ADOPTION VIDEO

Would you all like to see our ADOPTION VIDEO?  My wonderfully amazing friend Colleen put it together for us.  I am so unskilled at computer stuff that it is pitiful!  She did an amazing job though!  She is just starting her own amazing adoption journey to her son that she met while on my adoption trip and you can follow along with her HERE. 

Here is Our Adoption Journey to Matthew, Johnathan, and Charity 

MATCHING GRANT!

We have had a very generous matching grant offered to us.  When our FSP reads $20,411 then another $500 will be donated to our account!  This is a HUGE BLESSING! 

Here is a link to our FSP! 

Also HERE IS A LINK TO OUR GIVEAWAY with the lots of things we will be drawing for to thank people for helping by donating and sharing.

Right now I keep remembering that last bit of time with them and praying that they know I'm still on my way back to them.  They had gotten so comfortable with being loved.  I HATE THAT I HAD TO LEAVE AND IT FEELS LIKE THE BIGGEST FAILURE AS A MOTHER! 

 

 

They definitely weren't the kids that I had expected to meet or the kids that I first met at the beginning of the week even!  The were LOVING having the LOVE of a MOTHER! 

 

They are waiting!

 

WE ARE SO CLOSE!

 

In Two Weeks

(Edit on 9-4-13 at 12:03am:  Thank you to those sharing our need to get this adoption funded before her surgery.  We still need $3,742 at this moment to be fully funded.  I know God is bigger than that amount!  These kids were His before He ever set me on the path to go get them and He knew that this surgery was going to fall at this moment too!  Keep sharing, praying, and donating because every dollar adds up!  THANK YOU!)

Two Weeks from this  moment I will be sitting in a CICU (Cardiac Intensive Care Unit) with Aleshia. . . The thought of that makes me SICK.  I can't imagine seeing her hooked up to all those machines to keep her alive and with all those tubes draining fluids from her. 

Having an extra month because of the surgery being cancelled last time has only made me more scared and sick.  This time I know how she reacted last time.  I know how scared she is of the hospital and the scrubs.  I know how hard it is going to be to make this work.  I AM TERRIFIED FOR HER!  I HATE SEEING HER LIKE SHE WAS! 

We didn't even make it to the surgery and it was horrific!

I can't imagine how we are going to do this. . . how SHE is going to do this.

Her heart requires it, but her mind is terrified of that place.  It reminds her of the places she came from. . . OH HOW I WISH I COULD TAKE THIS FROM HER!

Please pray for her and for us!

One thing that would take some of the worry off of our family right now is to just have this adoption funded.  I would be so relieved to go into this heart surgery not having to worry about the last bit of adoption expenses.  We really just need the last bit of travel expenses.  We are needing to raise the last $3,761 of the money that will be required to purchase the plane tickets to get Matthew, Johnathan, and Charity home.  We have a HAVE A HEART GIVEAWAY GOING ON RIGHT HERE with 21 Thank You Gifts to thank everyone for helping us.  There are entries just for sharing too!  Could you help us with this last little bit!?! 

We can't stop worrying about Aleshia's surgery.  We can't stop worrying about Matthew, Johnathan, and Charity while they wait.  We can't stop the worry our kids here will have while they worry about Aleshia or while some of them don't understand why Aleshia is away from them. 

We would love to just not have to worry about that last bit of funding to get our kids home, to just KNOW that the ransom is complete and whenever we can pick them up the money is there for the tickets.  Can you help us?

You can donate at THIS LINK and really EVERY DOLLAR helps!  If everyone chips in to be the hands and feet of God then this mountain of worry will be moved!

Article 5! and GIVEAWAY UPDATE

Our Article 5 Interview occurred and our attorney is getting everything ready to submit.  We are praying that they will honor Matthew's medical expedite and process the paperwork quickly for a signature at the government level to get it ready for submission to court.  We need to get him home and get him some much needed medical care.  We are praying hard and we ask that you would too!

