Pack Your Bags Malcolm!!

YOU ARE GOING HOME!!!!

TO A FAMILY!!!

This family: www.ourfamilysmith.blogspot.com

Thank you is not enough....

To Jen, To Leila, To Brianna, to Dayna, to Julie, to JoAnna....and any other blogger gals I might have forgotten who helped shout out for this sweet boy!!!

The other exciting news is that there is an advocate familiar with Malcolm's orphanage who is going to try to keep him there until his family can get him!!!

To everyone who donated and prayed:

YOU SAVED A CHILD FROM LEAVING EVERYTHING HE HAS EVER KNOWN AND BEING SENT TO A MENTAL INSTITUTION TO BE BEDRIDDEN FOR THE REST OF HIS LIFE!!!!

Good job.

No, great job!!

You guys are the best.

And if you can't get enough of your fill of orphan advocacy here...

go visit here, where my good friend Leila will be doing even more good for more orphans, starting with sweet Laurel who is running out of time - www.orphanreport.blogspot.com

Now go have a cookie and a cup of coffee and put your feet up for a few minutes in celebration....

you earned it!!!

ITS MALCOLM MONDAY!! Called by name....

Orphans are easier to ignore before you know their names.
They are easier to ignore before you see their faces.
It is easier to pretend they're not real before you hold them in your arms.
But once you do, everything changes."
-from "Radical" by David Platt

We know his face....

We have seen him WALKING and heard him TALKING...

http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DIWyKFJCHKc0%26feature%3Dmfu_in_order%26list%3DUL%26fb_source%3Dmessage&h=IAQHrgISl

We call him Malcolm. We call him by name....

We call for his family.

Several families have inquired about Malcolm.

One is very close to committing to him.

But the fear is there.

I don't know about you, but I will no longer live in fear.

Fear keeps us silent.

I will no longer be silent about orphans like Malcolm.

I will no longer be silent about the disabled, the sick, the unborn...

so now I will speak.

On August 1, 2011....2 weeks before we left for Eastern Europe to adopt our Henry...

I miscarried a baby.

That baby's due date was today, March 26, 2012.

Very few people know this...because I was following society's conventions to not talk about such a loss.

I have been praying about this these past few weeks and I am convicted that this "social convention of silence" is one thing that contributes to our "anti-life" mindset in this country....it is not "really" a loss....not "really" a life....not really something to share with friends and neighbors and even family....

but that is WRONG.

The silence enslaves us.....the silence about orphans contributes to the fact there over 100 MILLION children needing families all over the world...

The silence about the unborn contributes to turning our backs to the horrible reality of abortion and refusing to help women in crisis pregnancies....

So today....I will not be silent.

I have a baby in heaven who I named Zara Gianna....

Zara means "princess" in Russian and St. Gianna Molla is a canonized saint in the Catholic Church who gave up her life to save the life of her unborn child.

PLEASE, I ask you today....

perhaps in honor of a baby YOU lost....

perhaps in honor of YOUR children who have a mommy and daddy to kiss them and tuck them in bed every night...

BREAK THE SILENCE with a gift to Malcom!!!

Click here: http://reecesrainbow.org/?s=Malcolm&x=3&y=10

Go down under his profile and click on the DONATE button on the left side.

Please give what you can....

and then come back and leave a comment SHOUTING to the world the child(ren) your donation is in honor of.....

Let's dispel fear and show Malcom's family that GOD WILL PROVIDE!!!

Let's cast out the silence which marginalizes and sees the unborn and disabled as liabilities...

Let's bring Malcom and Zara and all the hidden treasured children into the light.

In case you were not convinced...

of the reality of Spiritual Warfare as mentioned in Monday's post here -

let me bring you up to speed.

