had room to breathe.  Wise advisers told me to put at least one month's worth of expenses in savings, in case I fell ill or lost my job, but no matter how hard I tried, that didn't happen.

It didn't happen because of the faces.

These faces.

and these faces...

...all orphans, all seperated from their families by little more than money.  When I looked at their faces, and knew I had money to spare in the bank, I couldn't tell them no.

Especially not when I knew what love could do... love that they could only receive after their ransoms were paid.  (These pictures are all before/after adoption shots)

How could I let money sit in a savings account when it could be used to help produce these miracles?

So I gave.  Probably not as much as I should have, or could have, if I'd sacrificed a little more, but I never set aside that one month's expenses.  That need wasn't as real to me as theirs was.  And no, I don't expect an award for that - I actually struggled with how to tell this part of the story because I don't want to sound proud or self absorbed - but the whole story needs to be told to see the miracle.

But then I did get sick.  Really sick, actually.  I had two surgeries and lost count of the days I spent in the hospital.  One of them was my birthday, I do remember that.  I couldn't work for a long time and I stopped being able to make ends meet.

I still didn't regret the choice I made.  But I did wonder... how am I going to make things work?  My family helped me through the month of May, which was in other ways a dark time for me, while I waited for a paycheck that had taken longer than usual to come through.  Still though, I knew it wouldn't be enough to get me through June... and the whole time I agonized, not because I was worried about myself - I knew I'd figure something out - but because all the while I was watching Mamas and Daddies beg for the money needed to pay their children's ransoms, and I could do nothing.  That was worse than being broke.

Last night, I went upstairs in the middle of the night to find something to eat, and checked the unopened envelopes sitting on the counter.  So many of them have been medical bills lately, I haven't been particularly keen to open them.  But one caught my attention - it was from the surgery center where I'd had my wisdom teeth out in November.  I was puzzled because I knew I paid that bill - was there some expense I'd missed? So I opened that envelope to see what the damage was, and instead of a bill, I found a check!  It was then that I remembered that I'd actually overpaid and never collected my refund - but how much could it be?  Surely only pocket change.  Then I checked the amount.  Not only was it more than pocket change, it was probably enough to get me through June... and probably enough to have a little left over, maybe to finally give to one of the families I had been shouting for!

This is what God does when you give to the least of these, when you put them before yourself.

I have an amazing friend who is on a plane at this very moment on her way to meet her three newest children, halfway across the world.  They are the first three children whose pictures I posted, and they are in desperate condition.

Carson has hydrocephalus and had shunt surgery relatively recently.  He is vibrant and lively at six years old, but if he isn't taken out of that place quickly, his spirit will be quashed.  He needs to come home.

Presley is three years old and has severe autism.  There's no way to tell until she's in a family how much of her behavior is due to her environment, but right now she shies away from social interaction and self-stimulates instead.  There is no one to help her learn how to function any other way.  And she is small - weighing about as much as an 8 month old baby.  She needs to come home.

Thad is in the most desperate condition of all.  Though you can't see it from the picture, Thad is lying in a crib - where he spends all his time - and he is nine years old.  You couldn't tell it from looking at him - the poor boy weighs only 18 pounds and his joints are severely contracted.  He suffered a brain injury after being beaten into a coma at the age of four by his birth father.  He is terrified of even being taken out of his crib.  He really needs to come home.

Though she is traveling to meet them now, my friend Amanda still needs a significant amount of money to complete the adoption.  More fees will be due when she comes home and faces what is probably the hardest part of adopting from this country - having met and held your children, having seen first hand what their lives are like, and having to wait months longer to bring them home.  I can't even imagine what that must be like - and to have to try to raise funds for the rest of their ransom during that time - how does anyone do it?

If I could, I would lift the entire burden of getting funded from this family's shoulders - but I can't... not by myself.  How wonderful would it be for Amanda to come home from this trip to a significant bump in her fundraising efforts?

But I need YOU.  Amanda needs YOU.  Carson, Presley and Thad need YOU.

They need you to have faith... that when you give out of nothing, it will be multiplied back upon you.

I can attest to this.  It happened to me.

