Aren't We All a Little Schizophrenic?

Brace yourselves. This may be a long one.

Last week, Friday to be exact, I received an *ahem* not-so-sweet FB message from a "friend". You know, because all of my FB friends are close, personal acquaintances who I know very well and who know me very well (sarcasm in case you don't have a sense of humor). It was a response to something totally unrelated to orphan care...football, but tucked away in the message was the following statement, "When you're not making tacky remarks about football, your self-righteous duplicitous views of the world drive me absolutely insane." (Not gonna lie, had to google "duplicitous" to find out what it meant). Frankly, I was very hurt by the message. I was also angry...my initial gut reaction was to get all defensive. Thoughts like, "Who does she think she is?!? Or, how dare she say that about ME when SHE (insert critical thought here)?!? But then I went to God seeking peace and guidance about the message. Since then, I've been really praying and thinking about how I come across to people. Honestly, I probably seem a little schizophrenic. Here's why...


God is constantly convicting me of sin in my life. For example, a couple of years ago I was listening to a morning radio show and the hosts were talking about how they had given up their football passion because it had become an idol to them. I thought to myself, "Well good for them, but not me. Football isn't a problem for me...it's entertainment. I'm a fan. There's nothing wrong with that." But a seed was planted. It was kind of like the pea under the princess' mattress. I kept being bothered by it and it made me uncomfortable. So recently, I've had a real change of heart about football. I've realized I need to see it for what it is in my life: an idol. It's hard. Very hard. I grew up on football in the South. I love it with a passion. But I've been so bothered by the obscene amounts of money I've spent on it, the time I've wasted on it, the way I feel about the other team and how I see people mistreating each other in the name of football rivalry. Now if you have known me for very long, this is kind of a big change for me. So it may look a little schizophrenic when I have always been an outspoken fan of my football team, then I suddenly change my position on the whole football fanaticism issue. It may seem hypocritical to some at first. I can't control the way it is perceived; I just have to do what my heart is convicted to do. Obviously from the message I received that I referenced earlier, at least one person perceived that in a negative way.

Similarly, I have been extremely materialistic in the past. In fact, I STILL AM. Confession: I really like "stuff" and I battle with Satan every. single. day. over it. Sadly, sometimes he wins. Does this mean that I can't speak out against materialism? Does it mean that just because I don't have complete control over my own materialistic nature I can't challenge myself and others to do better? I don't think so...I think Jesus used people who didn't have their act together all the time. If he didn't, he wouldn't have anyone to spread the Gospel. In fact, he kind of uses the most unlikely people sometimes...the worst sinners, the least of these, and even people who started out as his mortal enemies.

The thing is, as long as I'm allowing God to transform my life to better fit with his plan (which is simply to spread the Gospel...that should be the entire purpose, the one and only purpose of my life), I'm going to be continuously convicted of things I need to change, let go of, and get rid of in my life. He's going to be cleaning out my closets and getting rid of the yucky. What is yucky for me may not be yucky for you. We all have our idols, but they aren't all the same. What is the same is that these idols make it impossible for us to love others like Christ needs us to love others. I want to do what God tells us to do in Isaiah 1:17

Learn to do right; seek justice. Defend the oppressed. Take up the cause of the fatherless; plead the case of the widow.


Let me be clear: the LAST thing I want to be is a turn-off to people in my advocacy for social justice issues and the importance of standing up for those who cannot stand up for themselves because of the yucky in my life. I know that sometimes my messages may be misunderstood because they come from a human heart...a heart that is not always pure, but a heart that is sincerely longing to be more like Christ and less like myself. I want the outside and inside to match, but sometimes it doesn't because I'm a work in progress. I struggle with making the outside match the inside DAILY. Who doesn't??? Even the most "perfect" Christians struggle with it. Mother Teresa penned the following:


"I have no Faith - I dare not utter the words and thoughts that crowd in my heart and make me suffer untold agony," she wrote in an undated letter. (Read more: http://www.beliefnet.com/News/2007/09/New-Book-Reveals-Mother-Teresas-Struggle-With-Faith.aspx#ixzz1EtjYNiYI)


The truth is, I'm a work in progress. I'm a HUGE mess. The people who know me best can vouch for that. I have maybe three or four friends who know the good, bad, and ugly about me. All of it. These people could tell you that I have sinned in ways that are TERRIBLE. Let's face it...we are all just big 'ol piles of poo...but God loves us so much despite everything we do to try to mess up our lives. I take great comfort in that, don't you?


