Joe and I are at the ledge with our toes hanging over holding hands side by side. Our backpacks securely fastened (so we hope) to our backs with a parachute we hope that will open. That parachute is God. I have my eyes shut ready to jump and squealing at the idea of jumping and Joe is squinting one eye evaluating the land should the parachute not catch our fall. Could be a hard and messy land and we crash or we can have an amazing journey on the ride down.
Why the ledge.....you see when we had Sergiy here over Christmas both the boys wanted to have a little sister. Sergiy never having one and Kolya having his 3 year old sister separated from him when he was 5 is enough to tear him up now. He misses his older brother dearly who is now 22 and Kolya has that longing for his sister that he does not know nor have a relationship with like he does with his big brother. She was adopted from the orphanage so there was no good-byes or let's stay in touch it was poof she's gone all three kids separated from one another. Kolya was too little even if he wanted to do anything about it. The amazing thing is when Kolya's older brother Dima was separated from Kolya he ran away from the orphanage they moved him to at 10 years old to find Kolya and his little sister. He was wore out, lost and hungry when officials found Dima and brought him back to the orphanage. He ran away once more in search of Kolya a couple years later to not be able to locate him. Everyone Dima asked to help him over the years to find his little brother no one would help him. At the age of 20 he finally found his little brother. Kolya's director in Lutugino and staff was so excited they found each other and had no idea Dima was trying to find Kolya. What a blessing it was to meet Dima and have him come to see Kolya and support him in finding a family. We will be forever grateful to him for his love for his little brother and his support in letting him go so that he could be with us.
Once home from Ukraine without Sergiy we still know we all wanted to adopt a younger girl but we were all so broken up about the loss of Sergiy. After a couple weeks I picked my chin off the ground, dried up the tears and found comfort in the Lord that he knows best for Sergiy and our family. So our family started our homestudy stateside here in North Carolina. With having the loss of Sergiy we actually almost wanted to avoid Ukraine which is like our second home because now there was hurt associated with it. But needless to say when we left we also left our dossier there.....(I am sure you are gathering where this is going to lead...) no intention of doing anything. The idea almost repulsed us at that point because the pain of losing Sergiy was so strong like a death but we had nothing to loose or nothing to gain so we thought let's just leave it......
OK so NC homestudy almost done. With being foster parents in the past the homestudy was able to breeze through fast....all we sit here and wait for is our FBI clearance and were good to go. We have located several girls here in the US and every one of them just is not a fit for our family nor can we meet their needs. Now that we have a child, Kolya it's a different ball park for Joe and I to pull in any child like we had in the past. There are many things to factor now. Needless to say we have not found a match and well I did the unthinkable for myself and that was "BE STILL". That is not in my genetic makeup to be just be still. I do believe it is past down from my father. I will take responsibility for my own actions but I do believe again it is his fault. (:
So meanwhile while our NC homestudy was being worked on before I decided to "be still" Kolya and Joe decided the decorate the room for our "future daughter". Please catch that I said my boys names not myself! They picked everything our from the bedspread, to the lamp, the posters, all the way to the pink and white polka dot dog on the bed which was what Kolya found for his li'l sis to have. So they picked it all and I put it together. It looks awesome by the way! The pink and white surfer girls bedroom with a hint of modern!
Now to current.....last week in the midst of "being still" even though my eyes would wonder to adoptuskids.org daily (couldn't help it! struck out anyways) my sister and I decided to go online to happykids.org to look up Zap kids in Ukraine in search of some kiddos I met on the trip for Sergiy and when I did the New Horizons For Children interviews. Plus my future nephew, Andriy lives out there so we were in search of photos of him. Now eight month ago approx. my sister kept trying to lead me to Reese's Rainbow. She told me about the children with Down Syndrome and she is a huge advocate for this ministry in hopes of finding homes for these precious children by spreading the word. Joe and I know we are not called to specifically adopt a child with Down Syndrome so it never crossed my mind to go there. Actually whenever she mentioned going on the site which was often she would try to tell me there was other special needs kids but I just would not let my mind go there because we so I thought were adopting Sergiy. Then after the disruption of Sergiys adoption we did not want to return there for a while in order to heal and the idea of going back and having a disrupted adoption again about scares the bigeebees out of Joe. So last Thursday my sister hood-winked me.....she got me on happychild.org and somehow got me into Reese's Rainbow in search of this child "I may know" and well a couple clicks and there she is.