So who is with me?  Who is going to step up and help an amazing family - the same family, by the way, that made one of those transformations I showed you above happen.  This is their son Keith, home less than a year, who weighed only ten pounds when he was taken from the orphanage and is now a healthy little boy who is nearly walking.

With your help, soon we'll see similar transformations in Carson, Presley and Thad.

But only with your help.

Don't say it's too much to ask.  Don't let yourself believe that any harm or misfortune will come to you by giving to the least of these.  Trust.  Trust whatever you believe in - God, Karma... that the gifts we give are multiplied back upon us.

Oh - and did I mention you could win an iPad?  Check out an awesome fundraiser for this family here.

If you prefer a tax deductible donation, you can also give to their Reece's Rainbow Family Sponsorship Program account here.

You won't be sorry.  Trust me, for I have held in my own arms the greatest reward of this type of giving.

Me and precious Keith, March 2013

Go on.  Experience with me all the rewards of giving.

Edited to add:  The Unroes have been offered a $20 matching grant by the very family I blogged about last week who are trying to raise their own commitment costs - what did I tell you about giving from nothing?  Donate ASAP so we can turn $20 into $40!  And meet the amazing family offering the match here.

Going Back for More

Back when my other blog was my only blog, I'm sure I shared this picture with you:

This is Keith.  Well.  That was Keith.  You might remember that he was in a bad place.  A place where no child should be.  A place where, at four years old, he weighed only 12 pounds.  A place where he was alone all the time, lying unstimulated in a crib.

Then my friend Amanda Unroe said 'Yes' to Keith... and to four other children in the same country.  Yes, you read that right.  Amanda, who admits she's probably not entirely sane (but in the best way), brought five children with down syndrome home at once.  And she did it like a rockstar too.  Keith and his brother and sisters have been home for six months now.  Look at that little twelve pound 'baby' now...

Check out all that hair, the little bit of chub on his hand... the light that shines in him... having a family has brought him to life!  He escaped that place where no child should be, and now he gets to be part of one of the most amazing families I know.  The Unroes currently have eighteen children, and they love and treasure every single one of them.  In fact, Amanda may be the most fun mom ever - she lets them have indoor snowball fights!  When I heard that, I volunteered to be adopted next!

I think it's safe to say that these five 'orphans no more' have a lot of happy memories ahead of them...

The first of many *adorable* Christmases in a family!

But, my friend Amanda, as you can probably guess, loves kids.  Imagine a person like her going into the place Keith was, the sort of place you don't even want to imagine one child in, and knowing - seeing - that there are hundreds of them there.  A few of them have families coming for them... but what of the others?  Imagine coming home, seeing this beautiful child come to life, and then seeing more children who have suffered far too much for their short lives listed for adoption... and no one stepping forward for them.  Imagine knowing that for the ones you brought home, there are dozens more left behind.

Someone like Amanda experiences that and thinks 'I have more love to give.'  Bringing home children doesn't divide the love - it multiplies it.

So she committed to three more children in a terrible place.  Three more children who desperately need to come home... less than six months after getting home with these five.  And by the way, I have no doubt she's going to absolutely rock it with three more too.  The first year I did Vacation Bible School, there were 31 kids in my class, and myself and two other teachers.  I was fourteen.  I remember my mom saying to me that night, "Crazy, huh?" and I replied "I like this kind of crazy.  It works well for me."  That's the kind of person Amanda is.  Even though most of us can't imagine how we'd handle 21 kids, she handles 18 like a rockstar, and she'll do the same when the other three are home.  Everybody has rough days, sure, but for the most part, it sounds like a lot of fun to live in that house!

Meet the kids who will join the Unroe family this year.

"Presley" will be named Charity.

"Carson" will be named Johnathan.

"Thad" will be named Matthew.

Do you want to guess how old they are?  I'll bet you'd never have guessed that Keith was four in that first picture, five now, would you?  How about these little ones?

Charity is three.  She has autism.

Johnathan is six.  He has hydrocephalus, treated with a shunt.

Matthew is nine.  He suffered a severe brain injury from abuse by his birth parents.  He has been neglected so severely that he weighs only 18 pounds and his legs are contracted at the knee.  He needs to come home yesterday.