So if that comes across as self-righteous, that is definitely not my intention. However, I know that skeptics will see it as they may. I will be misunderstood. I will lose friends over my faith. God promised that when we're living for him, we will be persecuted. 2 Tim 3:12 says, "Indeed, all who desire to live a Godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted." I would actually be more upset if I wasn't persecuted. I'm not saying I want drama to follow me around everywhere, or maybe I am...this is something I'm wrestling with right now...so I'm not exactly how it's supposed to look for me. I really just want to encourage people to think outside of American borders and have a more realistic world view, because it's a process that I'm going through and I see how much peace God gives me when I'm trying to live outside of my perfect little American bubble. More than anything, I want to challenge everyone, myself most of all, to think about what kingdom they belong to...earthly or heavenly...in every area of life. I'm pretty outspoken & passionate in my temperament (I know...shocker), so I really struggle with saying what is on my heart in kind of in-your-face ways. I really want to be gentle, and I'm working hard on that...knowing what to say, when to say it, and in what tone. I often think to myself, "Should I just shut up now? Are people thinking I'm that annoying, crazy, over-the-top person?" So I don't say anything when clearly I should. Then I get mad at myself for being silent. Other times I think, "I said too much. I turned someone off. I made them uncomfortable or angry or attacked." Then I get mad at myself for speaking at all. So saying too much or too little...I'm constantly doubting myself. I am schizophrenic. Then I see a picture like this:

This is not a photoshopped image. It is a real picture taken by Kevin Carter. It has changed me. It haunts me at night. It makes me wrestle with things that make me very uncomfortable.

It's a little girl, dying of starvation in Sudan, and a vulture in the background waiting to pick her bones clean. Images like this make me realize something. Being quiet is not an option for me. It just isn't. Even as I struggle with how to flesh it out in my own life, I will unapologetically advocate for human beings. This little girl had a soul. Who is responsible for her? Who will speak up on her behalf? If not me, then who? Can I really ever say too much about how much people in this world need us...aren't we supposed to be Jesus on this Earth? When I ask myself those questions I realize I really don't have time to bother with what people think of my "world views". Even if I seem a little schizophrenic. I won't answer to them when God asks me what I did for the least of these. I feel an urgency to be outspoken for them, and for that, I will not apologize.

God's Comfort Is...

• 13 families gathering around us to pray over our adoption last night
• 14 college students gathering during the night to pray over our adoption
• a friend texting me scripture every hour, on the hour, all day and into the night
• over 30 text messages from friends offering encouragement and support
• over 20 emails offering encouragement and support...2 from strangers
• lots of Facebook messages & posts
• many people, I'll never know how many for sure, fasting all day for our adoption
• phone calls from people throughout the day offering words of comfort and strength
• Reece's Rainbow Yahoo Group
• two other adoptive mommies from our region staying up in prayer all night long

II Cor 1:3-7
³ Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, ⁴ who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God. ⁵ For just as we share abundantly in the sufferings of Christ, so also our comfort abounds through Christ. ⁶ If we are distressed, it is for your comfort and salvation; if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you patient endurance of the same sufferings we suffer. ⁷ And our hope for you is firm, because we know that just as you share in our sufferings, so also you share in our comfort.

Can You Hear the Children?

I found this poem on John Piper's website. I absolutely love it.

Do you hear the children crying?
I can hear them every day,
Crying, sighing, dying, flying
Somewhere safe where they can play.

Somewhere safe from all the dangers,
Somewhere safe from Crack and AIDS,
Safe from lust and lurking strangers,
Safe from war and bombing raids.

Somewhere safe from malnutrition,
Safe from daddy's damning voice,
Safe from mommy's cool ambition,
Safe from deadly goddess, Choice.

Do you hear the children crying?
I can hear them every day,
Crying, sighing, dying, flying
Somewhere safe where they can play.

