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.