The family is currently working to update their homestudy, working on the dossier (paperwork) that needs to be sent to the kids' country and translated for their government, and filing paperwork with Reece's Rainbow to be eligible for the Family Sponsorship Program (FSP).  Once that paperwork is done you will be able to make tax deductible donations to them through Reece's Rainbow.  For now though, funds are still desperately needed.  They have a number of auctions and buy-it-now sales going on continuously on facebook, are participating in programs that will share portions of the proceeds with their adoption fund, and knowing Amanda, will be having any number of other fundraisers until these three finally touch American soil.  But right now, the biggest obstacle for them is money.  Every next step takes money.  Agency fees, getting documents in order to send to the government, filing them, paying the homestudy agency, I don't think I could accurately list everything if I tried, having never adopted myself, but since they went through this process already last year, they know what they're doing and have gotten everything together as fast as they could - and a lot of it is done - but now they need the money to move forward.

Look at him.  He is nine years old.  Matthew desperately needs the kind of love and care a family provide - the kind that transformed Keith from a crib-bound infant to a busy toddler on the verge of walking independently.

Money cannot be what stands between this little boy - or his brother and sister - and the care they need and deserve.  There is no time to waste.  They've waited years.  They shouldn't have to wait one more day than absolutely necessary.

Many of us have tax refunds coming this time of year.  I think I know where the Unroes' is going.  Lots of people plan vacations or buy themselves shiny new things with their tax refunds, and that's fine - you earned that money, you deserve it - but could you spare just a little bit to help bring these kids home?  $20, out of the whole amount?  Would that be too much to ask?  Too little, perhaps?  If I spent my money the way I really wanted to, they and a few other families would be getting my whole paychecks and I'd be living on chicken nuggets indefinitely.  Most of you know that I only just got a full time job - what I made last year was independent and won't earn me a refund.  Nevertheless, I'll pledge $20 from my next paycheck to the Unroes.  Would you be willing to match me?  And if you can't afford $20, how about $10?  Would you give up pizza night this week to help bring Matthew and the others home?  How about $5?  From what I understand, that's about one cup of coffee at Starbucks.  Brew your coffee at home one day, please, and help me bless this family?  You won't regret being a part of making a difference in the lives of these kids and indeed, their entire beautiful family.

Donations can be made via paypal to unroerescare@yahoo.com, or on their blog linked below.  There is a "Chip-In" on the upper right hand side of the blog where you can donate - Chip-In is down while I'm writing this so you can use the paypal address as an alternative, but the Chip-In should be back up soon.

And if you want to learn more about my friend's amazing family, please check out their blog (full of cute pictures too!).  A mutual friend, Michelle (who is adopting Carolina and could also use both prayers and funds - we are trying to arrange a local benefit for their adoption as they live relatively near me, so if anyone local can help us find a place to do that I would love to hear from you!) also wrote a beautiful post about them this week that you can read here.  In fact, please do read it.  She writes much more eloquently than I do... and she can tell you more about Matthew's story.

Friends... I know we're not all called to adopt.  I know we're not all called to have 21 kids.  We're not even all called to write blogs and fundraise for orphans.  But we're all commanded to CARE for orphans.  Here is a family who has done wonderful things (all but one of their children are adopted, by the way), and you have the chance to help them, to be a part of that.  I'm blessed to have been even a small part of it.  Don't let another day go by missing out on that.  Match my pledge... or exceed it... or just give what you can... say a prayer... offer an encouraging word on their blog... do anything except nothing.

 

They're counting on you.

A Young Heart for Orphans

A year ago, when I first discovered the plight of orphans with special needs, it consumed me for months.  My thoughts, my prayers, my time, my heart... and more than once, my dear M, who was then 12 years old, caught me crying at my computer and asked me why.

My M last Christmas.  She's artsy, if you can tell by the present.  Oh yeah, and that's me in skull footie pajamas in the background.  Be jealous.  

I believe in being honest with M, and she's not a little girl anymore, she's a young lady.  So I told her.

I told her that sometimes children are born with special needs, just like our A and AJ have special needs, but with some kids, it's really obvious as soon as their born.

