Pequenopie “Little Feet” July 25, 2009

We have a new way for people to help with our adoption journey and to help others out at the same time.

these beautiful hand-made bracelets are crafted by men, women and children living in impoverished areas in the Philippines. Their circumstances appeared to offer little hope for a brighter future. But making these bracelets has provided a life-sustaining income for many families and has fostered a new sense of hope within their communities. Each piece you purchase helps communicate that hope and brings dignity to these families who are anxious to work so they can provide for and protect their children.

Threads of hope is the name of this ministry that aims to achieve:

1. To share the love of God with the hungry, poor and abused, by first demonstrating God’s love in practical and meaningful ways.     

2. To protect the innocence of children by providing a life-sustaining and ongoing income for families.

3. To help more families at risk by providing nutrition, medical care, education and community development with profits generated from their own labors.

4. To produce a quality product that will raise the awereness of the oppressed while connecting people from radically different economic backgrounds and cultures.

5. To provide opportunities for people moved with compassion with a fun and fulfilling outreach that will impact lives in a tangible way.

Our family is in partnership with this ministry and hope that you would also like to become a part of this too. I am honored to be able to sell their wares to help families that I will never even meet. To help children stay out of the sex slave trades, for families to have hope. By buying one bracelet not only do you support nameless faces across the world but you will be a part of helping us in our endeavor and adventure.

 

He who is kind to the poor lends to the Lord, and he will reward him for what he has done.   Proverbs 19:17

 

More to come Later!

Pequenopie “Little Feet” July 19, 2009

I had a talk with my sister about some of the frustrations that I am encountering. With the wait and needing to come up with so much money for the cost and fees of adoption. I am also having a hard time with seeing those around me that are in the process of adoption, getting their children or almost. Even though some of them have waited years and years, and may have no other children. I can see how those women who are going through infertility, see babies everywhere. How so many every day things are directed towards children and family. Commercials, movies, shows, babies everywhere at stores and walking down the street. There is no where to hide from these feelings.

In this discussion and thinking how I feel about things, she talked about a monopoly game. Sitting in jail watching others keep on playing and you are just stuck. I thought of uno and getting the skipped and reversed card. You are ready but you have no control, you keep watching and waiting for your turn. Debbie mentioned it’s sorta like one step forward, two steps back. This happens in so much of life but I think it is a accurate explanation of how I feel.

I have been looking into selling things on our blog to help support us. I was so excited earlier this week, that I was approved to sell handmade bracelets that were made from the people in Philippines. I also put a donate button on this blog to allow people to help us, to partner with this journey. But then it can look so insurmountable and too hard to achieve.

I will continue to try and have faith. That God put this desire in our hearts and soul. I might not know or see how this is all going to work out, but it sure will be amazing.

Thanks for everyones support and prayers. I will put the bracelets on soon, so everyone can see them.

More to come Later!

Pequenopie “Little Feet” July 15, 2009

I have been doing a lot of surfing and checking out other adoption blogs and adoption forums. It is really interesting and exciting to see so many people in the same situation that we are and some that are further along or have their awaited child already. I found a forum that an adoptive family posted a discussion on international adoption. It was really good to see many peoples ideas and some that weren’t very positive.

This family had a family member that was trying to support them and at the same time asking why they didn’t choose to adopt from the US or foster adopt. There were many people that seemed angry and vocal about their feelings. 

What I found is there are many people that want to foster and hope to be able to adopt that child. Also that Adoption in the US is very difficult. I know a friend of the family just adopted and my sister also and had everything run quickly and with no problems. Checking out this blog ,many people found that they were willing to adopt children with minor disabilities and most of the time, they waited years with no child.

Sometimes it sound like if the social worker wants a child to stay in a certain state they can decide, that you won’t be able to adopt that child. I also heard of families wanting to adopt a older child and that child being fostered to another family and then let out of the system when they were 19 and never being adopted.

I think there are issues in the foster care system and the adoption system. Things that don’t seem right to the children in question and the families willing to love them and keep them. Is it better to have a system that has flaws and issues then no system? I think not. I wish the adoption system would just make sure a family qualifies to be a safe home and would take much of the expense out of it. Also the time these families have to wait and the children.

I don’t think it is fair for people to judge others decisions. We thought of fostering at some point and didn’t feel like it was right for us. I don’t know if I would handle the child possibly being a part of your family for a short time and then gone, out of you life. We also thought of our children, how would that affect them. I think there are some amazing people out there that God has gifted with this ability to love a child and let them go.

We also feel like God birthed something in our heart for the children in orphanages that hardly have enough food every day. That have no heat, no water, no chance. Even though it may be more money to adopt from another country, these children need to be adopted. They have no chance without loving parents taking them home.

I thank the Lord that he puts people out there to adopt from the US and from other countries. That there are also people that open their hearts and homes to foster children also. We need all of them to do what they are called too. I hope people can get past judging and just do what is right for them.

 

Total Adoptions to the United States

*NOTE:  All statistics given correspond with the U.S. Government fiscal year, which begins on October 1 and ends on September 30.  For example:  Adoption statistics for 2008 = Number of adoptions from October 1, 2007 through September 30, 2008. 

