Helping David & Jonathan

We have the best friends ever!  I don't think I could list all of the ways that our friends and family have been there for us through our adoption of Levi and this adoption is no exception!  God has blessed us with so many to walk this journey with us!  So many that share a passion for the orphan as well as a passion to love one another in whatever means necessary!

Back in November I posted about the daughter of one of our dear friends, Skyler.  Her heart to answer the call to care for the widow and the orphan grew into an amazing opportunity to minister to 17 widows in from our church family as well as helping us to bring David and Jonathan home

through financial blessings!

Well, there is another young lady.  Jenny!  Jenny has started a fundraiser selling t-shirts for our adoption.  She has set up a blog, Bring the Boys Home where you can find all the details about the       

T-Month Challenge! 

Jenny and the fundraiser are also being featured on the College Plus website.

 You can read about that here. 

It is a lovely write up of this lovely young lady who has a passion and heart for the orphan!

The cost of the t-shirts is just $15, and they are available in black or gray. The proceeds from the sale of the shirts will go to help the Hebbe’s bring David and Jonathan home. The shirts have the boys names in their home country's language and share Ephesians 1:4-6 on the back!  Wearing the shirt will not only share the message of adoption but help bring a voice to so many orphans all over the world. You can purchase a shirt to wear whenever or you could take a more adventurous route and purchase the t-shirt and ask people to sponsor you for each day that you wear it for one month!

The challenge is on!

It doesn’t have to take years and years to make a change. All it takes is a t-shirt and a month’s worth of time. You can preorder a t-shirt and follow those taking pledges here

http://t-month.blogspot.com

You can also email me at jen.michaletz@gmail.com for more information.

Dreaming............I Am Willing!

I want to share a "dream" with you....  this is a dream that has been growing in my heart for a year.  For most of us 1 year is not really that long of a time to have a "dream".... and let's be honest... I have just celebrated my 47th year on this earth! So... it isn't everyday that us in our 40's talk about having new dreams as most of ours have either come to fruition or we have long since abandoned them.

This dream I have is not impossible... This dream I have is God sized!  This dream I have is, I believe, from God!  A desire and a willingness placed in my heart by Him and for Him!  I don't have any idea of how God will work all of this out... or if He will at all.  BUT I can tell you that I am not letting go of it! Not until I hear the words from Him.... well done! 

Even today, in the midst of tribulation (my own, not the worlds) and in the midst of daily work in the home and in the hearts of these boys I love so much.  When you deal with things in their lives and your heart is pierced.... Even in all of that...and all of the piles of undone laundry...  and dishes to do...and the unending routine of things.... I am willing!  I say YES to Him who invites me to share in His work and His plans for me!  I am willing.  That is all He ever asks of us... to be willing!  He takes care of the rest!  He takes care of moving the mountains. He takes care of the future!  I am willing! 

Ok are you ready for it.....

The dream....
I dream of building an addition on to our house.  This addition will have 6 (or more) bedrooms!  It will have a big living room! In the living room it will have everything we would need to do physical, occupational and speech therapy for children!  It will be warm... NO STEEL!  Warm colors..warm floors...warm big windows!  We will have a room for playing!  Games....soft mats!....and small ride on toys!  FUN! This addition will also have a room with rocking chairs!  LOTS of rocking chairs!  AND a big blanket chest!  Full of the softest warmest blankets!

I dream of bringing children home that live in orphanages to live in this addition!  Like those pictured on my last blog post!!  I would bring them home... and have them live here!  It would be a ministry where others would come in and work with these precious little ones!  People that are therapists.....people that want to come and hold and rock these babies!  People that would come to play with them!  Meet their needs!  Hold their hands.... take them outside in the warm sunshine so they wouldn't be afraid to leave their rooms!  People to come in and help prepare meals for this BIG HUMONGOUS family we would have!  People to read to these children and tell them how GOD loves them right from the start!  AND teach them about the redeeming love of the Father!  This is a place where each of us can have those with gifts...please come and use them!  AND a place where youth can be taught tremendous life lessons about love, caring and compassion......

The possibilities are endless... Gods plans far exceed mine!  All I know is that I am willing....
I hope that this will encourage you.  That you would not give up on old dreams or disregard new ones!  We come empty handed to the place where He meets us....  HE fills us! He leads us!  He equips us!  All we need to do..... Is Be Willing! 

Are you willing?

There's A Place That I Know Of.....