I told her that in some countries, people don't believe that these kids can do anything or live normal lives, or they don't feel like they can take care of them properly, so they leave them at the hospital or give them to an orphanage, because they hope they'll have a better life.

I told her that often, at the orphanages, these children don't have a better life.  Often, they die.  Often, they're starved, neglected, and at very least deprived of the love of a Mom or Dad.

I told her that sometimes these kids can be adopted, but there are so many of them and it costs so much money that many of them wait for a long time.

I told her about the place in Eastern Europe where Katie Musser came from (#11), I showed her the pictures of the children and told her how old they were.  I showed her the little girl who is now Amelia Brown, and told her "She's the same age as you."

Amelia back in the orphanage (#11)

I showed her the video that changed my life... 'The Dark Side of Serbian Mental Institutions'.  If you haven't seen it, watch it now.

I hugged her when she cried and asked me how anyone could do this to children, and what we could do to help.

I told her that yes, I wanted to adopt one of these children - or more - someday.  She told me that she would like to do it too.



Over the past year, I have kept M updated on the children we both have a heart for.  I especially reveled in showing her photos of the progress that newly adopted children were making.  You should have seen the shock on her face when she saw Katie Musser just after she was adopted, versus Katie only two months  home.  'All they had to do was just take care of her.'  She prayed with me as the Brown family flew home.  She mourned with me when families lost newly adopted children, or children they were on their way to adopt.  I showed her the photos of new children to pray for.  I told her the stories of children redeemed by adoption.

Then, this year, in August when the Reece's Rainbow community began gearing up for this year's Angel Tree, I explained the concept to her and told her that I was going to commit to being a Christmas Warrior and to helping a friend raise funds for her Angel Tree child.  She asked me how I was going to do it.  I told her we were going to have an auction - we did.  By the way, Bids 4 Brett raised $220, including 20% for Ollie!  I told her I didn't know what else I was going to do - maybe try to make some things - I introduced her to Pinterest and together, we looked for ideas of things to make.  We made anything we had the materials for and anything I already knew how to make.

One night in August we were having a 'Girls Night', and we were trying to stay up late to watch a meteorite shower (it turned out to be cloudy - boo!)  While we waited and tried to keep ourselves awake, I taught her to make God's Eyes, a historically based craft made with yarn and popsicle sticks.  The next day, when I woke up (late - because we'd stayed up so late), M had already been up for hours and made a pile of crafts!  Over the next few days she made them in her spare time until a huge pile had been accumulated, the intention always to sell them to help raise funds for orphans.

I'll never forget one night, we were sitting together making crafts, and she looked up and asked me, "Katie?  Do you think people will buy these to help those kids?"

"Yes," I told her.  "I think they will, not just because they're fun and pretty, but because you made them with all the love in your heart for orphans, and that's pretty special."

And it is.  I know you could make one yourself.  Or a dozen.  But my precious M has a heart to help, and I will do every single thing I can to support her in that.  So I'm announcing McKenzie's God's Eye Sale - which will go from now until December 31.  I've taken a photo of all the ones she's made so far, and she's up for more if they sell, so all you have to do is make a small donation to Elden (how much is up to you - we are thankful for ANYTHING we can raise for him!), forward me your donation receipt from RR (these don't state an amount in case you'd like to keep that anonymous, they're just proof of payment) at Callmecrazycbus@hotmail.com, along with the number and colors/designs you'd like (or I can have M choose her favorites if you'd like), and an address for shipping, and you too can be a part of a little girl's quest to help an orphan.

These crafts are great decorations and kids love them.  All the kids we babysit begged to pick colors for one of their own (yes, we absolutely let them).  Several hang on my Christmas tree every year from a fundraiser *I* headed up in elementary school.  After that fundraiser I spotted them all over the place.  On back packs, on rearview mirrors, around belt loops, hanging in various places in people's homes, attached to magnet backing and placed on refridgerators, anywhere you can think of.  Each one comes with a hanging loop to make decorating easy.  You can affix magnets easily with hot glue if you so choose.  Here are a couple pictures I took tonight of M's master stash:

Made with love by McKenzie, 13.

