Erick's Home!

Friday we headed to the airport to welcome home the Whitworth family! Erick stared at everyone for a moment and then went to playing with Samuel and some of the other kids without skipping a beat! It is so sweet to have them home! Today at church Erick was waving at us across the room. It made my heart melt. Now three of the six children from our little Guate gang are HOME. We are praying for Caterin, Paulo and Otoniel to come home soon!! Here are the three at the airport on Friday (Cindi, Samuel and Erick):

Saturday we went to Fritz's at Crown Center to see the trains. We were celebrating Braden's 2nd birthday! Braden is the son of our good college friends, Tim and Nicole. It was so fun to watch the boys be entertained by the trains!

If you read my previous post- sorry if I was overboard! I promise I was nice in the e-mail I sent to Mr. Riley. He hasn't responded- surprise! I was really hoping he'd come to dinner. Jimmy talked to the editor of the paper who apologized and told us he would be running many of the responses he received to the column. Here are a couple of links to responses if you're interested:

Response 1

Response 2

Today's our anniversary- six years! We went to dinner without Samuel, which was weird, but we thoroughly enjoyed a date night. We're going to be celebrating Thanksgiving with Jimmy's family this week. It will be a special day of thanksgiving for us as we reflect on where the Lord has brought us in the last year! Hope you all have a good week and a happy Thanksgiving!

I can't be quiet about this...

I mentioned we were featured in our local paper last week. I thought it was nice of them to highlight us and the other families- a warm welcome home! Then this week one of their opinion columnists wrote an article that was not as "warm and fuzzy." Here's the link:
http://www.examiner.net/opinions_columnists/x541355836/Bittersweet-emotions-Why-do-so-many-families-adopt-from-overseas

He explains that international adoptions leave him with a "bittersweet" feeling because he doesn't understand why we didn't adopt domestically. Did I say my stomach hurts? I really want to have the guy over for dinner. I drafted a letter to him inviting him, but Jimmy says he has to proof it first :). I want to tell him a few things:

Here are my questions for Mr. Riley
1) Have you been out of the country and seen with your own eyes the plight of orphans abroad? Do you know that when orphans ‘age out’ of the system in many countries, they are put to the street with little to no education, skills or support?

2) Do you know how complicated the adoption process is- both domestically and internationally?
Domestic adoptions are not as simple as showing up at your local adoption office, as you suggested, Mr. Riley.

3) Do you know that because our system favors placing the child with the biological family, many children go back and forth between foster care and biological family for years - facing horrible situations- before they are finally eligible for adoption?

4) Do you know statistics about orphans?
There are 130 million orphans worldwide. There are 500,000 children in the U.S. foster care system, 120,000 who are eligible for adoption. They all need loving families and homes.

5) Why did we adopt internationally, you ask?
Spending time in an orphanage in Peru and living eight months in Guatemala opened my eyes to the overwhelming obstacles these orphans face. In both Peru and Guatemala, orphans have little chance to be in foster care, to go to school and definitely have no access to programs like our country offers such as the A+ program (access to some free college tuition), Welfare, Section 8 housing or Medicaid. I am not saying that being an orphan in our country is easy. I am saying that our country does more than most to help our children and as citizens as one of the wealthiest countries in the world, we need to help orphans both domestically and internationally.

By the way, Mr. Riley, did you know that adoption is closed in Guatemala right now? Did you know that if we hadn't signed for Samuel, he would be in an orphanage. If adoptions don't open up again in Guatemala, he would probably age out of that orphanage and be a shoe shine boy. Or maybe one of the car window washers or cell phone card sellers who stands at the polluted intersections in the city. Or maybe a scavenger at the huge dump in Guatemala City. There are 20,000 people who survive off of that dump. Or if he's lucky and somehow got some training, maybe he could be a low-wage construction worker or farmer.

6) Last question for you, Mr. Riley. Did you know that one-third of Americans consider adoption, but only 2% ever do? It isn’t easy and we have found that the process has resulted in greater conviction to help impoverished countries, like Guatemala, but also to look around our community and help those in need. Our experience has led us to continue to discuss and pray about being foster parents or pursuing another adoption - domestic or international.

So what do you say, Mr. Riley? What can YOU (and we) do to help the local and international orphans? I would think that it would be more productive to ponder this question than to criticize those who have gotten involved.

Home for Fall

I love fall. As beautiful as Guatemala is, my last month or so I was anxious to get home and see at least a bit of fall. While in Guatemala, my dad sent me pictures of his yard just so I could get a taste of fall at home. So it was a huge blessing to make it home before all of the leaves had fallen off! I hauled Samuel outside in the cold to snap a couple of pictures of him in the leaves (or eating the leaves!).

We had a good weekend and I'm feeling much more settled in. Saturday was the bridal shower for Blair which was fun. The Open House went well on Sunday- thanks to all who came! Samuel seems much more comfortable in the house and even slept in his crib last night. We still haven't figured out a schedule for him and I still feel a bit lost as to what life is supposed to look like for me at home with Samuel. Jimmy and I still catch ourselves in disbelief that this precious child is ours and that we are all home together!

I want to echo the words of Hannah in I Samuel 1:26-28 when she gives the Lord credit for her boy saying: "As surely as you live, my lord, I am the woman who stood here beside you praying to the LORD. I prayed for this child, and the LORD has granted me what I asked of him. So now I give him to the LORD. For his whole life he will be given over to the LORD." Hannah's named her son Samuel which means "God has heard". Thank You, Lord Jesus, for hearing our prayers, for holding us through this adoption journey and for bringing Samuel home!