When I woke up this morning and checked my email, I found some really wonderful, amazing, absolutely awesome news. My sponsor baby, Charlotte, has been adopted, Praise God. I have been sponsoring her for a year and have always been told that her chances of being adopted were not high because her orphanage does not do a lot of adoptions. So when I read the news that she is now one more in a forever family and one less an orphan ... well let's just say I've been floating on cloud 9 this morning! I have been sponsoring her foster care - it started right after she had her cleft lip repair through Love Without Boundaries at their Anhui Healing Home. The last picture at the bottom was from December, I think she is now about 17 months old.
I'd love to find her family so I can pass on all of the pictures I have of her, because I have lots more in addition to her monthly updates! If you know a family that adopted a precious baby girl from the Dingyuan SWI in Anhui Province with a repaired cleft lip, I would be overjoyed if you could send them my way! I'm nosy and would love to see how she's doing and what her "real" name is. But more than that, I just want them to know that someone cared about and prayed for their baby girl for the past year!
Love Without Boundaries asked me if I wanted to sponsor a new child, and of course I said YES! I originally started sponsoring Charlotte to feel somehow more connected to Sunshine before we brought her home. Getting updates of another CL/CP baby made the time go by a little faster for me. And truthfully, I never even missed that small monthly fee! If you would prayerfully consider sponsoring a child, YOU CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE. By helping just one child somewhere around the world, you are answering God's call to look after orphans and widows.
"Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this:
to look after orphans and widows in their distress
and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world."
James 1:27
There are so many fantastic organizations that help with orphan sponsorship, here are a few of my favorites that I have had personal contact with:
Love Without Boundaries (they work in China and donated cleft bottles to Sunshine's orphanage)
Show Hope (Steven Curtis Chapman's organization that works in China and runs Maria's Big House of Hope)
Amazima (Katie Davis' organization that does work in Uganda and helps school 575+ children - they have temporarily put a hold on new sponsorships but you can sign up to be notified when they open them again)
I am feeling so grateful today to serve a loving God whose heart is kind and who adopts all of us into his Heavenly family.
I am feeling so grateful today to serve a loving God whose heart is kind and who adopts all of us into his Heavenly family.
Praise God!!!!!! Praise Him for being generous to YOU in His grace and causing you to have a heart that cares for the orphan, as He does! Praise Him for raising up a family for this sweet girl!!!!!
ReplyDeleteI love that you took on caring for a little one in foster care WHILE waiting for your own little one whom someone else was caring for at the time--I think sometimes people forget that is the perfect time to still be the hands and feet of Christ instead of hibernating and just nesting ... what an exchange of love. AND to see that it was through LWB, wow ... I heart them! I have sponsored medical surgeries (in small parts) but I'd kinda forgotten about their foster program. Your post comes at a time when I am just wondering whom to sponsor next or in addition to when our New Day child is taken home with his forever family. I will always sponsor through ND I'm pretty sure as I'm so impressed with their mission and how they carry it out, but I have been blown away with the several photos from LWB on the little girl we're sponsoring in part for her cleft surgery in a little less than a month (Shannon.) I've posted a few times on her, including the bibs we just sent out yesterday. Oh she is a SMOOCH and it is so cool to get up dates to keep us connected to what we gave to several months ago. Thanks for sending a word out for them and their foster care and other programs! I will be checking it out and praying for God's lead.
ReplyDeleteBlessings-Valerie
P.S. And it made me so sad to know that there are some orphanages that are not open to allowing their children to be adopted!! But what a praise that Charlotte's paperwork was submitted and she was matched and joined her forever family. Perhaps that tide is turning?
ReplyDeleteoh my goodness, sorry for taking over your comments section! ... but I just saw that the little girl we are sponsoring for the cleft surgery trip, "Shannon," is at the LWB healing home right now but is from Dingyuan orphanage as well just like your Charlotte! Oh I pray that she will someday be able to be adopted into a family. She is has such a light in her eyes! She is listed under $50/month section.
ReplyDeleteOh, she is just beautiful and such wonderful news to hear she has a family! I love the picture of her with the rice cereal. She just looks so darn cute.
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