Saturday, December 15, 2007

Can you help an orphan?

I found this You Tube video on another adoption blog and thought it was so good.
When Scott and I started thinking of adoption, we said all the reasons why we didn't WANT to start over. It came down to all of our reasons were very selfish. We could not adopt and enjoy empty nest and take a nice vacation every year, get some new furniture, be able to buy "toys" at will but what would we think of our decision in 14 years. You see, in most countries when an orphan hits the ripe old age of 14, they "age out" of the system. That means that they are released from the orphanage, usually with no money, little or no education, no family or family name. Alot of the girls are forced into prostitution or deplorable living conditions. How would we feel in 14 years of vacations and toys when a child that we COULD have helped was turned out into a society that despised them? We decided that we couldn't live with that so we began the paperwork and a little girl diagnosed with Pulmonary Stenosis named Cen Fu Huo was divinly placed into our family. Hannah has been such a blessing to our family and to many people she comes in contact with. We said from the beginning that we were adopting ONE child and after being home for just a few weeks we knew she needed a sister. We could give one more child a loving home and give Hannah a sister that looked like her and someone that she could relate to for the rest of her life. Enter Fu Bao Xian aka Makenna Grace! She has been such a wonderful child from the day we received her in Fuling. Finally we know now that our family is complete..........is it? Once you visit an orphanage, the faces of those children cry out to you in the night, during your day, while you are driving, you cannot escape them. Those precious little faces that looked up at us from their cribs with eyes asking to be held and rocked, sung to, prayed over, tickled, and loved unconditionally. What else can we do? So many children in the world need homes, how many of us could give just one child a home and a forever family? Is adoption for everyone? No, of course not, but we believe that everyone has a job to do, some are called to give these children families, some are called to give financially, and some are called to pray continually. Please pray about your roll in helping these children. The UN guesses there to be 143,000,000 orphans in the world. Everyday it is estimated another 5,760 children become orphans, staggering numbers. We praise God daily for blessing us with a second family! Was it in our life plan? NO! Would we change it for the world? NO!

1 comment:

Kara said...

Hi Tina,

My name is Kara McMillan, I am one of your fellow FTIA yahoo group members. I have so enjoyed following along on your trip to China to bring Mekenna home. Bless you and Scott for such a heart felt plea for the orphan. I too hope and pray that more and more Christians would heed the call of our Dear Savior to care for the orphan. It's heart breaking to see these dear souls without loving families.

Merry Christmas!
Kara