So many faces...

There are so many faces that have appeared on the My Family Found Me page lately. Sadly, most of them have those two words under them - 'Adopted Domestically'. Which basically means they are with the priest.

Alex

Annabell

Dewey

Dustin

Eugene

Joseph

Karly

Lily

Melodie

Natalie

Oliver

Ollie

Ricky

And the two that hurt the most to see.....

Kasey

Logan

This priest is not a bad guy. He wants to help these children. I recently saw a video of his orphanage and it's very nice and the kids receive a lot of care they need there. He had no way of knowing kids have families coming for them. 

But my heart is aching for all the families and warriors still hurting by knowing their children are never going to be adopted, and for the children who though they are getting better care, will never know what the love of a FAMILY is. Please keep the prayers coming!!

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One more thing. If you have grabbed my Logan fundraiser button (pictured below) and added it to your blog, can you please take it off? For obvious reasons I have ended that fundraiser. Thank you!

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Lyla Love says THANK YOU to everyone who helped get her grant up to $2118.53!!! You have helped to save her LIFE!

Days of Elijah - Day ?? - Happy Gotcha-versary!

One year ago today.... my little brother Elijah left the orphanage forever, never to return, because he was no longer an orphan! Those of us in in the adoption world refer to the day a child leaves the orphanage forever "Gotcha day". So...

Getting dressed to leave!

Happy 1st Gotcha-versary Elijah!! 

Walking out the doors for the last time with mama!

This is just the first of many, and you are still experiencing many firsts, like your first Christmas this year in a FAMILY! Love you tons buddy!

On the train, on your way home! (No, you didn't take a train across the ocean! Then mama would really have a good reason to complain about the long train ride! ;))

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And I love you too Lyla and long for the day when I can wish you Happy Gotcha-versary!! ♥

Merry CHRISTmas!!

I pray you all had a wonderful Christmas with your families this year!! Let's remember that the reason for the season is Jesus Christ!!

A year ago today, my mom was in Ukraine adopting Elijah who didn't know at the time what the love of a FAMILY meant. Neither did Jonathan. But they both do now and are spoiled to help make up for the years they spent Christmas alone. I look at them and can't believe how lucky I am for being privileged to be their big sister.

But my heart aches for those who are spending this Christmas alone, still not knowing what the love of a family means. I pray that next Christmas, many will know what it means to be loved, unconditionally. 

Please say a prayer today for all those spending this Christmas alone.

What will you do this holiday season to help change the life of an orphan so they know what the love of a family means??

What will you do to give this Christmas away??

(video is worth the watch, but grab some tissues first!)

Merry CHRISTmas!!

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Merry Christmas sweet girl!!

Praying for Sarah and Seth....

I know I've had a lot prayer request here lately, but can I ask you to pray for a sweet little girl today??

Her name is Genesis, soon to be Sarah.

Today is her birthday. She is 5 years old. 

She has waited 5 long years for a family to call her own.

She has a family working hard to get her and her brother, Dmitriy, soon to be Seth.

PLEASE PRAY Sarah and Seth will be able to hold on through the winter until their family can get to them.

They are in a very horrible place, and are both very tiny. Seth is only 22 pounds!

Also please pray that all the finances come in for their family so they can travel in March.

They still need just under $14,000. Can you help be a change in their life?

Please go visit the Clanton's blog here - My real life by Yvonne

Thank you!!!!!

The Clanton Family - Jon and Yvonne, Steve (16), Shad (8 - adopted from China), and Sam (7). Waiting to add Seth and Sarah!!!

Dear God,

Please keep Sarah and Seth safe and sustain them through the winter. Give them strength and nourish them supernaturally. Help them to feel the love of their family a half a world away. Help them to hang on until their family can get there!

Lord, I also pray for their family waiting here for them. Give them peace knowing Seth and Sarah are in your hands. Please let their application have favor at the USCIS, and help them to get a shockingly fast approval so Sarah and Seth don't have to wait one more day than they need to. Please move people's hearts to give to this adoption for that they are fully funded, and are able to travel as soon as is allowed.

Also, please help Lyla's new family to see her picture and KNOW that she is meant to be theirs. Help her to hold on as well until a family can be found and get to her.

Amen.

Updates...

Here are some updates from my last post in no particular order:

~First off, I need to say THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU to everyone of of you who has been praying!! Yours prayers are making a huge difference, and we can feel them! THANK YOU!!