There is a place.... it is not a "geographical" place...but rather one in our "virtual" world.  I first heard of this place probably a little more than a year ago.  I would visit from time to time.  Each time I went back I found that while so many things were different.....there was much that stayed the same. The thing that never changes is that there are always new children arriving on any given day.  And there are always so many different faces to see. 

There are many that are found by their families! But not enough! There is still more work to do!

WE can make a difference. 

Whether through financial support, prayer or adopting we can all do something! 

This place is Reece's Rainbow.  Here is their mission statement...

The mission of Reece's Rainbow is to rescue orphans with Down syndrome through the gift of adoption, to raise awareness for all of the children who are waiting in 25 countries around the world, and to raise funds as adoption grants that help adoptive families afford the high cost of adopting these beautiful children.

 

 

I encourage you to read more about their beginnings and how

they are helping many orphans all over the world!

check them out here...

 

 

 

For some this  post may be "hard" to look at.... Oh I hear so many people say that its just too hard to look at these children.  I do understand... but I think it isn't in the "looking" that people find so hard... it is more the looking away.   It is seeing and knowing.  Knowing that there are children suffering needlessly. Knowing that we live our lives with so much..and with so many comforts and half a world away, these little ones suffer.  Most don't even get picked up!  They lay in their cribs for days.  The days turn into weeks and the weeks into months...and then years.  THIS is what is HARD!  It's living with knowing.... It is living with SEEING! It is living with trying NOT TO LOOK!   FOR REAL!  NO ONE WANTS TO LOOK BECAUSE THEN THEY MAY HAVE TO ASK THEMSELVES THE HARD QUESTIONS! What am I doing?  How can this be happening? I feel so selfish!  I know I should do something but I dont know what to do. 

 

Oh but please...... if these precious children could speak what do you think they would ask of us or demand from us that we honestly couldn't give?    Hold Me...just for 30 minutes a day?.....   Smile at me.... please... when you walk by to do the "duties of the day" could you just smile at me?   Feed me please?  I promise not to ask for too much!  Just feed me something!   Could I have a warm blanket and a dry diaper?  How about some fuzzy warm pajamas?  Would you help my family bring me home! Would you support my family in prayer!  Please share my picture with others so they may be moved to help! Please love me!

 

I know.... I know... right now many may be saying "wait a minute Laurie, I don't feel "called" to adoption, don't start again!"  This is not just about adopting an orphan... it is about doing what you CAN do to help!  Whatever God puts on your heart... BUT PEOPLE!  YOU MUST LOOK!  You must look to understand and see and hear and be changed! 
THEN you will be able to do whatever it is that He wants you to do!
This is not a post of hostility...but rather a  PLEA in PASSION FOR COMPASSION!

 

 

I hope to share several of the children listed there every so often.... so that they can be seen! So that the voice of the orphan will grow louder and louder.  So that they can have more people to pray for them!  And you just never know what God will do in the hearts of those who see... with the veil gone and the scales fallen away.......that is my prayer... for those who turn to Christ to be able to see! 

2 Corinthians 3:15-17 NLT

 Yes, even today when they read Moses’ writings, their hearts are covered

with that veil, and they do not understand.

 But whenever someone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. ^\

For the Lord is the Spirit, and wherever the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom 

 

 

When I look...I ask God to let me see them through His eyes.... with His perspective..... they don't deserve the life sentence that potentially awaits them... they deserve at the very least....

a life of being loved in whatever capacity they are at... they deserve the

love of the Father delivered through a family!

 

Psalm 68:4-6 NLT

Sing praises to God and to his name!
Sing loud praises to him who rides the clouds.
His name is the Lord—
rejoice in his presence! Father to the fatherless, defender of widows—
this is God, whose dwelling is holy.
 God places the lonely in families;
he sets the prisoners free and gives them joy.
But he makes the rebellious live in a sun-scorched land

 

 

Here are a few...  please please pray for them and for their families to fearlessly step out in faith to bring each of them home!  I believe with all of my heart that they each have a family chosen for them by our Father...the creator of families!  Watch out, you just might fall in love!

 

If you have any questions about them you can find them on Reece's website under the

Newly Listed Children Tab at the top and inquire there.

(These are not necessarily their "birth names" but just for references.)

Say Hello to Walt!

Walt is a 4-year-old boy has massive hydrocephalus, hypotrophy and

delayed neuro-psychological development.

He does not stand upright and does not make steps; He is unstable if not provided with some kind of support.The child does not react when being called by name. He does not understand the adults’ speech. According to the caregivers, the child sometimes pronounces unspecified sound combinations when contacted by an adult. When stimulated with verbal and tactile stimuli, the child reacts with a brief look.He does not reach for and does not hold objects with his hands.The child eats alone, assisted by an adult. He cannot control his physiological needs.