I am not a crier nor do I turn to mush over little girls in pink bows, pretty dresses, shinny shoes, grinning ear to ear .....but this girl has had me in emotional tears for her almost daily now. Never felt this before nor can I even try to explain it. I look at her and I pray for her several times a day.....why because she has no family, she is alone, she longs for a family and she has no one to hold her and tell her she is going to be OK and I want her to be cured of this disease she battles everyday, HIV. Long ago way back when I use to be certified as a foster care baby sitter for special needs kids in High School. I worked daily with a little girl, 3 years old named Bianca that stole my heart and soul. Her mother was a prostitute and HIV was past down to baby Bianca when she was born. She went from HIV to full blown AIDS because she could not fight the disease off nor was there the medication we have now nor the knowledge we now have of the disease. This was back in the day when you did not touch their boogers without gloves on and saliva passed the disease. The doctors said she would not live past 3 and she made it to 5 years old. After that loss I choose to avoid to even go there with this disease. God seems to be swinging me back around. Funny thing is when we were filling out all our NC Homestudy paperwork we checked off disorders and diseases we would have never gave the time of day to before. I couldn't figure out then why HIV was in the back of my head and I felt God just put it in my mind and cause a little stirring. Didn't know what the reasoning was then but now I know why. I pray for this girl to be healed of this disease and I know he can. He is the creator of it and he sure can take it away too. Never in a million years would I think I would be standing on this ledge thinking of jumping.....waiting on the Lord for Joe and I to jump. The jump is, is it the Lords calling for our family to pray and advocate for her or to pray and adopt her. Joe and I will not move unless were on the same page and God is moving both our hearts. Kolya well......she had him at hello in one of the photos where she's wearing a little white hat, playing with some weeds, dirty as ever, her teeth are a stained and rotted and she is grinning ear to ear giggling. Everytime he sees the picture he giggles himself, smiling saying she is adorable and very precious mom. Oh how I feel the same way. I have officially put her photo on the fridge.....yes you know where this can go......but we are all so convicted in this household to pray for her non-stop and where and what God is calling us to do with this precious girl. She will be 7 years old next month. Our dossier sits in Ukraine with only 2 simple things that needs updating which we were already in the process of doing before we found her "JUST IN CASE" we were ever to return to adopt. Gathered no reason to let it all expire if we can update so we were.
The only thing between us and the ground to get us to jump is Gods clear direction that WE ARE the family he is calling to go get her and 26K. Our faith will have to kick in like never before that God can and will land us safely to the ground. I will and can actually say we will be tested like never before in this journey. With both boys adoptions all our resources are tapped out, all stocks are drained, all retirement is gone and our rentals for retirement being unrented in order to keep them have drained us over the last 2 years. Thankfully as of 1 week ago our vacant one rented! AMEN! But there ain't nothing left to pull from to bail us out......All our tax refunds went to clear the debt/loans. Again we planned on staying in the US so this was nothing to factor nor a big deal until I found "her". So my heart and mind are in pieces. This past weekend I went to a "Together For Adoption" event in Winston-Salem and met some incredibly awesome women there. In all the years I have gone to adoption events and also the ones I work now for New Horizons For Children not ONE has had anything about HIV resources, HIV adoption, HIV sponsorships, etc. nor have I met anyone who has adopted an HIV child. This event I met three incredible women, 2 that work for projecthopeful.org that have HIV children with incredible resources right here where we live and so do they! One of the gals when I just started to speak of the girl grabbed my hand and told me to pray for her healing and I told her that is all I have been praying which was crazy to have her just say that to me when that is what the Lord has put on my heart. She then told me we are going to go get her and she asked to pray for us and her..... it was incredible. These ladies are a true answer to prayer. It is clear Gods hands are surrounding this this little girl that has stolen my heart and my families. I feel in my heart she is already my daughter......I can't even figure it out even if I try. I am done looking for a daughter to adopt. I do not want to look any further. I have stopped looking. This has to mean something? I go back to look at adoption websites and I see children I want to pray for and hurt for their needs but she is the one that is in and on my heart.
What will God reveal to us? I am not sure but we are waiting on the Lord for his calling for her and for us and what he is asking us to do...........we cannot jump separately nor will we, we have to jump together even if our eyes are closed and trust that parachute will open which would be the blessing and covering of God to land us safely where we belong.
No comments:
Post a Comment