We have the Have a Heart Giveaway going on right now to thank everyone who is helping us so wonderfully with raising the last of the funds to get the kids home.  We appreciate the help so very much!  Aleshia's heart surgery is really at the worst possible time, because it is just before we will need to travel to pick them up.  It is still much better than it needing to be done after they get home though!  God has provided wonderfully for us all along and we know that everything will fall into place.  This is just a wonderful opportunity for others to get to be a part of their homecoming story!

You can click here to see all the wonderful "Thank You" Gifts that are awaiting at the end! 

Not listed on that post is $5 donations!  Every $5 donation will also receive one entry, so please email me your receipt to abcunroe@yahoo.com  Every amount is bringing us so much closer to bringing them home!!  THANK YOU FOR YOUR DONATIONS!!


Every dollar brings us closer to the goal amount of bringing them home!  I'm sure this post will make the "troll roll".  lol  Yes, there are the wonderful trolls who go around talking about how much better off kids are in orphanages.  I've even heard that our family is large and that the caregiver ratio might be better in an orphanage. See, the thing is that "caregivers" don't "care" the same as a Mommy.  I go to bed each night begging God to keep them safe till I can get there and knowing that Matthew is in misery without medical care.  I'm a Mommy.  I hurt for my kids.  I don't leave them lay ever.  I don't have apathy or think that any of them are not worth my time.  I feel what they feel.  I hurt when they hurt, even if they are on the other side of the ocean.  I sit up all night if they are awake.  I stay up too late and get too little sleep just because a little one decides that they aren't sleepy and I know that they spent too many years in a crib and I'm VERY glad for the opportunity to give them those extra kisses.  So I'm going to leave those trolls he may link back to my "fundraising" post with a little picture. 

This is what the love of a "Mommy" does:

 

We are working hard to bring Matthew, Johnathan, and Charity home so that they can have a "Mommy" instead of a "caregiver" too.  Every child deserves a "FAMILY", not just a caregiver.  We just happen to have more people here to do the loving.  Yes, the sites that like to bash large families can bash away.  The fact is that the picture above shows the truth.  The child on the left was Keith the night I brought him home at age 5 and the picture on the left was Keith one year later at age 6.  He went from couldn't hold his head up, to didn't want to be laid back!  He grew when he was loved and cared for by a FAMILY!  He came from the same place that my three children are now and they need to come home.  The place they are in now is trying hard, but orphanages cannot replace families.  They suffered severe neglect in that facility for years and the only way they are going to heal and thrive is to come home.  So the trolls can troll away.  There is the proof that what we do is making a HUGE difference and will continue to do so. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

NOW WHO WANTS TO BE A PART!?!  

Trip to Meet the Three Part 3: Johnathan the Planned Meeting

When Johnathan made his entrance, he really MADE it.  lol  He had gone outside and was NOT happy to be made to come back inside.  He shrieked and was quite loud.  He has NO trouble at all expressing when he is happy or sad. 

He is such a cute little guy.  He was almost 7 and has since turned 7 years old and is a very small little guy for his age.  He is probably more the size of a 3 or 4 year old.  You can tell that he had years of sensory deprivation, because he likes to slap your skin just to hear the sound of it.  Every time they brought him up the steps to the visitation room, he made as much noise as possible to hear the echo.  He wants to bang things and sling things. 

When I asked his "teacher" and his Baba about what they thought would be best to occupy him on the trip home they both expressed it should be nothing hard or heavy because he is going to throw whatever he is given.  That is just his way right now.  It isn't because he is a bad kid.  It is just because he has never been taught different.  He went from spending his life all in a crib during the "old days" in the orphanage to being one of the lucky children to be living in the part of the orphanage that is set up in more of a home style.  "No" isn't something that he has been taught to understand though!

He has hydrocephalus.  His head got MUCH too large before the shunt was put in sometime in 2011.  His head is still quite large and I fear his shunt may not be fully operational.  Heads do not reduce in size after they grow, but a child does begin to grow into their head. . . I'm not sure that his head has stopped growing but we will find out once home.  When I asked about when he last had an MRI to check it, I was informed that it was permanent and therefore there was no need to check it.  Once he is home we will be heading to a neurologist very soon to get it checked.  We have a son with hydrocephalus and know that in the US, shunts are checked yearly at least!