* * * *

Do you see the children meeting?
I can see them in the sky,
Meeting, seating, eating, greeting
Jesus with the answer why.
Why the milk no longer nourished,
Why the water made them sick,
Why the crops no longer flourished,
Why the belly got so thick.

Why they never knew the reason
Friends had vanished out of sight,
Why some suffered for a season,
Others never saw the light.

Do you see the children meeting?
I can see them in the sky,
Meeting, seating, eating, greeting
Jesus with the answer why.

* * * *

Do you hear the children singing?
I can hear them high above,
Singing, springing, ringing, bringing
Glory to the God of love.

Glory for the gift of living,
Glory for the end of pain,
Glory for the gift of giving,
Glory for eternal gain.

Glory from the ones forsaken,
Glory from the lost and lone,
Glory when the infants waken,
Orphans on the Father's throne

Do you hear the children singing?
I can hear them high above,
Singing, springing, ringing, bringing
Glory to the God of love.

* * * *

Do you see the children coming?
I can see them on the clouds,
Coming, strumming, drumming, humming
Songs with heaven's happy crowds.

Songs with lots of happy clapping,
Songs that set the heart on fire,
Songs that make your foot start tapping,
Songs that make a merry choir.

Songs so loud the mountains tremble,
Songs so pure the canyons ring,
When the children all assemble
Millions, millions, round the King.

Do you see the children coming?
I can see them on the clouds,
Coming, strumming, drumming, humming
Songs with heaven's happy crowds.

* * * *

Do you see the children waiting?
I can see them all aglow
Waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting,
Who of us will rise and go?

Will we turn and fly to meet them
In the light of candle two?
I intend to rise and greet them.
Come and go with me, would you?

A Series of Unfortunate Events

One of the things that I'm most afraid of in this adoption process is that our story is going to be a discouragement to other families considering adoption. Our adoption has been extremely arduous, this is true. But I want you to understand something; I would do it all over again in a heartbeat. I want to take some time to explain WHY our process has been so difficult. We sometimes joke, between our tears, that it has been "a series of unfortunate events."

First of all, our adoption is NOT typical for Eastern European adoptions. Most EE adoptions, from start to finish, take about 8-12 months. We are on month 19. If you've been following our journey from the beginning, you already understand all of the ups and downs that we've experienced. If you are new to this blog, I want to take this post to explain our unique experience and why our adoption has been anything BUT typical.

In the summer of 2009, we committed to adopt a little 2-year-old boy named Sergey from the same country as Kirill (whom we are currently adopting). Our homestudy was completed in a couple of months and we completed our dossier by Christmas. It was submitted to our country and we anticipated we would travel sometime in January 2010.

Days and weeks passed and I began to worry. I was reassured by our adoption agency that everything was fine and we would receive our travel date "any day now." However, I knew something was up after February came and went and still no travel date. On March 16, 2010, I received a phone call while running errands. I will never forget where I was or the words from our social worker, "We have received devastating news about little Sergey." Basically everything after that was a blur, but I heard enough to know that Sergey wasn't going to be ours. He never should have been listed on his country's registry of orphans because all of his family members had not been notified of his orphaned status. When the Minister of Education discovered this error, he contacted the family members who decided to adopt Sergey. This was probably one of the worst days of my life. I just couldn't understand how such a terrible mistake could happen. However, God revealed many things to us through this experience. We are adopting because we are following what we believe is God's command to care for orphans. Our goal is to help solve the orphan crisis by adopting a child and hopefully inspiring others to adopt. We feel that because of our interest in Sergey, his family members were notified and he is now one less orphan. We choose to look at this situation as a blessing because through our adoption process, there will be two children in homes, out of orphanages, and with loving families.

We took some time to grieve the loss of our hopes and dreams to make Sergey a part of our family. We knew we still wanted to adopt a little boy with Down Syndrome, but we had no idea of where to begin as far as choosing another child. We knew we didn't want to change agencies or countries because a) we were very happy with our adoption agency and b) we didn't want to have to redo all of our paperwork, which would result in a loss of time and money. Our adoption agency works in more than one region of the country Sergey was from, so we asked them to help us identify a child. They gave us several names and photos of children, but we really only considered one...a four-year-old boy named Kirill. It's a long story that you can read about HERE, but Kirill was just supposed to be ours and we knew it right away.  So we committed to adopt Kirill and began making the necessary changes to our dossier due to K being in a different region and being a different age. This was the first round of redoing paperwork...there would be many, many more. The main things we had to do: update our homestudy to reflect our desire for and ability to parent an older child AND update our USCIS approval for an older child. This paperwork was done rather quickly and we had re-submitted our dossier to Kirill's region by mid-April.

