are you missing someone?

I don't know if you have ever checked out Adeye's blog "No Greater Joy Mom," but recently she posted some disturbing facts and pictures which you can read about here, here and here.  Anyway, it got me thinking about all of the waiting children out there.  Before we adopted Luisa, I scoured every waiting child website, and photo listing I could find because I knew we were missing someone in our family.  Ever had that feeling? 
Well, I went back to many of the same sites the last couple of days and I must tell you, it broke my heart.  So many of the same children are still waiting!  Ugh!  I can't tell you how difficult it was to see the numbers H9-06 and the description of a little girl born in 06, that is still waiting for the right family to bring her home.  Luisa was H9-08.  It kills me that she was once a number, 

 she is so. not. a number. anymore.  She is a beloved daughter 

{and sister!}

  H9-06 is someones beloved daughter, they just don't know it yet! 

So many people say that they are not 'called' to adopt, which may or may not be true, I always want to say..."Have you asked God about that?"  But I never really dare to.... But, today, I am throwing out this challenge for you to..."ask God about that."  See what He has to say, it may take a while for a definitive answer, but I am certain that He will answer, and that answer may be that indeed, you are not called to adopt, but maybe, just maybe one of you will be given an affirmative answer and be blessed beyond measure by adoption.  
I am going to start advocating for some of these waiting children in the hopes that someone out there may be their lost mommy or daddy.  If you would like any info on adoption, please feel free to email me, I have received several of these types of emails and I always make it a priority to answer them!

 Psalm 68:6 God sets the lonely in families...  Are you that family?

The Truth Pandemic...

December 1st is World Aids Day

Project HOPEFUL invites you to join with them in spreading the truth
about HIV/AIDS and children living with the disease. Please watch their video, Truth Pandemic and then share it
with five of your friends so they can learn the facts too.  Help fight social stigma Join the Truth Pandemic!

One of the fabulous families that we met at The Orphan Summit was the Twietmeyer family. They are a family that have adopted six children from Ethiopia, two of them are HIV positive. The story of their daughter, Selah, is truly remarkable. By the time Selah's adoption was complete, she was 12 years old, weighed 32 pounds and was dying from stage 4 Aids. Now she is a healthy, happy 13 year old. While HIV is a death sentence in third world countries, the miracle of HIV medicine in America has virtually eliminated anyone from dying from Aids related issues, but we generally remain a nation uneducated on HIV or Aids. The Twietmeyers have formed Project Hopeful to assist families that adopt HIV positive children and help educate the country against the stigma of HIV.

It was a privilidge to spend some time getting to know the Twietmeyers, Carolyn is one awesome momma, and such a blessing to me!

Check out their family in this months issue of People Magazine!

more thoughts on the Summit...

It has been over a month now since the Orphan Summit, and I am finally able to put a few thoughts together to share with you.  There is so much I want to share, but my mind has been on Doug Sauder author of "The One Factor." 

He talked about how adoption is like an infection.  He says if we can get just one foster or adoptive family in a church,  it makes it real, people will watch that family, and think "Hey, I think I can do that!"  They start talking, thinking and praying and before you know it, they DO it!  And so it goes!  Love for orphans transforms orphans, and us, and the world around us!  Amen to that!

He shared his thoughts on Haiti, and how he believes it was a teachable moment for the church.  So many people woke up to the need for adoption, by seeing the plight of the orphan.  Sometimes God uses events to produce thoughts and provoke the heart of his people.

As an orphan advocate, we build a bridge between the people who are "busy doing life" and the children with the needs.  Kay Warren once said "There are 143 million orphans in our world, most Christians can't name 5 of them!  My husband is taking another team of teens down to Lily of the Valley orphanage in Mexico in a few weeks.  I am so excited for them, it truly does change your life to visit Lily!  Our church family knows their names, and I LOVE that!(I so wish I could go and love on those precious children)

James 1:27 (New International Version)

Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.

Obviously not everyone should adopt, there are so many ways to live out James 1:27.  Visiting widows and orphans.  The poor, needy, anyone in distress, they are all around us, we just need to reach out to them. And of course keep yourself from being polluted by the world...which usually proves to be much more difficult than the looking after orphans and widows!!  {don't ya think?} 

Well, that is just one page of notes I wanted to share, there is more, so much more...

