Meet Beckett!!!

This adorable little boy needs a family!
                                
Meet Beckett! This cutie with the bright blue eyes needs a mama to call his own. Beckett is just three years old and has spent his life in an orphanage. He loves to cuddle and is described as having a calm and sweet personality. He has some very minor special needs....some vision loss in one eye and some hearing loss in one ear. Those needs can easily be overcome here in the US but what does Beckett's future hold for him in his country? At best, a stay in an orphanage until he reaches 16 and then he's turned out into the streets. If he's not blessed, he'll be sent to a mental institution in a couple of years where he will remain for life. Please dont let that happen to this child. If you can't adopt, please spread the word about this little boy who so desperately needs help.  

Introducing.....IRINA!!!!!!

This is Irina!!! She is the reason for this blog and the reason I have come to understand the orphan crisis. Irina was in a decent hospital where she was being cared for. The director of the hospital even cared enough to write an article for a magazine about her. The director  was afraid to send Irina on to the mental institution because the staff there were afraid of her HIV status. To learn more about HIV and the TRUTH about it, go to www.projecthopeful.org  Eventually Irina was transferred and the second picture is her after her transfer to the mental institution. Irina has cerebral palsy and HIV. When she was transferred she was beginning to talk, pull herself up and walk. Affter 5 years in an institution where people are afraid of her she may have lost these skills. A home study approved family can inquire about her and her current condition. Please,please help this little girl. She desperately needs a family. She's only 8 years old and will spend the rest of her life bedridden if someone doesn't save her.

Plevan

Everyone now knows about the Nazi atrocities during WWII.  However, before the US was bombed at Pearl Harbor, the vast majority of American citizens either remained uninformed or just plain didn't care what Hitler did to the Jews, Gypsies, the handicapped and all his other "undesirables". History is now repeating itself. In many places around the world today children are being starved, locked away and ignored all because they are not "perfect" in the eyes of the society that they live in.

The idea that we as Americans have of orphanages is just not reality. When we see Little Orphan Annie we think of a nice old house fillled with lots of kids, maybe not the best way to grow up but certainly not the worst. The reality is much different. While no orphanage is a good place and most are not even mediocre, there are some that rise to the level of a Nazi concentration camp. One such place is a particular orphanage in Eastern Europe. Children there with such disabilities as Downs Syndrome and cerebral palsy are literally starved to death. They are given a mixture of water and another substance in old beer bottles with rubber nipples placed over the top and large holes cut in them where the mixture is forced down the kids throats. None of the kids are given solid foods and none know how to chew because of that. There are just a couple of staff on the weekends to care for 240 children. Consequently, the childrens diapers are not changed and many times they are not fed. The government has been made aware and is taking some steps to correct the situation but because of the limited funds and the condition of the children, they need help.

Several families are working to adopt or have adopted from this orphanage. The story of three little girls can be read about in their mothers blogs. To read Katies story: www.theblessingofverity.blogspot.com . Katie was 9 years old when her family adopted her. She weighed just 10 pounds. To read Faiths story: www.nogreaterjoymom.blogspot.com Faith is still in Plevan and at 14 years old weighs just 14 pounds. Her family is wrking quickly to get her home. To read Carringtons story www.carringtonscourage.com Carrington arrived home last March weighing just 11 pounds at 3 years old. After only a year at home with her family, she weighs 26 pounds and is sitting up and crawling. Please, please take the time to read these girls stories and see their pictures of what they looked like before and after and what difference a family can make.

I will be doing a fundraiser to raise money to help with several projects being started in this orphanage. One of the programs is sort of a "foster grandparent" program where several of the children will have their own "babba" who will come daily to hold, talk to and play with that child. Another necessity is for nursing staff to be added. These children are so malnourished that they must be carefully fed or risk having their little bodies shut down if they're given too many calories all at once. The kids need special formula for the same reason. Please add any comments on faundraisers that you have....I'm open to all suggestions! I have been thinking of doing a yard sale so if I do I will happily take donations from all of you who live in Northwest Indiana! Please pray for these kids!