My M has a heart of gold, a heart for orphans and kids of all shapes and sizes.  I love her more than life itself and I want nothing more than to help her help an orphan this Christmas.  Would you please consider supporting her efforts?

For gratuitous cuteness (and, okay, a brag on how awesome she is - M sharing her cell phone with one of the girls we watch and showing her how to play a game <3

And, because I'm a glutton for punishment, I'm tacking on another fundraiser here.  Earlier this week I read about something called "Singing Christmas Cards".  It's just what it sounds like - you dress up in some sort of holiday related costume, and for donations, pay the person of the donor's choice a visit and sing them a Christmas carol.  Guaranteed to produce some laughs (and I don't mind even if they are at my expense!)  I happen to own THE MOST EPIC Christmas costume of all time, hand made by my amazing mother, and I'm prepared to make this happen.  For a $10 donation to Elden's grant, I will perform a singing Christmas card with your choice of song for whomever you would like to send it to.  For a $20 donation, you can send three carols.  I am local to Columbus, Ohio and can deliver these in person in the greater Columbus area.  If you would like to send a card carol to someone outside this area, or just prefer this method, I'm happy to record the carol and send them a video.  I'll even dance a little.  If you make a donation for one or more of M's God's Eyes, I'll knock $2 off the price, in case you'd like to deliver a little gift with your card carol.  Again, just make your donation to Elden's grant here, forward me the 'receipt' along with your choice of song(s) and your recipient's address(es) or e-mail address(es) at Callmecrazycbus@hotmail.com, and I'll get your card out ASAP.  If your card is to be delivered in person, please try to include a day/time that you think would be best for delivery.  Also, sending one to yourself just for your amusement is totally allowed.  Er, just a disclaimer... I was in choir in middle school... but I'm not exactly a vocalist, if you get my point.   If my voice is terrible, just consider it a part of the comedic effect ;)

Epic Christmas Costume

Finally, I just want to share a couple other fundraisers that are on my heart right now.

My friend Laura is launching a new fundraiser (since our auction closed Monday) for Brett called 'With Love From...' - the goal being to obtain a love offering of $5 from at least one person in every state.  If you give, please pay directly to Brett's grant (linked above) and let us know via blog, facebook or email where your love offering is coming from so we can add your state to the map!  This fundraiser is just starting out, so we don't exactly have a lot of states covered yet... we'd love to add yours to the map!

Love from Laura in Missouri so far!

Also, my friend Jenni, who is raising money to commit to a sweet little boy from Katie Musser's former orphanage (#11), is partnering with another family for a Wii U giveaway!  This runs until December 15 and your chances of winning are AWESOME!  You can read about their fundraiser at Jenni's blog here.  They are in a time crunch to pay some agency fees and desperately need to raise this money, but don't have the benefit of having a Reece's Rainbow FSP yet.  If you would like, or know someone who would like a Wii U this Christmas, would you please consider entering to help them out?



So there you are.  Lots of fundraising going on, and I know it's a tight time of year for everyone, but I hope you'll pick at least one and give a little bit... maybe as a Christmas present to me?  ;)

Oh - and for the sake of updating - $285 has currently been raised for Elden through Angel Tree and $193.30 for Brett (not all auction proceeds are in yet) - so a total of $478.30 has been raised for the two boys - almost halfway to $1,000, and halfway to me losing my first eyebrow!  I'm getting excited!  (Yes, I realize that I am exceedingly weird).  Also, for the record, I've been doing this crazy thing called 'getting up early' lately, and this other crazy thing called 'taking a bath in the morning', which is why there haven't been many bedhead photos (that and they are really exceedingly embarrassing) but I will try to get back on track - if you promise to help me get those grants up so I can stop taking bad pictures of myself!

Finally I just want to send a sincere thank you out to everyone who has supported Elden and Brett so far.  If the words existed to tell you what it means to me, I would say them, but there just aren't any words strong enough to express the depth of my gratitude.  I grin like an idiot, and sometimes cry a little bit, every time one of them moves up though, if that tells you anything.  Thank you so much.  You all are truly amazing and none of this - angel tree, fundraising, Reece's Rainbow, over 800 adoptions in six years - would be possible without you.