But mid-April was the same month that Torry Hansen decided to send her adopted child back to Eastern Europe, all alone, on a plane, because she couldn't parent him. Now I want to take an opportunity here to clarify something that has been bothering me for a long, long time. The Torry Hansen case makes me extremely angry. Her careless actions have caused many, many children to remain in orphanages when they could be home with their families. Does this mean I don't empathize her? Absolutely not. I totally get that she was probably overwhelmed and felt desperate. I have worked with families in my professional life, and I also have personal connections to families who have had to dissolve their adoptions. It is a hellish thing to go through, there is no doubt. However, I WILL NEVER CONDONE CHILD ABANDONMENT AS JUSTIFIABLE. What she did was WRONG. Period. There is never an excuse to abandon a child. If you disagree, that's your opinion. I have a very different one. There are measures that adoptive parents can take to dissolve an adoption. Ms. Hansen did absolutely nothing to try to follow the procedures for dissolving an adoption. She did not disclose to ANYONE that she was having difficulty with her child. In fact, when follow-up visits were done by the social worker, Ms. Hansen did not report any problems at all. There are many other details of the case that I won't go into because it really doesn't pertain to this post. I'm sorry I'm off on a tangent, but I just want people to understand that it's o.k. to be angry with someone for doing something so wrong. You can still love them and pray for them, but you do not have to condone their actions. I've had several people try to tell me that she had her reasons and as Christians we should be understanding of her and not be angry with her. I disagree. I think Christ got angry when he was on earth and saw injustice, sin, and mistreatment of children. I think it's o.k. if that makes us angry. Do I hate Torry Hansen? Absolutely not. I am hopeful that she is getting the help she so desperately needs. Am I angry at her actions and the pain it has caused the families and children whose adoptions have been halted because of her? Absolutely. Do I think Satan used her to his advantage? Absolutely.

Back to the story...so the Torry Hansen situation caused adoptions to come to a screeching halt. We were told that it might me months before adoptions resumed and we would be able to travel to meet Kirill. It was a 1-2 punch to the gut to get that news so soon after we lost Sergey. I just couldn't believe it was happening.

There was so much confusion during this time.  We really weren't sure what was going on with adoptions in K's country because there were so many conflicting reports coming from the media.  Our adoption agency really couldn't give us much information because they didn't know anything for certain. So we waited...

As we waited we started to hear that other regions were moving and processing adoptions, but not ours. Finally, in July 2010, we got a phone call that we would be traveling in August to meet Kirill and accept our referral. Finally! We were seeing the light at the end of the tunnel...or so we thought.

While we were in country, we were told that the judge in our region was not issuing new court dates. The U.S. and K's country had been working on a treaty regarding intercountry adoptions. Until that treaty was signed an official, our judge didn't feel comfortable issuing court dates. However, we were also told that our judge would be going to a meeting of the supreme court and that she might change her mind after that meeting. We left not knowing when we would return, but we knew it probably wouldn't be as soon as we had originally thought.

Our agency remained hopeful that the judge would change her mind and we would have K home by Christmas. So they advised us to go ahead and get the necessary paperwork and medicals for our second trip. This was expensive and we knew the documents would expire in three months. We hoped to be back in country before they expired. However, the days and weeks came and went and we were finally notified that our judge was not going to change her mind. Another story had broken about a family abusing their adopted children, all of whom were from K's country. This time the story was even more horrific. The three teenage girls were tortured by their adoptive parents. This story caused our judge to remain firm in her decision. There are other reasons that played into her decision, we were told. These reasons made sense and even though we felt defeated, we kind of understood the judge's hesitation to process adoptions. So we did all we could do...prayed and prayed and prayed..

