First I want to say that we have a new fund raiser. To the left of my blog you will see a Just Love Coffee button. If you buy coffee from this link, a portion of the proceeds will go towards our adoption fund! Who doesn't LOVE coffee?
______
This week I started reading "Orphanology" by Tony Merida &
Rick Morton. If you follow me on Twitter or read my status on Facebook,
you’ve been bombarded with quotes from the book. Sorry about that… Well, kinda. Reading this book has rekindled my passion
for adoption and has opened my eyes to the priority God places on us taking
care of orphans. I encourage everyone to read it if you get a chance.
Along with this rekindled passion
I’ve been on a mission that exceeds adopting Julani, along with any future
children we will welcome into our family.
The book stresses the Biblical command for Christians to take care of
orphans.
“Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father,
is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself
unstained from the world.” - James1:27
The Greek word for visit,
“episkeptesthai,” means more than dropping by. It means that we
should be personally involved with others and care for them, exercising
oversight on their behalf by helping them in their need. It means we should
take the role of shepherd in the cause of caring for the helpless (Paraphrased
from Orphanology). Needless to say, I’ve
been looking into how our church, Sojourn, can "visit" the
orphans. I’ll talk more about that later.
I’ve also looked into our own
adoption to see if there is more we could be doing or if there is anything the
Lord is showing us through all of this. After reading adoption stories in the
book, my eyes have been opened to options we knew were out there, but seemed too
overwhelming or complicated for us at the time we began our adoption process.
Examples being: sibling groups, older children, waiting children, special needs
children, etc.
Recently, Joseph and I
revisited all of these options and the only one that seems suitable for our
family, or that we qualified for at least, is to open our age range to 0-5
years.
Adopting older children stereotypically comes with greater complications.
For instance, they are more likely to remember past abuse or
abandonment, they struggle with language differences, they are more emotionally
distraught, and have slower learning development. But that always depends on the individual child, infants may have the same issues as well.
I thought to myself, “why do I
have to have an infant when there are all sorts of children who need
parents?” I realized that wanting a baby
was selfish on my part. When I mentioned
this option to Joseph, he said having an infant was never a "must
have" for him. Baby things tend to freak him out anyway.
We asked another adoptive
mommy who has adopted older children and she encouraged us to go for it!
She said that she wants me to watch and discuss the Karyn
Purvis seminars on child development and connecting with adopted children.
She also said to be prepared but not scared, basically!
We have told our Family
Coordinator that we would like to expand our age range and we’ve started taking
the necessary steps to do so. We will need to be approved by our social
worker, but I'm praying that we won’t have any problems with that. So, the
outcome is not official yet but that’s the current plan.
Please be praying for this change
with us. Now we need to be prepared to bring home an infant or a child that is
almost in elementary school, which is a major difference.
God's plan not ours!
-Emily
