November was adoption awareness month, of course I am 3 days late (lateness is the story of my life right now), but this post has been on my heart for since before the first day of November. Many faith communities used Orphan Sunday to promote adoption and make people aware about the millions of children around the world who are waiting for homes. Donna wrote a post about this that I urge everyone to read, here. My life has been changed a great deal over the years as I have learned more about adoption. It is heartbreaking to see the great need of so many innocent children, but I think if our hearts are broken, and we go on to do something about it, this is a good thing. This is another post that everyone should read. When I read it I found it life-changing. I asked myself if I was willing to see the beauty and value in some of these children who are the most rejected. These children who in some ways are the very least valued are very precious to Our Lord. After the reading I have done this past year, along with our adoption experience, I know that I will never be the same.
I have been following this blog and this one for some time, and both have given me much food for thought. This family adopted a girl who at 9 years old, was barely 10 pounds. Born with Down's Syndrome, she had been placed in a room where she was kept barely alive, being fed so little she stopped growing. They have recently started the process to go back for one more, a little boy who has waited in the same hellish place for years. There are several other blogs that I have been following, where families have answered God's call to adoption. He will provide the finances if you will open your hearts. Not everyone is called to adopt a child with that significant level of special needs. Special needs are a wide spectrum and most are quite manageable. I don't think any of the moms I know who have adopted children with medical needs would say they had any special qualifications for it. I know I don't. Any of these adoptive moms who were willing to accept the call, first, and then let God equip them for it. For people who are not able to adopt, there are many other ways you can help. I think everyone needs to do something--pray, donate, spread the word, whatever God calls you to do.
When I saw the list of special needs under Therese's picture, I wanted to run. I didn't think I was wise or strong or brave or unselfish enough to adopt her. The words, in black and white, "global developmental delay, spina bifida, clubbed feet, scoliosis," were overwhelming. I thought that maybe I could handle one or two of those, but that was too many at once. Then I read about spina bifida online, and got scared--incontinence, kidney failure, tethered spinal cord, all of the possibilities were overwhelming. Mother Teresa said that God doesn't call the equipped, he equips the called. I don't know if I quoted her exactly, but this is what I am counting on. Even though I am just as selfish and easily tired as anyone else, I think I am doing fine at being Therese's mama, and I am sure now that I have backup for the future. Stepping into the Jordan was my part, and making it possible to cross is done by Someone else. Therese loves having a mama and fortunately she has no idea how tired mommies get, or that I once said that I have no talents for dealing with small children. I hope we are able to adopt at least once more in the future. I don't know who that child or children will be, but I am sure that God is preparing our hearts for them.
This is what adoption can do for a child--here is Therese in November of 2011, in her orphanage in a remote part of China, and a picture of her now, at HOME. She has grown and changed so much with good nutrition and the chance to exercise. I am not being melodramatic when I say that she might not have survived another year in the orphanage. Malnourished children living in institutions are very vulnerable to viruses that can spread rapidly among the children, and many orphanages are unheated in the winter and lacking in basic sanitation. For her, a child with spina bifida, a few more years without the medical care she can get here could have been devastating. Adoption makes a lifetime difference for each child who finds a family, and our whole family has been blessed in just this short time we have spent getting to know this little girl.
