Last Sunday night Ed and I attended the 2nd Annual Speak Up Fresno event. The event is to raise awareness of orphans both locally and around the world and to Speak Up for those who can't speak up for themselves. The most powerful video I have ever seen is the above Depraved Indifference video in January 2013 at the first Speak Up event (link above to video). I remember watching this video clip in tears and thinking I can't just sit back and wait another day for someone else to stand up for the orphan and I knew God was calling on me personally to step forward and do something. It was almost one year to the day I first saw this video and Ed and I decided that it was our time to stop just talking about adoption and to really step forward and do something.
It is amazing to think where we are at just one year later. Just today we received our monthly update of our sweet girl. I am so thankful at the time our creche takes to write such personal stories of our girl just for us....it is a treasure to find these stories waiting for us in our email. I love hearing how proud our girl is to work on her English and how she is so determined in her learning and how her face beams when she finishes a letter to her parents. Ed and I truly are amazed that God has allowed us in on this journey of adoption, because really it is one of the best journeys a person can be on! Yes, it can get frustrating at times, and I know for sure there will be hard times as we walk through the grieving stages with our girl when she comes home....but man on man, it is also a truly amazing and blessed journey. I have never felt more close to God and His greatness than I have throughout this walk. Ed and I are often talking about how this journey has really allowed us to see the love that other people have in their hearts and how there are so many truly good people out there who want to help those who can't speak up for themselves, like the orphans.
We are getting closer. As I said above, the adoption process can be frustrating. The past month has been spent trying to locate lost documents and recreate new originals of lost documents and get them to Haiti as fast as we can. Our file has finally been put back together again for lack of a better description. We are waiting on one document to be legalized and we are praying that any day now we will receive the news that our file has been submitted.....we would love any extra prayers from you to specifically get our file into IBESR (Haitian Social Services basically).
If you are feeling compelled to Speak Up and do something for the orphan please send me an email or message and I would love to plug you into ways you can help. It can be as easy as buying a piece of jewelry which provides income opportunities for women in a country with over 80% unemployment so that they don't have to give up their children due to poverty (which I happen to have this jewelry with me right now and will deliver), it could be praying for a child, sponsoring a child, or higher levels of commitment in considering foster care or adoption. Either way, I would love to talk about it with you if your interested.
Proverbs 31: 8-9
"Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves,
for the rights of all who are destitute.
9 Speak up and judge fairly;
defend the rights of the poor and needy."
for the rights of all who are destitute.
9 Speak up and judge fairly;
defend the rights of the poor and needy."