Oh, and PS:  Look who's on My Family Found Me...

ZOEY!!!!

New Blog, New Look, New Focus (Sort Of)

So due to some personal matters I have had to set my regular blog on private for now.  However it looks like it will be that way for at least a month, and with Angel Tree starting up and at least three major fundraisers on my hands, I simply could not be without an advocacy blog.  So - welcome to 'Crazy - Are We There Yet?'  The name comes from... well, my brain... but specifically from how I keep thinking, over the past few years... it's about to get better.  It's about to get better.  Just a couple more months and it will be better.  Notice I said I've been thinking that for a couple years.  Haha.

Then I realized it reflected some of our impatience with the adoption process - you fall in love with a child and you want to just - GO!  But you can't... something's holding you back.  Finally, you commit to a child and you want to just GO!  But you can't... first there are homestudies and fingerprints and USCIS clearances, and by the way, blogger really should develop an 'adoption people' dictionary, because I'm sick of having 'homestudy' and 'USCIS' and of course miscellaneous and various cities and institutions across EE marked as misspelled!  But I digress.  Finally, you clear all that mumbo jumbo and you're ready to just GO!  But... alas, the time has come to compile a dossier... compile, compile, compile... once you're done with that, you're sure that now, at last, it will be time to GO!  No.  Not yet.  Now it's a season of waiting... for approval, for your travel dates, for that blissful final day when you get to meet your child.  And then, of course, no matter where you're adopting from, there's more waiting before you can bring them home.  More paperwork that needs to be filed, more approvals you need to get.  And I'll bet you find yourself thinking... "Are we there YET????"

So it is with advocates too.  We see these children, we fall in love with them, we know we can't adopt them, so we scream and wait and scream and wait for them to be chosen... and then they finally are!  And we rejoice and whoop and holler and praise the Lord... and then we wait to find out who their families are when they appear on New Commitments   And then we wait WITH their families as they go through the process... every agonizing dollar of fundraising, asking - are they funded yet?  Are we there yet?  And sometimes - we think we're there... we see that big sign on the highway that says "DISNEY LAND, RIGHT LANE"... then we notice it says "400 miles ahead" in small letters below.  More fundraising.  More screaming.  Are we there YET?!?!?!

The one way we ARE there 'yet'... is if the place we're going... is CRAZY!  My first blog was called Call Me Crazy (because I knew everyone would, when, as a 22 year old single woman, I announced my future plans to adopt multiple special needs children internationally).  Well, if we're going CRAZY... yep, we're there ;)  In fact, I question whether I ever had to 'go' crazy at all... perhaps I started out there?

And there is the overly detailed story of the name of the new (probably temporary or secondary) blog.  Probably way more than you ever needed to know.  But hey, isn't every post I write novel-length?  I couldn't let you down now!

As for the new look - It's mostly the same, just a different background, some different colors.  I may play around with it a bit more.  I'm mostly happy with it, except this infuriating date stamp above every post seems to be some sort of shadowbox brown color... I've changed the color of everything I could think of under 'advanced options' and that little box seems to be in some sort of untouchable zone... daggone it, Blogger, don't you know that brown just does not go with the rest of the colors on my blog??  If anyone knows how to fix that stupid thing, I'd certainly be open to help.

As for the new focus - not much has changed, really.  Well, one big thing.  I'm going to continue screaming for orphans.  But I'm not sure I'm going to be able to continue my promise to highlight the kids who did not make it onto Angel Tree - at least not at the rate I had intended to do so.  It was stopping me from blogging about other things that God had laid upon my heart to write about - thinking - no, you haven't caught up with your project yet, you should do that first... and I felt uninspired and lacked the energy to do that, so I wound up posting nothing at all.  Posting nothing at all is not going to help anyone.  So I started to feel called to something that I wasn't sure I was quite ready for... something I didn't understand... a season of rest.  Through a good friend I began to accept that taking this time was okay and sometimes for the best.  For as easy as it is for me to charge ahead when God says 'GO', it is also that difficult for me to pause when God says 'Rest.'