 

                                            Sweet sweet redheaded Myra!

Myra is a 6-year-old girl who has been diagnosed with spina bifida and hydrocephalus.

She can pick up a toy by herself and plays with it. She makes random inarticulate screams and sounds. Sometimes she pronounces sound combinations. She likes communicating with familiar people: the staff at the orphanage and the other child in her room. She cries and sulks when an unfamiliar person enters the room. She laughs aloud when teased. The child can sit in bed independently for a while. She reaches out and takes a hanging toy to play with it. When given a toy from an adult she takes it and manipulates it. She likes listening to a rotating musical toy. She is fed with a bottle.

Precious Jocelyn!

 

Jocelyn is 6-year-old girl with Down Syndrome who is awaiting her forever family to find her. She can’t walk independently. She can crawl and sit without support. She pronounces mainly undefined sounds. She doesn’t respond when being called by name. She has started demonstrating interest in the other children and their actions in the playroom. She smiles to a known adults. She can’t control her physiological needs and needs adults assistance.

 

 

Reed has stolen my heart!  I would hold him 24/7!

 

Reed is a 2-year-old boy with spina bifida, hydrocephalus and CP.

He is passive while in his bed, he can’t control his head and his legs do not support him. The staff changes his body position. He reacts to strong noisy interactions with spontaneous quailing. He cannot speak and make sounds. He takes liquid food from a nasogastric tube.

He gains weight and sleep well.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Charming Alright!  Meet Ezra!

Boy, born Oct 2011

 

Ezra is just over a year old.  He has  congenital internal hydrocephalus operated; anemia; protein-energy deficiency.  Ezra has had a shunt placed, and is doing better.  this picture is after the shunt was placed.  His adoption may necessitate consultations with medical personnel to safely transport him home. Ezra has had a shunt placed, and is doing better. This picture is after the shunt was placed. His adoption may necessitate consultations with medical personal, to safely transport him home.

 

 

 

 

Say hello to this handsome boy!  Jefferson!

 



Jefferson's story is heartbreaking! 

Boy, born April 2006

After-effects of traumatic brain injury, brain contusion, right hemiparesis, ptosis, OS
F06.8, F80.1, F 88.0

In May 2011 the boy fell off the third floor and his condition is the result of the injury. He has some vision and speech impairment but he is a very smart and nice boy.

He is still in the orphanage but will be transferred to the institution soon if we don’t find him a family FAST!

 

Purpose and Perspective

Philippians 2:12-13

¹² 

Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed—not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence—continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, ¹³ for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose.

There must be purpose in what we do.  There must be.  God is good.  He is orderly...He is perfect...He is the Master Planner!  So there must be purpose in what we do.  Everyday we go about our lives..we do things that we have done the day before and the day before and the day before that...  But what is the purpose?

Have you ever driven down a road that you have driven down a hundred times before but something was different?  The same buildings and houses and signs....yet something is different.  A few weeks ago I was on one such road. I saw things I had seen a hundred times before.  But this time my mind went to a different place.  I kept asking "why".  What is the purpose in that? At the end of the day, was it really necessary?  I saw two realities collide that day, ours and theirs........ 

I think it all really started to "click" for me when I went to Ethiopia for the first time.  I was truly changed. I was affected..or maybe afflicted with a new way of seeing things.  It was like the way I saw everything was now somehow different.  In some ways more clear....and in other ways more I felt like I just couldn't see at all.

In Ethiopia I saw so many things that struck me.  There are things that we do on a daily basis that we don't think twice about. Things that for most in Ethiopia (and other countries) are a luxury.  A hot shower.... soap....  a smoothie.... vitamins.... water in the middle of the night from the bathroom faucet just 20ft from our bed. How about washing dishes.... we fill the counter tops with dirty dishes from popcorn the night before and a buffet of different choices for breakfast.  We fill the sink or load the dishwasher..add the dishsoap and off we go.  Every morning I saw a woman who lived next to our guesthouse outside washing not just a few cups, but laundry in a plastic tub.  No soap. No running water. Rain or shine..she was out there. I suppose doing it outside was better than inside the tin shed they lived in that most likely did not have lights or electricity. I saw the inside of some of the 6 X 6 sheds made of tin and tarps that they called home.  The floor was dirt..the walls were cardboard and a few had a couple pictures of Jesus hanging up. There were just 2 or 3 plastic cups, even though there were 6 people living there. There was a 3 gallon yellow plastic jug. It used to hold vegetable oil. Now it is the water supply.  Water for them didn't come from a faucet...it came from a 1.5 hour walk one way to a well where they stood in line to fill the 3 gallon jug and then walked the 1.5 hour walk home again.  I did not see a "closet" just a few pieces of clothing hanging on a rope across the 1 room home. 