There was an amazing response to my post Monday on Discerning Adoption... I was contacted by many families wondering if special needs adoption was the path for their family and seeking further information about Reece's Rainbow and the waiting children...

there has even been interest in sweet Malcolm, although no one has committed to be his family yet...

did you see his grant fund is over $7,000??!?!?!?

and there is MORE coming...so much more....we will start another fundraising BLITZ for him on Monday, March 26!!

So flush from the success of the early part of the week, here is the rest...

I was bashed by a woman making an illegal U-turn in the middle of a block heading home yesterday. She had an expired license. She did not follow me to the police station to make a report as the police instructed us over the phone. According to the police, her license plates do not match the car that hit me. It is likely she gave me false insurance information...we will know more tomorrow.

This crazy 5 yo boy jumped off the highest playground equipment on Wednesday....and limped the rest of that day....and all day yesterday....and this morning....and so we are heading into the orthopedic doc to see what he did to his foot...we will know more this afternoon.

On the Henry front....I cannot get anyone to send me the results of his sleep study...and we have not confirmed a new date for his cleft palate repair yet...and I cannot get his teeth fixed at the same time as the cleft repair/ear tubes NOR during any of the 3 sedated tests he will be having at CHOP the first week of April.

So there is my week.

I am not looking for dark shadows behind every corner....

and I realize bad stuff can "just happen"...

but when all this happens and I hear a low seething voice going "Stop blogging. Malcolm is not your responsibility. You are busy enough. Take care of your own first. Let someone else advocate, someone with more time.... go watch some TV, you deserve it......"

I realize that I need to do the OPPOSITE.

So I blogged instead of having a coffee break....and now it is off to therapy for Henry and x-rays for Logan and insurance calls on the car and call after call to the hospital to find sleep study results so I will know if Henry is stopping breathing while he rests....

What is it for YOU today???? 

That you know God is calling you to do but you are scared or tired or under attack about???

Maybe it is going to www.reecesrainbow.com and donating to that child whose face keeps popping up in your head??

Maybe it is tackling a project that would make your spouse happy that you have procrastinated....

Maybe it is thinking about what to make for dinner NOW instead of at 5:30pm....

Listen to the still small quiet loving voice that calls you to do what you KNOW you need to do.

And start your weekend off convinced and convicted!!! Have a good one!!!

I will....

no matter what....

take that Screwtape.

Discerning Adoption: Part 2: The Spiritual

Happy Monday!! It is my son Luke's birthday!! He turns 18 years old today....

one of my easiest births (he was born 5 minutes after we arrived at the ER and less than 2 hours after my first contraction), he is now a 6 foot 3 inch tall lacrosse player, artist (who will be studying Industrial Design in college next year), and all around awesome son and big brother....

a laid-back guy who can always make us smile....

I had a wonderful weekend at the Behold! Conference in Peoria, Illinois on Saturday - if you are a Catholic woman in the Midwest I highly recommend you attend this one day event in 2013!

Of course the best part was driving there and back with my great friend P and sharing in 5 hours of spiritually uplifting girl-talk while drinking coffee and sweet tea!! Good times!!!

So having lots of spiritual reflection time I think I am ready to tackle this very personal topic today - how we discerned to add to our family last year through international special needs adoption.

If you have not already read Part 1, please go here and do so now to read my first post in this series and all the disclaimers.

I will add another disclaimer here.

The 2 months leading up to our commitment to adopt Henry were a very spiritually intense time for me. I cannot share and explain without reference to God and my Catholic faith, the vehicle for my relationship with Him. Henry would not be laying here at my feet mouthing action figures without the great goodness of God making clear to us what He wanted our family to do.

Those who know me personally would probably agree that I am a "TYPE A" kind of gal. I have a ton of energy and I try to get a lot done and do it well (sometimes I don't succeed but that does not stop us Type A's from trying)....

Usually I spend the first week of each January deciding what I want to focus on over the next calendar year.

One year it was running - and I did a 1/2 Marathon.

One year it was having my household run more smoothly - and I streamlined my laundry and cooking system to what works so well for us today (I really should add in cleaning one year though......)