Then in December we received wonderful news that our judge had decided to go ahead with adoptions and start issuing court dates again. We were beyond ecstatic. We scurried to get the paperwork, which had expired by this time, redone and sent to our judge. God had answered our prayer, but Satan was waiting to mess it all up again. There were more paperwork issues and I won't go into detail, but it delayed getting our court date again.

That brings us to the present. Now we have received word that our facilitator will meet with the judge this coming Wednesday to ask her for a court date for us. This meeting is so important. I don't think I can stress enough how much we need prayers. My friend Ashley has written an excellent post on her blog with more details. I'm not going to re-invent the wheel since she has written about it already, but I would encourage you to hop on over to her blog HERE and read about the imminent need for prayers.

I want to leave you with a verse that has become my strength over the last few days. It is Psalm 112:6-8:


⁶ Surely the righteous will never be shaken;
   they will be remembered forever.
⁷ They will have no fear of bad news;
   their hearts are steadfast, trusting in the LORD.
⁸ Their hearts are secure, they will have no fear;
   in the end they will look in triumph on their foes.

5 Months Later

If you've been following our adoption journey from the beginning, you've probably noticed lots of ebbs and flows on this blog. Adoption tends to be a series of excrutiating wait time followed by periods of frantic activity followed by more waiting followed by more waiting...and on and on it goes. So somewhere in the waiting/frantic cycle, I totally forgot to chronicle the rest of our trip to meet Kirill back in August. I'm only 5 months late. In adoption time, that translates to roughly a week and a half. Good thing I'm functioning on adoption time.

To pick up where I left off in this post, we left Moscow at 6 p.m. on an overnight train bound for the Eastern European city where K lives. Moscow is the closest airport to this city, which isn't saying much since we had to take LONG train ride to get there after we left Moscow. We were picked up the next day by our facilitator, Marina, and our interpreter, Elena. They were both LOVELY women that we really grew to love over the next few days.

As they drove us to our hotel, Marina began to explain our itenerary for the next few days. I have to insert here that I was SO NERVOUS at this point. It's just so surreal to be in a car with complete strangers (at the time), trusting them to navigate your life for the next few days. It was a HUGE test of my faith and my reluctance to give up control. We were completely at the mercy of stangers and were 100% reliant on them to tell us what to do, where to go, what to eat, etc. The only thing I could remotely relate it to is being blind. I'm not trying to compare what we experienced to something as profound as blindness, but I'm just trying to somehow convey how we were so dependent on God at this point because we had absolutely no way to communicate or understand the culture without these women. We just had to let go completely and trust that God was working through them.

As Marina was explaining what we would be doing for the rest of the day, she inserted that our train was late and we would need to go straight to the Minister of Science and Education's office without cleaning up at the hotel. So we literally dropped our bags at the hotel and headed to a very formal government building. To say we were disgusting is an understatement. We had been riding on a smoky (people smoke everywhere in EE...inside, outside, on trains, in hotels...there's no such thing as a "no smoking" section...plus the forrest fires had covered all of Moscow and the outlying areas in a thick blanket of smoke) train all night after spending a day walking around Moscow the day before. We had not showered since the morning before and by the time we got to the orphanage it was late afternoon. Talk about greasy...it took me back to the semester I spend in Europe in college. We backpacked and wouldn't shower for like 6 days at a time...but we weren't trying to prove that we were fit parents back then either.

We met with the Minister of Science and Education to sign a form stating our intent to visit with K and review his referral. She was such a pleasant lady. She asked us some tough questions about why we wanted to adopt a child with special needs. But I could tell that she was in our corner and wanted to see K go to a family. She even had his picture on a bulletin board in her office. She explained to us that she keeps photos of all the children in the process of adoption on that board and is happy when they are placed with their families. I thought that spoke volumes about her heart. As we left, she said, "I think you will be wonderful parents to K and I wish you the best." We left from her office and went straight to the orphanage to meet K.

Driving to the orphanage took about an hour and a half by car from the city. We drove on paved roads most of the time but about ten miles from the orphanage we turned onto a dirt road which took us to a very secluded area in the woods. Literally...in. the. woods. That was where the orphanage was located, deep in the woods...very secluded. So we pull up to the orphanage. I'm going to probably just tell you the facts here and leave out emotion since this blog is public. The orphanage was a group of three buildings. One building was where the children lived. The other building looked like some sort of storage facility or something like that. One building looked abandoned.