Fiscal Year 2008 Adoption Statistics

 

	FY 2008	FY 2007	FY 2006	FY 2005	FY 2004
1	Guatemala4,123	China5,453	China6,493	China7,906	China7,044
2	China3,909	Guatemala4,728	Guatemala4,135	Russia4,639	Russia5,865
3	Russia1,861	Russia2,310	Russia3,706	Guatemala3,783	Guatemala3,264
4	Ethiopia1,725	Ethiopia1,255	South Korea1,376	South Korea1,630	South Korea1,716
5	South Korea1,065	South Korea939	Ethiopia732	Ukraine821	Kazakhstan826
6	Vietnam751	Vietnam828	Kazakhstan587	Kazakhstan755	Ukraine723
7	Ukraine457	Ukraine606	Ukraine460	Ethiopia441	India406
8	Kazakhstan380	Kazakhstan540	Liberia353	India323	Haiti356
9	India307	India416	Colombia344	Colombia291	Ethiopia289
10	Colombia306	Liberia314	India320	Philippines271	Colombia287
11	Haiti302	Colombia310	Haiti309	Haiti234	Belarus202
12	Philippines291	Philippines265	Philippines245	Liberia183	Philippines196
13	Taiwan267	Haiti190	Taiwan187	Taiwan141	Bulgaria110
14	Liberia249	Taiwan184	Vietnam163	Mexico88	Poland102
15	Nigeria148	Mexico89	Mexico70	Poland73	Mexico89
16	Mexico103	Poland84	Poland67	Thailand72	Liberia86
17	Ghana101	Thailand67	Brazil66	Brazil66	Nepal73
18	Kyrgyzstan78	Kyrgyzstan61	Nepal66	Nigeria65	Nigeria71
19	Poland77	Brazil55	Nigeria62	Jamaica63	Brazil69
20	Thailand59	Uganda54	Thailand56	Nepal62	Thailand69

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And I pray the you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints,to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge- that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

Eph 3:17-19

More to come later!

Pequenopie “Little Feet” May 9, 2009

It’s Mother’s Day weekend and in the United States we celebrate this special day and give tribute and honor to our Mother’s. I was surprised and didn’t realize that this great day was started in 1870 and a lady named Julia Ward Howe wrote a poem called Mother’s Day Proclamation of 1870. It was a call for disarmament and for women to come together to seek diplomatic ways to settle disagreements among Nations.

As I found this awesome picture of a Mother in Thailand I see other things. In Mother’s all over the world I see strength, love, truth, honor, integrity, and kindness. There are so many things to say about our Mother’s. They take on so much, they have to put others before themselves, there will be heartache. There is so much to prepare a child to walk into their own lives dependent of their moms. They get very little sleep when their child is a baby, they rock and cuddle that baby. I remember being in the Hospital after having Beka, my first child and hardly being with her and when the nurses were bringing all the babies to the mommies, and recognizing her cry. I knew that was her and it was, that God has given us a miracle to be a mom.

I also think of the millions of mom’s who can’t have their own children, from their own bodies. But if you see a Mother who has adopted a child, you would have no idea that, that child didn’t come from her body. My sister shows that clear as day, her little boy and her are Mother and son. That’s it, no difference between her daughter, that did come from her. They are both her children, that she loves with all her heart, body and soul. That she will worry about, have joy, concern and so much more.

No matter what country you live in, no matter what conditions you live in, Mothers are all the same. 

They love without expectation, without expecting anything back.

A friend in China that has been going through the adoption process for 4 1/2 years, just sent a letter,  telling everyone that by Fall she will be a Mother. What an awesome Mother’s Day gift for this year. After all her patience, tears, waiting, joy and hope she will be a Mother soon. The wait is almost over.

On this Mother’s Day, I hope and pray that the child our family wants to adopt, will not take too long to come to us. I hope and pray that maybe by the next Mother’s Day of 2010 we will be that much closer to bringing our child home. That once that child is put in my arms, the difference of my children and this new child will melt away. I pray for patience, for joy and peace through this whole thing. That we would trust in our Lord with all our heart and mind. That when it seems too difficult, too expensive, to hard, we would continue to look at what God has planted in our lives. That he is enough, he will do what he wishes.. That I can lean on him for my strength, my joy and my peace.

Ask and it will be give to you, seek and you will find,

knock and the door will be opened to you.

For everyone who asks will receives, he who seeks finds,

and to him who knocks, the door will be opened.

Matthew 7:7-8

So our family will continue to ask, seek and knock and wait on his timing, and will.

More to come later  and have a Happy Mother’s Day!

April 23, 2009

WHO WILL SAVE THE CHILDREN?

Cry for all the innocent ones
born into a world
that’s lost its heart
For those who never
learn to dream
because their hope is crushed
before they can start
And we shake our fists
at the air
and say, “If God is love,
how can this be fair?”

But we are His hands
We are His voice
We are the ones who must
make the choice
And if it isn’t now,
tell me when?
If it isn’t you, then tell me
who will save the children?
Who will save the children?

We count our blessings one by one
yet we have forgotten how to give
It seems that we don’t want to face
all the hungry and homeless
who struggle to live
But heaven is watching tonight
tugging at our hearts
to do what’s right

And we are His hands
We are His voice
We are the ones who must
make the choice
And if it isn’t you, then tell me
who will save the children?
Who will save the children?

As we observe them through our T.V. screens
they seem so distant and unreal
But they bleed like we bleed
And they feel what we feel
Oh, save the children
Save the children
Save the children

Now we decide that nothing can change
and throw up our hands in numb despair
And we lost a piece of our souls
by teaching ourselves just
how not to care
But Christ would have gone to the cross
just to save one child from being lost

And we are His hands
We are His voice
We are the ones who must
make the choice
And it must be now
There’s no time to waste
It must be you
No one can take your place
Can’t you see that only we
Can save the children
Save the children
Save the children
Please, save the children

Written By Randy Stonehill
© Copyright 1984 by Stonehillian Music &
Word Music (a division of Word, Inc.)