And also, THANK YOU for sharing my last post and spreading the prayer request! The stats of my last post have skyrocketed


~Here is an update from Natalie today about what she learned about the priest (green is from her, black is from me)-
This is what I learned today:

• He is a good man who wants to help the children.
• These children will NOT live their entire lives in orphanages, they will be adopted by families he knows personally and trusts to take good care of the children.
• He is a very patriotic man. He feels these children were born here for a reason, and he wants families here to adopt them.
• Nothing changes after a year. There is no "government money that runs out after a year". He would be compensated for having the children in his care until they are 18, but he is having them adopted into good families here instead. (As of right now, also meaning no adoption after one year.) 
• No family coming here to adopt a child is ever guaranteed that child. There are MANY children still waiting for adoptive parents. (Until you have passed the ten day wait there is no guarantee you will be bale to bring the child you cam over to adopt home. Committing through RR means nothing (no offence Michelle!) besides that anyone looking at RR knows you are trying to get that child. No child is guaranteed to a family still in process. Yes, each of the families who have lost children knew this, but that doesn't stop the hurt of losing a child you thought was going to be yours, or in my case thinking a child you love is going to come home and losing that hope.)
• He is not taking the bedridden children because he does not have the capability to care for them adequately, and if he were to do so they would be the only children he would be able to help. (Which would be why no one from orphanage 7 - Ryan and Maxim's orphanage is gone.)

~Andriy has indeed been taken.. :'( Please be in prayer for the Burlingham's.

Andriy

~But PRAISE GOD!! No one else from Andriy's orphanage, or Ryan and Maxim's orphanage has been taken!

~PLEASE continue to pray for and encourage the other families who have lost little ones through this, specifically my dear friend Jaclyn, and the W family (adopting Molly).

~I have also decided that I will be taking a break from blogging here aside from updating on this situation and a few other things. Partly because I want to give my heart a little more time to heal, and also because I need to get all my Christmas orders and Christmas presents done before this weekend! :) Trust me, this will not be the last of me! ;)~Something else I was going to include in my last post was that it was my 200th post. I found that significant because I started this blog because Logan propelled me into the world of orphan advocating, and my last post was kind of the end of his story. Logan has truely shown me what it means to love, and opened up my heart to the plight of the orphan. More on that to come...

~This thing called healing is hard, and it's taking awhile, but I am definitively the healing hand of God at work in many lives, including mine!

Thank you for your prayers again!!

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For those new visitors to my blog, I post Lyla (Lilianna on RR)'s picture at the end of every post, and I will be until she find a family!!! :)

hardest post I have ever had to write

I don't even know how to start. The past two days have been a horrific nightmare. I have so much I want to share, and so much more swirling around in my head that can't be shared publicly.

Note: Logan is the little the boy who is plastered all over my header who I met, held, and played with last summer on a mission trip. He has stolen my heart, and is the one who propelled me into the world of orphan advocating.

Logan and me - Summer 2010

Let's start at the beginning. Yesterday morning, I found out that the family who was working to adopt Logan will no longer be able to adopt him at this time because of his mama's medical condition. That was hard news to hear. Very hard.

I did a lot of praying, reading my bible, and journaling (apparently 'journaling' is not a word - nothing is going right today!). Many tears were shed. I was hurting, for Logan's family who was (and still is) grieving, and for Logan. I lost it at youth group last night when asked what the down of my week was. I was up until late planning ways a family could be found for him.

I think I've mentioned this before, but as a refresher and for my new readers: Logan is NOT currently available for adoption. That's why you will not find him on Reece's Rainbow. In his country there is a list. A list of special needs. It is very very short, and there are not many diagnosis's on it. Down Syndrome is on it, HIV+ is not. Logan has Fetal Alcohal Syndrome (FAS), which is NOT on the list. Children under 5 that DO NOT have a special need that is on the list are not available for adoption. Since FAS, isn't on the list Logan won't be available until he is 5, and he will not be 5 until October 2012. That doesn't mean a family couldn't still be found for him, since they would most likely not complete the process before his 5th birthday, and hence my reason to find another family for him.

That's a brief summary of yesterday, and it would have been much longer if I would have written it last night. I woke up this morning with a refreshed spirit, and hope that today would be better. Oh how wrong I was.

There are many thing I want to share but can't be shared on a public blog, so I am restraining myself to what others have already posted.

Today came the news that Logan was taken by a priest to an Orthodox orphanage the priest is head of. The kids are well taken care of there, and there are many more care givers so kids who go there will get more one on one attention.

Awesome right? What am I so upset about? I'm upset about the catch. Once the priest comes to get children and brings them there, they are no longer available to be adopted!

Insert many thousands tears and the sound of  any hearts breaking here, mine included.

