Happy Halloween!

Happy Birthday

Number 15.

Hope you had a good one.  Love, us.

Unborn Baby Girl with HLHS

Just this evening we got an e-mail from an adoption agency about a baby girl, still in the womb, who has a serious heart condition and who desperately needs our help. She is due to be born in February, and she has been diagnosed with HLHS. Her situation is critical right now, as she will likely be aborted in a matter of days if there the hope of finding an adoptive family doesn't materialize. I don't say this to pressure anyone to step forward as a potential adoptive family. The simple truth is that this is what this little girl is facing, and we do not want to see her suffer death at the hands of another because of her special need. Here is an excerpt of the e-mail that came to us tonight:

[The agency] has been contacted by a Caucasian married couple who is pregnant and carrying a female baby with HLHS due in February.
 

They have only a few days left to decide on an abortion. They feel if we can show them we have a good number of prospective adoptive families to choose from, they would make an adoption plan.

 

If you are interested in adopting this little girl, please write to hlhs_girl@theshepherdscrook.org. Again, please feel free to share this post with others and join us in praying for this precious little girl.

 

-Reposted from myreallifebyyvonne.blogspot.com

Brenton, and now NOAH..

Okay guys.. you all saw it.. the miracle that happened with Brenton in the post below.  He had untill the 7'th of October to have a family commit to him; and one did.  :)  Amazing, right?

 Want to see it happen again for a boy called Noah?  He wrote a letter talking about how he wants a family.  Click here to read it and to learn about him?  Lets get Noah a family!  Pass this on?  Shout about him.  Let people know he's out there.  Thanks everyone.

He Has A Family!

Yes!  He does!

The boy in the post below this one!  I saw Brenton Has a Family HERE just now!  You will have to scroll dowm a little but he is there.

Also a shout out to Julia Nalle who is a big advocate for him and special needs orphans. 

Miracles do happen.  Gotta believe first to see.  Thank you God.

Is This Your Son?

 http://reecesrainbow.org/64325/brenton

 He is about to turn 16.  Yes, the boy in the picture above.  The picture may be older.  There are others too where he looks pretty much the same.  But he's just a little boy.  He lives in an orphanage over-seas.  If he doesn't get a family by his 16 birthday -- he never will.  He will become unavailible for adoption and be sent to an institution.  Likely, he will stay the rest of his life tied to a wheelchair.  Did you read that -- the rest of his life.  He will likely have two diapers a day and be fed a runny broth three times a day if he is lucky.

Look up eastern european mental isntitute on youtube.... see where he will go and how he will live.  Yes, some of them are better than others. Not all are horrible. And even at the ones where things are tough more often than not, the staff does care.  But there just isn't enough to go around.  I am not trying to make people feel guilty, this is just what happens to most orphans over there.  I know everyone cant adopt. I can't. But maybe someone out there can get him or knows someone who can?  So I will keep asking --- Is he your son?  Is there a place at your table for him?  Can you pass word on?

He has only until the 7'th of October, 2013.  Then, he can't be adopted.

I've asked on here several times.   But I've been a rather quiet blogger this year and I don't believe I've posted a single orphan, which is the purpose of this blog.  So, today, I am shouting for Brenton.  Click the link under his picture for more info.

Thank you.

In the Name of Love

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ByuyP1PNqKQ

Faith...

This Year I...

God Loves a Cheerful Giver - Part 4

"Give generously to him and do so without a grudging heart; then because of this the Lord your God will bless you in all your work and in everything you put your hand to."

- Deuteronomy 15:10

God Loves a Cheerful Giver - Part 3

Do not withhold good from those to whom it is due, when it is in your power to do it.
-- Proverbs 3:27

God Loves a Cheerful Giver (part 2):

 Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.

- 2 Corinthians 9:7

God Loves a Cheerful Giver (part 1):

"Every man according as he purposes in his heart, so let him give; not grudgingly, or of necessity: for God loves a cheerful giver."

--American King James Version

Happy Birthday!

The R Word Again

So a few minutes ago I read a news article about some parents whom found a picture of their son with Down Syndrome had been used by media in an 'offensive' way.  Apparently, their son had drawn a picture and was holding it up for the camera.  But apparently the image of what he had originally drawn had been altered to say the words "Retarded News".

How sad.  How low can someone get??

And the media station apparently went on to say that the segment "Retarded News" is designed to highlight odd stories and is not about disabled individuals.

At least all of that is what I understand.

Well, dear media station -- in my book, and probably the books of lots of people, you just added injury to insult.

From the News Article:

"Last summer, the group "Spread the Word to End the Word," which campaigns to end the use of the word "retard" to describe people with mental disabilities, contacted the radio station about the photo."

I thought it wasn't so much about stopping the use of the "R-Word" as a medical term as it was stopping the use of it as a derogatory insult instead?

Then we have the people who try and justify it, like it seems this media station did.  Or we have the people who try and justify it by saying things like, "I don't use it to describe disabled people - only (insert profession here)." 

That is not okay.

There is no justification for being rude, mean, and disrespectful.  And then we have people who say, "Oh come on, it's just a word."  And that is their justification for it.

But maybe these people know they are wrong and so they form excuses?  I don't know.  But I do know that more and more people each day understand this hurts.  This is not okay.  More and more people are stopping using this word as an insult.

To all of those, thank you.

Had to get this out here tonight everyone.  Talk to you soon.

Nine Years...

...I keep track.  My brain and my heart still cannot help it.  Nine years since my world changed forever.  Nine years since caught in a collapse that I had seen coming at the time, but denied, and with all my heart and body tried to hold back.

It was a moment that would change my life forever -- and these are not just words I type.  If what happened today nine years ago did not happen: my life would be drastically different now.

I did it wrong.  I know that now.

What you say -- does matter.

And I wonder even if I did it different if it would have made a difference somehow.  Or if, by the time this day came to pass nine years ago, it was far too late to stop it.

I was younger.  I was naive. But I still believe in the things I believed in back then.  The things I believed in were not the problem.  And I have difficulty feeling those things now.  But I am stronger now too. And will not give up on me.  I will not.  I will not give up on being happy. 

It is vague for you all and I am sorry. But this is a marker for me.  Getting it in physical lasting form that says I am still here.  I survived.  Its been nine years.

I read somewhere recently, actually on the blog of Angie Smith, something she wrote in a blog post:

The roots go deeper than you think
You only see part of the page
You are still a young tree

Effectively, that is what the words she wrote said.

They stunned me in that moment.  I needed to hear them.  To see them and read them.  They go up there to me with the 'No Truer Words' Catagory.  And this year... this year I needed to hear them.  And already I've been reflecting on them alot.

Would I change what happened then if I could?

I don't know.

I have learned so much through it.  Became a different person through it.  Met many other people because of it.  But I just don't know if I would change it.  Because I sometimes miss parts of the person I was then.

I survived.  I look back on it now and read the notebooks I kept back then, now.. and my heart just breaks for the girl whom I was when I wrote that at the time.  I remember her so vividly.  And all her pain.  It is raw and real there in those pages.

But she survived.  She didn't think she would.  Never doubt the power of prayer, family, and friends.

I don't really think everyone leaves an age behind them as the next birthday hits them.

Somewhere inside me, there is still a 15 year old that hurts and feels with 15 year old feelings.  There is still a 22 year old.  There is still a 27 year old... and so on.

And each of them make us who and what we are now.  That's what I think anyway. Who would have imagined then that I would come this far?

God bless, everyone.  Goodnight.

--Debrah
04.17.2018