So I have rested.  The series will continue, but perhaps at a less stringent rate than previously promised.  And, for a little good news, some of those sweeties who were on angel tree or narrowly missed angel tree... have found families!  Let me introduce you to the kids who WON'T be on Angel Tree this year, because instead, they are on My Family Found Me!

First, the kids who were chosen for angel tree, or would have been on angel tree, had their families not found them between the first day that voting for Angel Tree began, and now.

The very first was... MAXIM!  His family found him WHILE he was leading the voting for his category for a place on the Angel Tree!  Praise the Lord!

Then...  a cascade of children, some of whom would've been on the AT because of their age and diagnosis, and some who were voted onto the Angel Tree.  There are so many, I can't possibly write much besides their names... when possible their names are linked to their family's FSP with Reece's Rainbow in case you feel so inclined to donate.

Adalia

Annabeth

Colleen

Dorothy

Gerri

Kacey

Kaydee

Mabel

Melody

Michelle

Nico

Peyton

Vaughn

Victoria

Zofia

Micah

Then, today, to MUCH rejoicing... came...

DAYNA!

There are a few more kids who should be noted... kids I might have profiled, who were up for Angel Tree voting but didn't make the cut, who also found families.  Praise the Lord for those who have stepped forward to adopt these precious angels.  I know there are more than one, but until I can identify the rest of them, meet HEATHER!

Heather is TEN years old, and thank God a family is coming for her.

And then there are my special angels.  The ones from the orphanage where Katie Musser spent her first nine years.  The ones from the place that opened my eyes to the plight of special needs orphans across the world.  The ones I was going to profile when I had time and space.  These ones won't need to be profiled now... they have families coming for them.

A friend kicked us off with THREE more children on MFFM... a friend who JUST got home with FIVE new children... meet:

Carson

Presley (who I did profile at one point)

and

Thad

Soon followed:

Gage

and

Peyton

Remember Peyton?  In the past he was listed as Payton (with an A)... at the same time as Penny... and his file got sent back.  We thought hope had run out for him... until a family stepped forward.  Now they've received absolutely NO donations to their FSP since they stepped up for the little boy we all feared would languish in that horrid place, his file forever in a government black hole.  But they stepped up.  Can we show them a little appreciation please?  The early parts of the process can be daunting and expensive... a little encouragement - no matter how little - thrown in their FSP, would mean the world to them.

Oh, and just in case anyone is wondering... there are still kids waiting at this orphanage, or at the older child orphanage where many of them were transferred after the inhumane conditions at their baby house were discovered.  Those transferred to the older child orphanage are doing wonderfully with love and care and nourishment!



So with Angel Tree beginning, my focus will be the little boy who I have signed up as a Christmas Warrior for, and the other little boy who I love deeply whose Christmas Warrior is getting my help, like it or not!

My AT boy, Elden 14G... He is five years old and this is likely his last year for Angel Tree.

My friend's AT boy, Brett.  He turned eleven in August and was voted on the Angel Tree.

Any donation made to these boys after November 1 will go towards their goal of raising $1,000 each over the two months of Angel Tree.  I have been working with Brett's warrior to put together a series of auctions to benefit him and other children who might have been on the Angel Tree but did not make the cut.  I will also be working on a carnival fundraiser for the boys.  Then, I have a super secret *ultimate* fundraiser... which I'm not revealing until November 1... so stay tuned!

Angel Tree won't be the only focus of my blog.  I'm going back to blogging when I feel led to.  Some days I might feel led to blog about the children left off Angel Tree.  Some days I might feel led to blog about these two boys.  Some days I might be led to plead for a family in the process who is struggling to make ends meet and save a life at the same time.  Some days I might be led just to put my thoughts out there, whatever they may be.  Some days, I might read something or see something that I want to share with you.  The one big difference is that there will be no more posts solely about my personal life - there may be personal stories, photos, but for security reasons there won't be whole posts about what's going on in our world anymore.  I think this is for the best, since Angel Tree season is almost here.  Don't worry - you're not missing much!

So please... bear with me.  I haven't gone anywhere, I promise!  As long as there are orphans... I will be hollering about them.