Saturday, March 26, 2016

Paying It Forward

I was going to do a long post on all of our recent (FUN)draising ventures but we encountered something today that I felt was more important.

 This afternoon after attending a birthday party, the girls and I stopped by the grocery store on the way home to pick up stuff for dinner. We parked, got out of the car and immediately noticed a family of five sitting on the bench in front of us. The father was holding up a cardboard sign made from a diaper box that said something like, "Need help to pay rent, buy diapers, milk and food". He was sitting there on a Saturday afternoon with his wife, two sons and a young daughter. Aven, who is learning to read, immediately asked what the sign said and I told her. Without a pause she said, "well, then we need to buy them stuff!". This particular grocery store has small, kid-sized carts in addition to the regular sized shopping carts and each girl grabbed a small cart. They quickly began filling their cart with bananas, strawberries, tomatoes and anything else they saw that they thought this family could use. After some discussion, we put the fresh items back and decided instead to buy them a large box of diapers, milk and purchasing a gift card to the grocery store. We checked out and each girl took her items over to the family and told them that they had bought them to help. The father was very appreciative and told me thank you numerous times as we put our stuff in the car and again as I returned my cart.

We got home and, as we were unloading the car, I realized a number of important things:
1) I forgot to buy the stuff for our dinner. =) 

2) Aven, a five year old, did not once hesitate to help. Her world is still so black and white, problems so easy to solve. Someone needs help? Let's help them! She didn't stop to think, well, if he were working instead of sitting here on a Saturday maybe he'd be able to buy diapers and milk; or, but I was gonna use that money to get those new shoes; or I bet he just takes the money and buys beer. Her first and natural instinct was to believe the best of people and do something to make a difference.

3) It was this same kind of innocent faith and trust that the people who had been donating to our adoption fund placed in us. A lot of these people don't even know us, yet they have not hesitated to help. For all they know we are metaphorically buying beer with that money. But they choose to believe the best of us and do something to make a difference in the life of a child.

4) I thought this would be a good moment to teach my children a number of life lessons: giving unto others, helping those in need and being appreciative that we, unlike that family, had enough. But, in the end, it was - as it always seems to be - my children who taught me more. They are so much wiser than I often give them credit for. And while I sometimes lovingly laugh at their simplistic view of the world, you know what? Sometimes that simplistic view is the best one.

So tonight I sit here, humbled and wiser, and offer up a prayer to that family in hopes that theirs is a temporary need and that, when they no longer need help, they'll pay it forward to the next person who does.

Friday, March 18, 2016

Nana Chimes In

Hi. I'm Nana, Mary's mom, the grandmother to 4 girls, 0 boys. I do have a son, though, so I'm not unfamiliar with the concept of male children. I know that boys & girls ARE different - don't let anyone tell you any different. Boys bring their own brand of joy to your life. To have a grandson in the family would make my world complete. And speaking of my son.... His wife is from Belarus - the former USSR. She speaks Russian. Her lovely family speaks Russian. And Charlie is from Eastern Europe. He speaks Russian. I marvel at how the universe conspires to provide you with all you need. I feel like Charlie was meant to be. If we have problems with the language, help is just a phone call away.

Mary & I went shopping last night for Easter stuff for the girls. At the front of the first store was a rack of boys' polo shirts. Ooh, look! Wouldn't this look great on Charlie!?! Would it? Would he like shirts like this? I wonder what his favorite color is? I wonder what size he is? It's too early to start buying stuff for him. Rats! But it's never to early to start looking & dreaming about him being a part of this family. I can't wait to be able to take him out shopping & let him pick out his own clothes, his own toys, his own stuff. Kids love stuff. Kids need stuff. Watching him pick out his own stuff will reveal who the boy inside him is.

The process to adopt Charlie is a lengthy one. I wish it didn't take so long, but I understand why. I don't have to like it to understand it. We are all ready to have him here & start doing all those things to make him a part of the family. That's not true. He's already a part of the family. He's just not here yet. He doesn't even know we exist yet. He doesn't know he has a family who can't wait to bring him home. Weird, isn't it? To know something that life altering about someone else makes you feel like you know the future. But we're not supposed to know the future - not our own & especially not someone else's. So, we wait & wait. Once he's here, the waiting will be all worth it. Right now, it's excruciating. There's lots of paper work for Mary & Brent to go through. They are not sitting still waiting for Charlie to show up. That's my job. I'm good at a lot of things. I'm great at a few things. I'm not good at waiting. Aging has provided me with a better perspective & I know waiting is a necessary evil. And when I think about what awaits at the end of the waiting, I sit back down, smile & wait some more.