The Hole in Our Gospel...

I just finished another very challenging and excellent book, The Hole in Our Gospel, by Richard Stearns, U.S. President of World Vision.  I am having a hard time posting a review on this book, there is so much to share and it was so good I just really want everyone to read it for themselves!!

But here is one thing {of many..} that stood out to me.

After coming back from Uganda as the brand-new president of World Vision U.S., and after seeing firsthand the horrors of the AIDS pandemic in Africa, he begins discussions with his team about how to help the orphans and widows abandoned by AIDS. 

Before launching a national program to raise support for an AIDS ministry, they conducted a research study with the Barna Group.  Here is what shocked me:

"When evangelical Christians were asked whether they would be willing to donate money to help CHILDREN orphaned by AIDS, assuming they were asked by a reputable Christian organization that was doing this work ...

...only 3 percent answered that they definitely would help;
...52 percent said that they probably or definitely would NOT help."  

(The Hole in Our Gospel, 196)

This breaks my heart.  This literally made me well up with tears.  I read it over and over.  Are we so calloused, so cynical, so uncompassionate, that HALF of us say we will not help children, innocent, precious, helpless, dependent VICTIMS of a cruel disease? Oh how we must make the Lord feel, these are HIS innocent, precious, helpless children!  Ouch!

I have been reading some of the most amazing books {see book shelf to the left} and I can tell you that God is doing a work.  He is challenging me, I am being gloriously wrecked!  I am praying He will make me into something useful for His glory!!

World AIDS Orphans Day...

6,000 children will be orphaned by AIDS today.

Could you love one?

This is (in part) from Erica's blog, re-posted with permission. 

Today, May 7,  is World AIDS Orphans Day. World AIDS Orphans Day is a grassroots campaign to draw attention to and advocate on behalf of the millions of children orphaned by AIDS. It is a day to remember, and hopefully a day to do something to help out the children in the world who truly are "the least of these". (See below for lots of things you can do to help).
Here are some of the staggering facts. Please read them... please really stop and think a minute about these statistics.

• There are over 15 million children orphaned by AIDS living around the world RIGHT NOW. 15 million is the equivalent to the number of all of the people living in New York, Paris, and Bangkok combined. That is an awful lot of children.
• Well over 12 million AIDS orphans live in Sub-Saharan Africa, alone.
• Experts believe that millions more orphans remain unaccounted for in India, China and Russia.
• This year the number of children who have lost one or both parents to AIDS is expected to reach 25 million.

Today, another 6,000 children will be added to the already 15 million children world wide who have been orphaned by the HIV/AIDS crisis.
The result of being orphaned by AIDS is heart-breaking for these children. From the World AIDS Orphans Day website:

• In addition to the trauma of losing a parent, orphans are often subject to discrimination and are less likely to receive health care, education and other needed services.
• In HIV affected households lacking community support, food consumption can drop by 40% putting children at risk to hunger, malnutrition and stunting.
• Impoverished and often without support to educate and protect them, orphans and vulnerable children face increased risk of HIV infection. (And there are already an estimated 2 million children currently living with HIV).
• Orphans are often easy prey to many forms of exploitation: forced labor, prostitution and child soldiering.