But on January 1 of 2011, I did something totally out-of-character for me....

I decided to let God decide what He wanted me to focus on this year.

And as I prayed I thought it might be "helping orphans."

A bit more background. My dear friend P I mentioned above, had adopted a sibling group of 3 from Ethiopia and was helping to raise money and awareness for a wonderful program in Tanzania called Children of Hope and Faith. Tanzania does not allow international adoptions so the Bishop there has taken an orphanage under his guidance. An order of nuns cares for younger children and runs a school for the older children, and as they get older they sponsor children to attend another boarding school. My extended family gave money to this program instead of getting Christmas presents for the other adults in 2010 and I was feeling called to do more. But I was not sure what it was.

So on January 1, I googled "helping orphans."

About the 5th search result down was Reece's Rainbow....

and I was hooked.

Stunned.

Traumatized.

Seeing that special needs children in Eastern Europe are warehoused and then thrown away forever.

Seeing their FACES!!!

I thought I had my mission.

So many amazing families were raising money to pay the "ransom" to get these children home....there was NO TIME to save the thousands of dollars needed....these children had to get here to the US now!!

So I resolved to give money to RR families in 2011. I was SURE that was what God wanted me to do in 2011.

But then, as I shared in my last post, I started looking at the "Waiting Children" listings....

and I saw Henry.

It was like a lightning bolt.

He was the same age and at the same orphanage with a little boy called "Winston" who was missing part of his leg....

Winston had a committed family with a few weeks.

But Henry did not.

So I resolved to pray specifically for Henry to have a family.

I prayed for him every day....often at Eucharistic Adoration (where Catholics go spend time in the presence of Jesus who we believe is present body, blood, soul and divinity in the consecrated bread)....

and then one night....at 3 am....I woke up....

and knew that God was telling me that WE WERE HIS FAMILY.

I did not hear voices.

I knew this in the deepest part of my heart.

I truly had no thoughts AT ALL of adoption before this. I was just going to pray and send money.

But God had other plans.

I was scared to death. Paul and I had been talking about how we were going to afford to send Brent (my oldest) to college in the fall and then Luke the year right after him....

But we had also been talking about how to truly live our Christian faith in the very secular suburbs we were living and raising our children in.

So I prayed some more....asking God, "ARE YOU SURE??? I ALREADY HAVE 6 CHILDREN!!!"

and also, "Please help me tell Paul. I am so scared."

So on January 30 I presented all the information about Henry and RR to him. I told him that he is the head of our household and that I would not badger him about it but that I really felt this was what God was calling us to do in our marriage and family.

Then I did one of the hardest things I have ever done in my life.

I SHUT MY MOUTH for a month.

You see my husband loves me dearly and I know he would do anything to make me happy...

but this needed to be about more than that.

It needed to be a call and a commitment to BOTH of us...in the same deep and abiding way.

The entire month of February I prayed and went to Adoration whenever I could (10 minutes after dinner one night, 5 minutes on the way home from preschool drop-off one afternoon, and hour on the weekend when all was settled at home)....

and checked Henry's RR listing every single morning, hoping that he was still there....

yet also hoping for a family for him.

It was truly wrenching.

The other wrenching thing in February was that our family was experiencing some intense Spiritual Warfare to sow fear and discontent and try to get us to "give up" on God's plan for us. In case you have not heard that term before, while all Christians believe that Christ's victory in His death and resurrection on the cross has won the war over sin and evil....that there are still battles being fought where the evil one tries to lure souls away from God and His plans for us both here on earth and our ultimate destination of heaven....

I kept a journal at that time and I can list the things which all happened between me telling Paul about Henry (January 30) and when Paul decided we could begin the process to bring Henry home (February 28)...

1) heater on hot tub breaks completely unexpectedly (just put a new one in less than 3 years ago).... we have to fix because leaving cold water to freeze up in a hot tub during the Chicago winter is not a good thing ($1000 price tag)....