Here's to you, Charlie. Soon, very soon, I'll see your face, hear your voice, your laughter, your tears. I can't wait to meet you, get to know you & find out who you are.

Love, Nana

Saturday, March 12, 2016

In the Trenches

We officially committed to "Charlie" back in January though we had been watching his profile since the fall. We were waiting for some personal/professional chaos to die down before we committed. Originally we had planned to commit to another child (a good friend of "Charlie's") as well but another family beat us to the punch. Not wanting to miss out on "Charlie", too, we emailed Reece's Rainbow about how to formally commit but were told that he was spoken for as well! We were heartbroken to think that we had lost both children. We put ourselves on a waiting list just in case. A week or so later we got an email saying "Charlie's" prospective family had been unable to commit at this time and he was ours!

We are now officially deep in the trenches of paperwork. There are stacks and piles and tons of paperwork. Each packet of paperwork comes with its own stack of instructions on how to properly fill it out. We all had to get medical exams and our doctor had to not only sign and notarize our health forms, she had to give us a copy of her license. As a veterinarian, I know first hand that asking for a copy of a medical professional's license is a big deal. But we made appointments with our family practitioner and showed up with a giant stack of paperwork for her to fill out. As I'm going over all the instructions with the nurse (this has to be in blue ink, no cross-outs or smudges, have the notary stamp this one here...) her eyes are getting wider and wider and the look on her face became more and more one of "uh huh...you are out of your mind...". So with a terrified smile I handed her the stack of forms so the doctor could review them prior to our exams and she walked out. Hubby and I sat in the room, waiting for the doctor, both of us thinking, this is never gonna happen, and our doctor walked in. She looked down at the chart, looked up at us and said, "oh, you're adopting. We adopted our first child from South America years ago. I know all about the paperwork!" I wanted to jump up and just hug her. She was so understanding about filling out the paperwork not once, not twice, but three separate times before we finally got it approved by our facilitator. If anyone ever needs the name of a good, compassionate and understanding family practitioner in our area, I know a good one!

We sent off our first packet of apostilled documents to be carried to Ukraine, had our home study on Sunday and are just about finished with the second packet. We have a number of fundraisers coming up and our adoption grant continues to grow. We have been met with so much support, love and prayer during this whole process...I cannot thank everyone enough for all that they have done so far. And we are just getting started. "Charlie" has so many people who already love him; I can't wait for him to get home and meet them.

Stay tuned...

Friday, March 11, 2016

Here We Grow Again!

We are adopting! This is something that has been five years in the making, folks, and we couldn't be more excited. We are a family of six (soon to be seven!): Brent (husband), Mary (wife), Abigail, Amelia, Aven and Adele (four daughters...yes, poor Hubby is greatly outnumbered). We live in Small Town, Texas and my husband and I are both veterinarians.


I stumbled onto Reece's Rainbow five years ago shortly after my daughter was born and have been advocating for and supporting a number of adoptions ever since.

AND NOW IT'S FINALLY OUR TURN! =)

This handsome little guy is "Charlie".


He is 11 years old and has Down Syndrome. He lives in an orphanage in Eastern Europe where he has lived since birth. In his country, and many others like it, babies with disabilities are abandoned by their families at birth simply because they have special needs. "Charlie" was, for most of his life, in a good orphanage with friends, therapies and education. He was recently transferred, however, to a rural institution that is nothing like the orphanage that he came from. He's been uprooted from everything he knows and moved to a sad, desolate place. I can't even imagine how shell-shocked he has to be.

You can read more about "Charlie", Reece's Rainbow and the plight of orphans with special needs at reecesrainbow.org. I encourage you to visit their website, check out our family sponsorship page and follow along here as we move through the adoption process. It's been an exciting, terrifying journey already and we can't wait to see what's next!