So here are some pictures of Johnathan!

 

Now here is me trying to take his shirt off to try on the new clothes I brought. . . You can tell by my face that I was shocked.  I determined that they must dress him from the bottom up!  There is NO WAY that shirt comes over that head!  I just left the shirt on and went ahead and put the shirt I brought over it.  I will be bringing shirts with plenty big neck holes! 

 

Yes, I miss this little guy!

 

I'd love to hear him say "Meow!" right about now!

 

Good news!  Denzell's finger prints are done, new I800A is issued, and I800 has left our worker's desk and is in her supervisor's box!  Super blessed that things are moving quickly again now!

 

If you'd like to be a part of bringing the three kids home, then please look for ways on the  right side bar!  There is also a Facebook Usborne Event going on HERE! 

 

Stay tuned for a big giveaway that will be here soon as well!

Trip to Meet the Three: Part 1 An Unexpected Meeting

My friend Colleen came in from out of state to go with me on the trip and for that I am so thankful!  (A little later you will hear more about Colleen and what God had in store for her during this trip, but that will be a post entirely of its own, but rest assured that we serve a very big God!!)  When we went to meet my next three kids I was pleasantly surprised by the changes in their orphanage.  They are in the same place that Keith came from.  That place was so devoid of sound or movement for so long.  The children had been neglected and starved.  Keith spent over 5 years there and 2 1/2 years of that were in an isolation room.  Knowing my three children were there was so hard and I knew that a new director had taken over so I had continued to pray that the good things I had heard were happening were true.  I prayed that they were feeling those good changes make changes in their lives that were tangible. 

It was obvious upon arriving that good changes had taken place.  There were Babas (the word for grandmother and these are people who are employed by ministries to come in and are assigned to a couple children each) out and about with children in strollers that were on the road and visible before we even arrived at the orphanage.  You could see and hear children.  We began to see children who we "knew".  I knew them from pictures because they too are being adopted.  They were not the tiny and starving children that they once were, but are now beginning to grow.  Please understand that these are children still in SERIOUS need, but it is because of the YEARS of lack of care.  The adoptable children need families quickly so that they can get individual care and attention only available in families where you have parents (and siblings!) who love and care for you individually.  She can't change the fact that they were left in their beds for years, teeth rotted out, they aren't even half the size they should be, bones grew the wrong way, muscles atrophied, and children were left to lay so long that they developed rocking and stopped developing.  She HAS however come in and changed their nutrition and started to get them out of their beds more.  The changes are evident and much appreciated.  They are a definite testament to the work of the new director!  Please continue to pray for her, because the needs of those children are so great and she has a HUGE undertaking still ahead of her to help them heal. 

The heaviness of the place is gone and it smells and appears clean.  We waited in the front lobby area for our chance to go meet my babies.  I was so thankful to have my friend Colleen with me.  The excitement of the morning had me completely on edge.  I had woke up WAY before the alarm and was showered and dressed before poor Colleen had gotten up.  She had to have thought me insane, since I am NOT an early morning person!  I couldn't wait to get there and now here I was so close, but still WAITING!!! 

As we waited there with kids going by, some we recognized and some that we did not, I just couldn't help but wondering which child would be brought to us first once we were taken to the meeting room.  I kept hoping that the time would come soon to go there!  THEN THERE HE WAS!!!  JOHNATHAN WAS STANDING RIGHT THERE!!!  He was on his way outside with his Baba and MY SON was standing right there.  I had no way to communicate because my interpreter was arranging things in the office.  I had to approach though!!!  Who waits so many months and can wait longer with their child right in front of them????

So for a split second there he was,    Johnathan. . . my son. . . in the lobby. . .

 

I can't get the video to share, so you just get "still shots" from the video.  So thankful that Colleen was quick even when we weren't expecting it.  More to come! 

 

Please help us get them home!  Lots of opportunities to help!  Links for fundraisers are on the top right side of the blog!