2) pipe breaks in our laundry room causing flood in laundry room and sending WATERFALLS cascading through the basement celing, necessitating emergency plumber visit, can you say "KA-CHING"?????

3) dryer stops working...in the middle of Friday mega-loads of laundry (after the flood we used every bath towel in our house)....internal switch had shorted out....another repair bill...

4) my 11 yo daughter got an orthodontic device placed on Tuesday afternoon that on Wednesday morning (when we were snowed in by 20+ inches) caused her mouth to become STUCK OPEN SO WIDE that she began to choke and vomit uncontrollably and could not breathe...after a minute or so of incredible panic, the appliance broke and she was OK....

5) on Saturday, right before probably the busiest work week I had in over 5 years, our microwave CAUGHT ON FIRE!!!! Something caused a hole in the internal wall and SPARKS and FLAMES preceded the total shut-down of the incredibly expensive microwave/convection oven combo we just put in during our kitchen remodel in June!

6) on the only night we went out as a couple that whole month, our second son texts that the baby just "threw up gyros and fries all over"....

Sure, stuff like this can happen in any household at any time.

But I had read enough blogs from RR families to know that THIS HAPPENS ALL THE TIME when a family is discerning adoption or has just started the process. It would be remiss of me not to share this insight and information. Because when we KNOW what the devil is doing, that lessens his impact and power.

So I kept praying and Paul kept trying to keep up with the unexpected repairs and bills....

and one Sunday...

February 28....

Paul came home from an afternoon watching sports and celebrating his brother's birthday with his mother and other brother....

and said we should do it.

We should commit to Henry.

And we never looked back.

Not when Ukraine shut down to international adoptions in June and we thought there would be months of delay.

Not when someone asked Paul if there were anything that would make us walk away from adopting Henry and he responded, "No. Nothing. We are all in."

Not when those prophetic words were truly tested when we met Henry and he was clearly so small and malnourished and with MANY more physical problems than were expected.

Not when Henry could not digest ANYTHING here in the US except a special formula that cost us the amount of a new car payment every single month.

Not when Henry was diagnosed with Larsen's Syndrome rather than arthrogyposis back here in the US.

Not when we ended up in the PICU at Children's Hospital before Halloween with croup.

Not when they told us right before Christmas that he essentially could not hear right now.

Not when we spent 5 days back at Children's in February due to croup, pneumonia AND RSV.

Not when his cleft repair and ear tube surgery has been delayed over and over.

It is not with human strength...

"I can do all things with Him who strengthens me."

My 12 yo old daughter was playing with Henry on the floor the other day and looked up at me and said,

"What did we ever do before Henry was here?"

I don't know honey.

But I thank God every day for bringing him here to us.

6 months ago today....

....Henry and I landed on American soil and he became a citizen and met his brothers and sisters and grandparents and cousins and joined our family FOREVER!!!

I was remembering the joy of that day this morning...

And what was our present?

Henry's cleft repair and ear tube surgery scheduled for Monday March 12 was cancelled.

Due to his hospitalization for RSV in February (which cancelled our FIRST try for this surgery) they want to wait a few more weeks until putting him under General Anesthesia.

Which I understand is needed for his safety.

But since we will be going to CHOP the first week in April for all his VEPTR-related tests and since the surgeons will be on vacation the second week of April (after Easter), that puts his surgery the week of April 16 at the EARLIEST...

and my little guy who probably cannot hear a normal conversation due to the fluid build-up in his ear canals due to the cleft palate will have to live in silence for WEEKS longer...

which makes me very sad this afternoon.

******************************

PART 2 of my Discerning Adoption series will be posted on Monday.....

now that we will not be in surgery...

*sigh*

Discerning Adoption: Part I: The Practical

This week (if things do not get too crazy here!) I hope to post this series for all of you who are new to the idea of special needs adoption and wondering how it works and how to get started....

some premises...