The priest says that he will allow adoptions after a child has been with him for one year. So if that is the case, Logan still can be adopted a few months after his birthday. But, there have never been any adoptions from this orphanage. This priest is very anti-American, so we are putting no faith in the promise of after one year.

So all this to say, at this point Logan will never be available for adoption. Never know the love of a FAMILY!!! Yes, he will receive more care and attention there, but nothing like the care and attention of a family.

But wait, it gets worse. Logan is not the only one affected by this. This priest has taken hundreds of kids from all over the country. We do not know who all exactly yet, or how many RR children are there with him,  but I do know of a few that went with him. Molly/Ovalyn/Aliza went with him.

Molly

Molly also had a family working to bring her home. They were bringing home another girl two. I posted about the girls and their family for Faithful Friday before, and Molly for Waiting Wednesday. And now she too, will grow up without the love of a FAMILY.

Kasey, who I was going to post about yesterday for WW is also gone, along with a little girl Natalie knows as Johanna. There are also rumors, but no conformation yet, that blind Andriy is gone/will be going as well. We will find out in the next few days if Ryan and Maxim are gone too. There were MANY MANY children taken, and this is just in one city.

Update 12/16/11 - Andriy was, sadly taken as well. ;( But no one else at Andriy's orphanage was, and no one at Ryan and Maxim's orphanage is gone!!! PRAISE GOD!!

Kasey, with I believe Johanna in the background??

Andriy

Ryan

Maxim

Because Logan's family will no longer be adopting him I can announce who they are. None other than my dear friend Jaclyn and her beautiful family! You can visit their blog HERE. Please leave them a note of encouragement.

Jaclyn and her family

So that brings me to prayer requests. I'm just going to copy what Natalie said since she said it so well: I ask for prayers for all those involved. The 50 (or at least I've been told there are 50) children who may be quite scared, the caregivers who will comfort them, the families waiting in limbo, those who already know their kids were transferred, the prayer warriors and missionaries who wanted them to be adopted so badly, and I also pray for my day tomorrow. I feel selfish doing so, but I need to keep it together. If you could pray for strength, comfort, and peace for me as I receive the news of who is still here and who is not I would appreciate that immensely.
And add one more thing - that this priest's heart and the heart of everyone else involved would change so these children, Logan included are able to be adopted. Thank you!

I am hanging on to the promises made in John 14:18 and Jeremiah 29:11 made to all of us, these precious children included.

John 14:18 - "I will not leave you as orphans, I will come to you."

Jeremiah 29:11 - "For I know the plans I have for you", declares the LORD. "Plans to prosper and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."

And lastly I want to share a song which brought comfort to me tonight.

There WILL be day with no more tears, and no more sorrows, when we will see Jesus, our Lord and savior, face to face. And I will once again get to hold the boy I love soo very much - Logan.

Thank you for your prayer for everyone at this difficult time!!! If you have any questions, please email me at forhisgloryhandiwork (at) gmail (dot) com.

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I wonder.... was Lyla affected as well??? Oh, how I pray not!!!

For those new visitors to my blog, I post Lyla (Lilianna on RR)'s picture at the end of every post, and I will be until she find a family!!!

Tree Decorating!

Earlier this week we decorated our Christmas tree.... Here are pics, and my favorite ornaments! :)

I apologize in advance for the blurry pictures... I had my camera on a weird setting to try and make the best of the low light in the room, and didn't realize until I uploaded them that they were so blurry!

Yup, here I go with the watermarks again!

Hey Rach, THIS is Sar-bear, not me! :)

Martroyshka doll! :)

Look! We were only a family of 4! That was back in 2002 though.... :)

Jonathan hanging out on the floor loving the tree!
"You have a camera!! oh YUM!"

"Coming in for a taste test!!"

"HAHAHA Almost got it!!"

"Ok, you won that time, but I've got another plan!"

"I'll distract you with my cuteness!"

Rachel insisted she needed a picture too! "Ma-nan" (her word for Jonathan) can't be the only star!

"Plan B: I'll bounce up and down so fast she can't take pictures!"

"Wow! She still got a sorta good one!"

My 3 favorite ornaments on the tree!! :)

Look! An ornament form last year. It's Carrington!! Little did we know at the time we got this ornament how grave condition she was in. PRAISE GOD she is HOME with her FAMILY and THRIVING NOW!

And this year's ornaments! Tabitha is still waiting!!

Lilly is still waiting for her family!

And of course Lyla (Lilianna) is still waiting!!

(She is not in the picture above, because she is not supposed to be on the tree yet! She along with two others have to wait to go on the tree until Christmas! But shh! Don't tell anyone I said that, I'm not supposed to know that!)