Honestly, this is reality.  This is where my life, my reality and theirs collided. This is where I was changed.  This is when my perspective changed.  Here is where God reminded me of a question I had asked him when I was a young girl.  "Why did I get to be born here?"  "How come I wasn't born in some far away African tribal community?"  I wish I could say that He gave me the answer right then and there. He didn't.  Instead I believe that He planted a seed that day.  A seed that would grow in my heart and change the way I would look at things.  Mostly the way I would look at myself and my life and how I lived it and how different it was from those whose realities are so very different than mine.  The lives of the oppressed, the poor, the fatherless, the abandoned, the widow....the orphan.
James 1:27 The Message
Real religion, the kind that passes muster before God the Father, is this: Reach out to the homeless and loveless in their plight, and guard against corruption from the godless world.

I don't think that God doesn't want for us to have nice things...running water...electricity...closets with clothes... I just think that we often times can forget where it all comes from.  We should have some conflict in our lives.  We should be uncomfortable when we hear about famine, drought, oppresion, child traffiking, the number of children as orphans dying every day (23,000), the number of unadopted 4 yr old children in orphanages with special needs that get transferred to adult mental institutions because they are "unwanted".  We should be uncomfortable..... We can forget that we were born here in the land of plenty for a reason, for a purpose...and not in a tribal community or poverty stricken country. We are commanded to care! To care for those who are the least of these... to tend to those in need.  And it is more than just a few coins in the bucket or writing a check once a year... WE CANNOT LOOK AWAY. WE CANNOT PRETEND WE DONT KNOW ONCE WE HAVE SEEN!
Proverbs 24:12
If you say, “But we knew nothing about this,”
    does not he who weighs the heart perceive it?
Does not he who guards your life know it?
    Will he not repay everyone according to what they have done?

Bless my husbands heart. He just smiles and sometimes shakes his head. I can't help it.  I just can't.  All around I see things differently. I am changed. I am, some would say, obsessed.  I just don't see, think and feel like I used to.  This didn't happen overnight....it was a gradual thing.  God puts something in your heart and He works it out to His plan and by His timing.  I think He wants us to see things from His perspective. To be burdened for what burdens Him.  To love what He loves and hate what He hates.  To be made more like Him as we are continually being transformed.
Romans 12:1-2
Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. ² Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.

Maybe the pictures below will serve as a visual to what conflicts in my heart.  To what I try to reconcile in my heart and mind and soul.  So as you look at the pictures below I hope you can really SEE what they represent.  I know that we live in a world that is constantly changing and people are seeking more and more and want to always be moving forward.  BUT... we are leaving so much behind in our trek to move and get ahead. 

I don't know what God will speak to you as you look....or as you ask yourself the why question...but I know He absolutely has something to say to you!  Maybe it is the way you will look at the full refrigerator or the next time you get up for a glass of clean water.  Or maybe it will be the way you look at any abundance in your life.  Whatever it is that God wants you to see from His perspective please listen and let Him stir your heart to His leading!

Some of the pictures are hard to look at...and they are not meant to point fingers of guilt..just to make us think about those things we see and do without thinking twice.


A Different Perspective..........something to think about.........

Architecture For Cars....

Architecture For 320 Orphans.....

Who can I touch.......

 Who will touch us.......

Meal time for us.......

Meal Time for the Orphan.....

Room with a view....our old house

Room with a view for the orphan......

What we do with water...

What they do to get water......

This is our family.....



Where is his.......

You can make the first move.....

How far will you reach.....

On The Move!

Yea!!!
Today we received an email saying that we officially have USCIS approval to adopt
2 Children!!!

This is the last piece of our dossier paperwork.  It will be authenticated and should be in the boys'
home country next week.  Then it will be translated and submitted for an official referral of the boys to our family for adoption!  We don't know how long it will take...it could take a few weeks or a month or longer...  Once the referral comes we will travel for the first trip!

Thanks for all of the prayers and support...and we ask that you join us in praising Him for this plan for our family and for prayer while we "wait"!
We trust God's timing is perfect as is His plan!

laurie