A plea and an answer

AS we wrap up the month of October and this years Dwarfism Awareness I hope I have dispelled some of the fears related to having a child with dwarfism and replaced them with our personal love for these amazingly happy little people who meet life with gusto.

I am excited to see young ones with dwarfism being quickly chosen and finding families within weeks of being made available for adoption.

Unfortunately, we are seeing a plethora of older kids with dwarfism jsut sitting on the list for years and years.  I personally am feeling a panic as they inch closer and closer to their 14th birthday and they are sent out on the streets, uneducated, no resources, many without even an appropriate name to pursue employment.  How can they possibly fill out an employment form with a name that means "I entered ____ orphanage on the year of 2008."

Because many in China think these kids with dwarfism are also mentally delayed (they are not infact the contrary is usually true), they are only educated in the orphanages, only obtaining true schooling once an agency assures them that a family will come.

Not only are these kids handed their walking papers on their 14th birthday, but it is estimated that many will either die that first year on the streets, or sold into the sex trade . . . yeah, shocking and heartbreaking all at once.

When I look at my Fei and Tao I jsut can't even imagine.  Our oldest turned 14 on the day we signed for Tao in China, and I looked at him in shock.  This child of mine who has had all the privilege of family, of money, of schooling - I still couldn't imagine him alone on the streets.

So I am coming to you to search your hearts.
To look into the eyes of these kids,
Imagine them as a son, a child

All of there information can be found HERE

Believe me it is scary to even contemplate adopting an older child.
It is easy to come up with 1000 excuses why it won't work for your family.
A thousand fears for the future.

But let me assure you I am not talking about rescuing these children in the sense of being a savior - there is only one of those.

I am not talking about putting your family in jeopardy for a last minute run to keep an unwanted child from aging out of the system.

I am talking about if God has laid one of these children on your heart, if He has laid adopting an older boy on your heart ~ DO IT!!

How do I know?

Because we have struggled with this,
spending countless hours worrying, wondering and questioning.

But the story of Queen Esther has played out so many times in our life over the past few months I can not even tell you.  Realizing that we are asked to be God's hands and feet on earth.  And you know that we can say NO!! (I know gasp who would ever say NO! to one of God's requests.)  The kicker is ~ we will also lose out on some of His greatest Blessings.

¹³ Then Mordecai told them to reply to Esther, “Do not think to yourself that in the king's palace you will escape any more than all the other Jews. ¹⁴ For if you keep silent at this time, relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another place, but you and your father's house will perish. And who knows whether you have not come to the kingdom for such a time as this?”
                                                                                                                  Esther 4:13-14

Ann Voscamp's post on Why You Are Where You Are: For Such a Time as Now was life changing for our families understanding of this ( well more than that which I will get into later.)

I often look at our Tao - just the miracle of him being in our family.  The blessing he is to not only our family but our community.  I now know that Tao had to come to us, to renew our belief in the adoption process and renew our souls.

So that when God presented us with a little boy who has sat on the list forever (his original file was completed in 2008!)

Who is just a few years from his 14th birthday and the unimaginable repercussions of that date.

Who has had minimal schooling,

Who has suffered unimaginable loss in his life and still he smiles,

Who we will soon call son.