1) I am not an expert. Just a mom who went through (and is still going through!) all that special needs adoption entails. Don't take my word as gospel. Ask others, especially those more experienced than I.

2) I will be focusing on international special needs adoption in this series, although much will also be relevant to non-special needs and domestic adoptions. Let me make clear - I LOVE DOMESTIC ADOPTION!! I just was not called to it....if you are, AWESOME! I will help you as best I can. But children in the US foster system at least get to attend school and access American medical care and live in a family structure. My heart is especially broken for children in other countries who are denied education, have only rudimentary (or sometimes no) health care, and live in orphanages and are destined for institutions to be warehoused for their entire lives.

3) I am also focusing on those families who already have children, either through biology or other family circumstances. Adoption seems to be a more "clear cut" option for those who have no children yet.  But as a practicing Catholic Christian for my whole life, I never remember anyone in the Church or among my friends who were believers bringing up the idea that people who could (and DID!) have biological children might ALSO want to adopt. THIS is an omission I especially want to correct!! Who better to bring an orphan with challenges into a family than an EXPERIENCED mom and dad with siblings there to SHOW the adopted child the love (and how to act!) in a family!!

*************

I called this series "Discerning Adoption" because I have only seen other resources refer to an "Adoption Decision", a title I do not think is accurate for the following reason.

A "decision" is to buy black shoes or brown shoes. Have pizza or a hot dog at a ball game. Go to Disney or Universal Studios for vacation.

No moral judgments or lifelong consequences are involved. Either decision is fine. No problem either way.

We are called to DISCERN the BIG stuff in life.....

should I marry? what career should I follow?
should I be open to adding another child to my family??

To DISCERN means to ASK GOD for His input in the decision.

To not rely on YOURSELF....your own preferences....

your own comfort level....

to ask God to SHOW you....to STRETCH you....to HELP you....

so I am convinced and CONVICTED that we NEED God's help in order to consider and then CARRY OUT the adoption plans we believe that HE HIMSELF has called us to!!!

**************

And how do we carry them out?

Well I can just tell you how WE did....

Reece's Rainbow (which I will refer to as RR) is a ministry that lists children available for international adoption in many countries...they other VERY IMPORTANT thing they do is provide a "grant fund" for each child where people can made TAX DEDUCTIBLE contributions to that child and/or the family adopting them (once a family has "committed" to the adoption process for a specific child)...

This is HUGE because people here in the US really LOVE to get a tax deduction for their charitable giving!

At the top of the Reece's Rainbow home page are a bunch of information tabs including lists of waiting children (listed by their ages and special needs and things like "substantial grant" or "new listing").....

WARNING: BEFORE YOU LOOK AT THE CHILDREN......

go to the "How to Adopt" tab and in the pull-down menu you will see "International Programs"....

go read about the different countries programs and see the qualifications for each and if you qualify BEFORE you fall in love with a child....

I did not do that.

I found Henry's picture first.

THEN I looked at the requirements to adopt from Ukraine.

We met all of them (PHEW!!) but I know many a family has fallen in love with a child and then does not qualify for that country's program or for the more specific requirements of a region within that country (happens a lot in Russia)....

So we found Henry (more on the spiritual background of that tomorrow....and you can go read the blog archives from the beginning so you are up to speed)....

now all we needed was $25,000.

We did not have that sitting in a bank account.

We had just refinanced our house to the hilt to pay for a much needed new kitchen the previous summer (when adoption was not even the shadow of a thought in our minds).

Reece's Rainbow has lots of great fundraising ideas, again on the pull-down tab there is information on fundraising for your adoption.

I will warn you.

Some people will have a problem with you fundraising for your adoption. That is of course their right.

But saving a child from such dire circumstances can certainly be considered an act of charity, whether looked at through secular eyes and most certainly, biblically.