Everybodys Kids

	We pray for the children who sneak Popsicles before supper, who erase holes in math workbooks, who can never find their shoes. And we pray for those who stare at photographers from behind barbed wire, who can't bound down the street in a new pair of sneakers, who never "counted potatoes," who never go to the circus, who live in an X-rated world. We pray for children who bring us sticky kisses and fistfuls of dandelions, who hug us in a hurry and forget their lunch money. And we pray for those who never get dessert, who have no safe blanket to drag behind them, who watch their parents watch them die, who can't find any bread to steal, who don't have any rooms to clean up, whose pictures aren't on anybody's dresser, whose monsters are real. We pray for children who spend all their allowance before Tuesday, who throw tantrums in the grocery store and pick at their food, who like ghost stories, who shove dirty clothes under the bed, who never rinse out the tub, who get visits from the tooth fairy, who don't like to be kissed in front of the carpool, who squirm in church and scream in the phone, whose tears we sometimes laugh at and whose smiles can make us cry. And we pray for those whose nightmares come in the daytime, who will eat anything, who have never seen a dentist, who aren't spoiled by anybody, who go to bed hungry and cry themselves to sleep, who live and move, but have no being. We pray for children who want to be carried and for those who must, who we never give up on and for those who don't get a second chance. For those we smother and...for those who will grab the hand of anybody kind enough to offer it.    This poem has touched me for many years but particularly since I've begun finding out what the lives of orphans are really like. At age 16, these kids are literally "shown the door" at the only home most of them have ever known. They are given about $30 and a ninth grade education and sent out into the world. Is it any wonder that most commit suicide or begin a life of crime or become victims of human traffickers? What choice do they have? YOU can make a difference in these childrens lives! What are YOU going to do?

Redeemed

Every Good Friday and Easter we all hear a lot about being "redeemed" and how "God has redeemed us through Christs death and resurrection". Truthfully, I never thought much about it. I mean I knew the words and could tell you what they meant but they had no personal meaning for me....I was a Christian and I believed everything about Easter but there was no real personal feeling; no gratitude for what was done for me. This year has been different. I have spent the last year reading blogs and watching regular families spend everything they have. They beg and borrow and sell whatever they can. They give everything to redeem a child no one else wants. Children that are left to die; that are not "perfect" that sometimes smell bad, and act up and don't even know  or appreciate what is being done for them. It just occurred to me the other day that is exactly what Christ did for me. He paid with His life for me. Even though I was unwanted by anyone else, I act up and don't always appreciate what He did for me. I can't even fully understand what He did for me. But He still redeemed me. Maybe thats why God has told the church to care for orphans. Maybe its more for our benefit than theirs. Maybe its so we can understand, just a little bit better, what kind of sacrifice it took to redeem us and what kind of love it took.

"Refuse to let the world corrupt you"

The first part of James 1:27 says to care for widows and orphans and the second part says to refuse to let the world corrupt us. Why do you suppose God put those two things together? Maybe He knew that we, as the church, would eventually succumb to the culture of death that the world has bought into. The culture that says that unborn children are not living humans created in God's image and that it is our "right" to choose to end that life. The same thought that many in the church believe today. Those of us that do claim to believe in the sanctity of life are still far too complacent. When we hear of an abortion taking place, do we grieve as God does? How many of us pass abortion clinics everyday and feel nothing or even bother to pray? How many in the church see pictures of orphans and do nothing?.....NOTHING! Because its easier for us to ignore those kids, ignore the facts because it's painful to see and care. It upsets our life and (Heaven forbid) God may ask us to do something!!! I'm guilty of all these things too. They are so a part of our culture that it's almost inescapeable. I have only been aware of the orphan crisis for about a year. During that year, I have heard people, in the church, say things to me like, "There's nothing I can do about it"; "Those kids aren't the United States problem"; "No I won't pray about what God wants me to do, I'm NOT taking in some kid"; "Those kids are too damaged". I can't imagine how much God grieves over each child alone and unwanted; how He grieves over every child locked away forever in a mental institution because they aren't considered "good enough" to be in society. I know that not everyone is called by God to adopt. If that were the case, Irina would have a home here with me but the "powers that be"on this earth have said "No". All of us are called to care for "the least of these". What better way to serve Christ than by caring for orphans? Please make yourself uncomfortable, CARE, SEE, FEEL....Ask God what He wants you to do.