When we pulled up there were about twenty children playing outside. One of them, a little girl, ran up to Greg and put her arms up for him to hold her. He picked her up and she squealed with delight. She was so thin and frail. I also took a turn holding her. The orphanage workers came and took her as they shooed the children inside. It's not acceptable to see or photograph the other children, so the workers were following the rules and trying to keep us from seeing the other children. Still, we were so haunted by those faces that we did see. I can't really put it into words. I kept telling Greg they looked like ghost children. Their skin was almost transparent and they were all very small and frail with hollow eyes. I could go into more detail, but quite frankly it's painful and I just can't do it because my son is still there and will continue to be one of those children until we go back to adopt him.

We were ushered into the orphanage director's office. He was a very gentle and kind man. We were allowed to ask questions and he also was allowed to ask us a few questions. We were told that K had just been transferred to this orphanage from a baby orphanage. This orphanage was for 4-18 year-old children with special needs. That is how much we DIDN'T know coming into this trip. We didn't even know the name of the orphanage or where it was located. We had no idea that K had been transferred to an older child orphanage. We thought he was still at the baby house. So this was kind of shocking to us. Still, we just took it in stride and continued our visit with the staff. After a few minutes, the social worker came in and we were allowed to ask her questions. She knew more about K than the director because she had more contact with the children on a day-to-day basis. Then the medical director came in and she answered medical questions. As a part of her questioning, she read us the document that K's parents had to fill out to relinquish custody and declare him an orphan. There are no words for what that did to my heart. I truly felt for his parents; to them there was no other choice but to give up their son. I also felt an overwhelming gratitude to them for giving us such a precious gift. It's a very strange and emotional experience to hear their words read aloud.

As we met with these people, I could tell they were somewhat leery of us. However, by the end of our time together, I really felt comfortable with them and I think we were able to explain to them why we wanted to adopt a child with special needs. We left the director's office and the social worker took us to a room where we would be visiting with K. She left us there while she went to get K. We could hear the social worker and K's caregiver coming up the stairs with him and the first time I laid eyes on him...oh my word. I'm in tears just typing this. I cannot tell you what it was like watching this tiny boy walk up the stairs toward us. The boy I'd seen for months in pictures and imagined in my mind was now in front of me in person. It was surreal.

As he toddled toward us, he head-planted into a corner of the wall. He started screaming immediately and my heart broke. I was thinking, "great, his first meeting with us and he's traumatized!" But his caregiver consoled him and he recovered pretty quickly. I tried not to snatch him up because I didn't want to startle him. It took all the restraint I had, but Greg and I both let him just explore the room and stayed very close to him until he got used to us. We would touch him gently or pick him up for short moments, but we didn't want to smother him because we knew we were strangers to him. At one point, I was taking pictures and Greg was videoing. This is the moment that I will cherish forever. I'm so glad Greg captured it on video. I'll let the video speak for itself.

That's where I'll close for now. I'm sure you're tired of reading and I'm certainly tired of typing. Plus, putting this all out of my head onto paper is really emotionally draining. It forces me to think about K and about the fact that it's been five long months since I saw his precious face, stroked his buzzed little head, and kissed his sweet little cheeks. At times it feels like my heart will literally crack into pieces so I avoid thinking about it a lot in order to cope. When I'm dying inside, I have to remember Christ and the pain he endured to adopt me. Getting up every morning is only possible through my Lord. Thank God he paved the way for me on this journey.

Passion

A friend recently told me about Drawn From Water, an orphanage in Africa that rescues "mingi" children from genocide. What are "mingi" children, you ask? They are children with "defects" that cause their tribe to consider them to be possessed by demons. These "defects" can be anything from unplanned pregnancy by the mother to top teeth coming in before their bottom teeth. Yes, you read that right...they can be killed because of the order in which they cut their teeth. How are they killed? They are cast into a nearby river and left to drown or abandoned in the bush and left to die. The orphanage literally rescues them from these terrible deaths and takes them into their orphanage.

Pick up your bottom jaw. THIS. REALLY. HAPPENS. And it grosses me out.