In the United States, if a child loses a parent to accident or illness, it is considered a terrible tragedy. Such stories are covered by the media, communities mourn and show their support, etc. In Sub-Saharan Africa, parents dieing is a normal part of life. It is still a terrible tragedy for those children, but it happens so often that no one else really pays any attention.
And do you know what makes this really, truly horrible? Do you know what makes my gut twist and my heart ache? HIV IS COMPLETELY TREATABLE.
If a person contracts HIV in the United States or another country where there is treatment readily available, they have an excellent long term prognosis. Most HIV+ people receiving treatment now have close to normal life expectancies and can live in good overall health.  With treatment, HIV+ children can be healthy and happy. They can go to school, grow up, go to college, have (healthy!) children, and live long enough to raise them and beyond. Without treatment, an estimated 50% of HIV+ children will die before the hit their second birthday. 
HIV does not have to be a death sentence, and yet for thousands of people every day, it is, because the world doesn't care enough to really do something about it.
Can you imagine for one minute if some terrible disease struck the United States (or whatever country you live in) and was killing thousands and orphaning thousands every day? Can you imagine if another country had treatment that could lead to good health and a long life, but it just was too expensive or too difficult or too much trouble to get that medicine to us? We wouldn't stand for it.
So why do we stand for it now?
The numbers are staggering, and so is the need for action. Children are the future of our world, and I shudder to think about what this world will be like with so many millions of children growing up without the love and security of a family... and way too often growing up without adequate food, education and medical care.  Where does that leave all of us?
 Rich Stearns, President of World Vision, US said,{From his AMAZING book The Hole in Our Gospel}
"I believe that this could very well be looked back on as the sin of our generation. I look at my parents and ask, where were they during the civil rights movement? I look at my grandparents and ask, what were they doing when the holocaust in Europe was occurring with regard to the Jews, and why didn't they speak up? And when we think of our great, great, great-grandparents, we think how could they have sat by and allowed slavery to exist? And I believe that our children and their children, 40 or 50 years from now, are going to ask me, what did you do while 40 million children became orphans in Africa?"
I know that it feels like the problem is way too big for us to really do anything to make a difference, but I know with all my heart that touching the life of just one, just ONE, child can truly make a difference. And if everyone touched the life of just one child, we could reach them all.
Here are some ways that you can help touch the life of an AIDS orphan this World AIDS Orphans Day.
- Get educated. One of the biggest roadblocks in getting people to care and take action is the stigma surrounding HIV/AIDS. This is not a disease that only strikes those who "deserve it" (yes, that is really how some people think!). This is a disease that strikes men, women and children... it strikes heterosexuals and homosexuals, it strikes people of all races and social classes and it strikes people in all countries. HIV/AIDS is a HUMAN problem. 
Fear is another big roadblock. HIV can not be transmitted in any casual way, and people that are HIV+ are not a threat to those around them. HIV can only be transmitted through sexual contact, birth, breastfeeding and blood to blood contact (such as sharing needles).
There is a ton of information online, click here for a condensed version.  Then tell two!
Two excellent books to read about the HIV/AIDS crisis and the orphan crisis are There is No Me Without You and  28 Stories of AIDS in Africa.
- Sponsor an AIDS orphan. There are many wonderful organizations out there that allow you to sponsor a child for a very low cost per month. Doing so makes a great difference in the life of that child, and getting to know the child you sponsor through pictures, updates, letters, etc. will have a great impact on your life as well. I promise.  AHOPE for Children (which supports AHOPE Ethiopia, a home and community support program for HIV+ children in Ethiopia) has child sponsorships for $30 a month. And you can send a text to AHOPE  to 85944 to make a $10 donation.  I know that financially times are hard for many right now, but we  live better than most people in the world and would have to sacrifice very very little to sponsor (and truly help) an orphaned child.
- Another great organization to support is Because Every Mother Matters. Today is $10 Friday and they are trying to raise money in honor of Mother's Day to build a maternity clinic in Ethiopia. If we care for the mothers, we we have less orphans.
- Consider adopting. Adoption is only an option for a tiny percentage of the 15 million AIDS orphans around the world and it is certainly not the solution to the AIDS crisis or the orphan crisis, but for the tiny percentage of children who do get adopted, it changes their world and their future dramatically (and for the adoptive parents, it is equally amazing).  There are agencies and programs placing healthy and special needs orphans from all over the world with new families. If your heart may be open to adopting an HIV+ child, I have about 100 amazing children of all ages waiting for a second chance at love, family and life. I am proud to work for Adoption Advocates International who has a thriving program placing HIV+ children from Ethiopia, and is also finding families for HIV+ children in Ghana and Thailand.  I currently have almost 90 HIV+ children waiting for new families in Ethiopia. 
- Support From HIV to Home, an organization that helps provide care for HIV+ orphans and supports and helps parents adopting HIV+ children.
- Support Project HOPEFUL, whose mission is to "encourage, educate and enable parents adopting children with HIV/AIDS".
- Visit the World AIDS Orphans website for other ways to touch your heart, get educated and get involved.
Please feel free to share this post anywhere you see fit. Thanks for reading.