We can "save the whales" and "save the seals"......how about "saving the children who will be abandoned in mental institutions where a significant percentage DIE in the first year their due to lack of care".....???????

Ok, rant over.

This was how we did it.

We borrowed $10,000 from a relative and plan to pay it back from our tax refund this year. An international adoption completed in 2011 where up to $13,000 was paid for "out of pocket" (ie NOT with grant money) will receive up to a $13,000 tax refund. So we will have the $10,000 to pay back our relative when we receive our tax return. PLEASE be aware that this is no longer the case in 2012!! Adoptions completed in 2012 will only receive a tax credit UP TO THE AMOUNT of taxes OWED.....and in 2013 the amount may even go down to $6,000 (although there is a Bill being discussed to change this)....so this strategy might very well not work for you in the future.

Borrowing is still an option though.

We borrow $25,000 to pay for minivans.....I think a child is a much greater investment, don't you??

Next my fabulous Mom taught my 12 yo and 7 yo daughters and 9 yo niece how to make beaded bracelets and provided most of the beads and supplies! They were gorgeous!! Here is a small selection -

Our awesome Polish pastor let us have a table in the Church Atrium after masses on Mother's Day and the Sunday after and MENTIONED US FROM THE PULPIT (this was big!!!!) and we put a BIG POSTER of the pic of Henry you see at the top of this blog near a table with bracelets spread out and our family helped people find bracelets and answered questions and gave away 200 bracelets and raised $3000!!!!

My parents also volunteered their house (yes, I do have awesomely amazing parents, thanks Mom and Dad!) for a massive YARD SALE the first weekend in June!! We spent at least 3 weeks picking up donations from so many friends (a special shout-out to all my La Leche League and AP Chicago South friends!) and neighbors and even people I did not know but were happy to give us items to support our adoption. ALL MY SIBLINGS and their spouses and LOTS of their children (yes, I do have an amazing family, thanks everyone!) helped out loading donations and selling when open and then shutting down and getting the leftover items to other charities. We raised ANOTHER $3,000!!

We sent an "Adoption Announcement" card to everyone on our Christmas Card list, about 150 names. We explained our plans and our needs and asked them to prayerfully consider a donation to our grant fund on RR.... we raised at least $5000 from this effort!! Also contributing were many wonderful people from the Arthrogryposis community, which was the diagnosis Henry had on his profile on the RR website.

PS - while RR WILL give you a list of people who have donated to your grant fund and the amounts they donated, Paul and I chose at the beginning of our journey NOT to access this information and we made this clear in our letter and to our friends and family. I DID NOT WANT TO KNOW who gave what so that they could feel totally free to donate without being fearful we would judge them.

Finally, we had two amazing benefactors who donated $2000 per couple and two amazing women who had  very little and gave us $1000 and $500.

Making a total of $26,500.

In less than 5 months.

We did not sit on our hands and blithely croon, "The Lord will provide somehow."

We did what we could....and then left the results up to the heart of others....

and our amazing God!

The families on RR introduced me to a saying I had not heard before....

HIS WILL, HIS BILL!

And He paid it in full!!

*****************

Discerning Adoption: Part II: The Spiritual - coming soon!!

Coming Soon....

...next week to be exact....

...due to popular demand....

I will be doing a multi-part series titled: Discerning Adoption

So you have the rest of the weekend to "catch up" with the history of "Bringing Henry Home"....

and then we will begin with Part I: The Practical...Part II: The Spiritual...Part III: The Philosophical...

so until then, I leave you with gratuitous cuteness to take you into the weekend, courtesy of my children....

The feet from left to right of Luke (17), Ella (7), Tessa (2) and Henry (1).

Henry waiting with Ella to go out to the school bus in the morning.

Henry and Tessa hanging out together on the floor in the morning.

Ella and Logan in one of Luke's (my 6ft 3in 17yo) shirts!

Have a great weekend!!!