Why it grosses me out may surprise you though. I'm not grossed out by the tribe. They do not know any better. Drawn From Water is trying (and succeeding!) in teaching these tribes the truth about "mingi" children. They are changing their hearts and beliefs. It is wonderfully amazing to read their success stories. What grosses me out is that this is happening while I'm sitting in my nice, warm apartment with my latte in hand, watching football. I'm grossed out with myself for having closed eyes to the reality of what is going on in our world. I know I can't change the world entirely, but I can do my part. And I'm not. Drawn From Water, like Reece's Rainbow, stirs a passion in me. I'm not sure what God is trying to tell me yet, but I do know that I have been trying for two months to get this orphanage out of my head and I cannot. It's nagging at me all the time, especially when I lay down at night and pray for the children there.

Why am I blogging about this? Well, there are a couple of reasons. First, I've been thinking a lot about passions lately. Why do we have them? Why do some come and go? Why do some stay forever? Why do we lose passion? Why do some people live their entire lives for one passion, wholly sold-out to this one thing that impacts all areas of life?

I don't have the answers to that. I don't want to live my life frantically chasing one passion after another. I have a tendency to get on "kicks". Can anyone out there relate? You know, I'm the person that will jump head-first into something without really thinking about it and then drop it like a hot potato after a couple of months. I really don't like that personality trait. It can also drive the hubs crazy. When we were talking about adoption, he sort of jokingly, sort of seriously asked, "Are you really sure about this or is it one of your kicks?" Obviously now he knows it wasn't a kick, but I really did understand his concerns because I know myself pretty well and I'm a kicky kind of gal.

So how do you figure out the difference between a "kick" and a passion??? I definitely think we can have more than one passion, and God is teaching me about more of mine. I know that God has made me passionate about one thing: children with special needs. I'm 100% certain of that. I've known it since I was 16 years old. There's nothing else that stirs my soul like seeing an individual who is "differently abled." I just want to go talk to them, find out about their interests, become their friend. It's not in a "I feel sorry for that person" kind of way. It's like I just have to get to know them because I want to be a part of their life. No clue why...it's a chemistry that I can't explain with words.

I think that's why I can't get Drawn From Water off my mind. I love their purpose of not only saving children who are labeled as different, but also educating the tribes. I think that's why I love Reece's Rainbow too. I look at all the faces of those orphaned children with special needs and ache physically when I think about them spending their lives outside of a family. There's also the common thread of orphaned children. I'm passionate about children having families. So I guess that's my other passion...I cannot stand the thought of a child not having a loving family.

So as the new year begins, what is your passion? What is it that you cannot get out of your mind, out of your soul? What keeps you up at night? If you don't know, maybe you (like me), drown out your passions with lattes and football. I would really encourage you to read this blog post about finding your passion. It was part of the inspiration for this post, along with Drawn From Water. Let's all resolve to find our passions and get to work this year! Deal?!?

*Feel free to leave a comment about what your passion is and what you plan to do about it in 2011. It's such an encouragement to each other to hear each other's passions. Plus, you may inspire a passion in someone else!

Reece's Rainbow Angel Tree

It's time for the Reece's Rainbow Angel Tree! It kicks off tomorrow, November 1st. I will be fundraising for Victoria, Russia Region 6. The children on Reece's Rainbow each have their own grant fund. The larger the grant fund, the more like a child is to find a forever family. A typical international adoption of a child with Down Syndrome is approximately $25,000 (average). Most families are more than able to financially support a child once they get home, but most families do NOT have an extra $25K laying around upfront. Think of it this way, what if you had to come up with $25K before you could have a child the "normal" way? Most people wouldn't have kids, would they? Remember, there is no shortage of families who are willing to adopt these precious children with Down Syndrome, only a shortage of funds to do so.

To donate to Victoria's grant fund, simply click on the ornament on my sidebar with her beautiful picture on it. If you give $35, you will receive an Reece's Rainbow ornament with Victoria's picture on it. I've seen the ornaments and they are beautiful. My ornaments from last year are among my favorites. Eventually, I want to have a whole tree just for my little RR angels! Watch the video below before you decide if you will give or not. Pay close attention around the 6:04 mark for an angel you may recognize!

Make video montages at www.OneTrueMedia.com