Chasing a Dream Where the Sunflowers Grow: August 2012

Friday, August 31, 2012

International Human Rights Group

The International Human Rights Group - podcast by Eric Dye

~ Dear LORD, send me! ~ Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world. James 1:27 ~

Today I had a podcast interview to meet and share our story with Eric Dye of the International Human Rights Group. What a privilege! I'm excited to listen to it when it comes out. I got very emotional in times of sharing Hannah's life with us and how having her led to our meeting our daughter we didn't know we had in Ukraine when she was born. Of course we adopted Lera when she was five years old, but feel she was always ours from the time she was conceived in our hearts and prayers.

With that said, these girls really know how to make my life interesting! I never knew anything about Down syndrome until God gave us Hannah and to think God had it planned all along to give us a double portion is beyond "wow" for me. He took us all the way to Ukraine, a far cry from the comfort of our own backyard, all to get a little girl who needed a mommy and a daddy, and the daughter we didn't know we were missing. Our God is amazing like that! His wonders are out of this world and what a glory to join Him in His work. What next? What more is there? God has blessed me beyond my wildest dreams, just because I love Him. He loved me first, so I would know true love. He gave me His one and only son to die on the cross to save me from sin and death. The life that I live on this earth is temporary and heaven waits for me. So what can I not do for God when He has given everything to me including His Kingdom? God blessed me with 30 years (almost) to the man I love, ten children, one daughter-in-law, two grandchildren, close friends and new friends to keep me going through my darkest days. I've been to Ukraine and back twice to witness the miracle of adoption and to look after more orphans. God gave us friends from here to there that I will cherish forever and love for doing their part. Still He let me write a book and now a podcast. God is good! Thank you God for this journey you put us on. May I always give You thanks and praise for life, no matter how You pack it...all life matters, it is beautiful and perfect, because You are the giver of life! ~ All Glory and Praise to Our One True God! ~ God is good!!!

Thursday, August 30, 2012

Big girl glasses and underwear

Lera and Hannah love the WETA KIDS channel! :) ...three days into school and I just wanted to sit there watching them, like they were watching t.v.. With their pack packs on, waiting for the school bus to come and take them to school, I couldn't take my eyes off of them! So I grabbed my cell phone and took a picture. :-) How did I get so blessed? Maybe I couldn't take my eyes off of them because they looked so cute and clean after a fresh bath...or maybe it was realizing I wouldn't be spending every waking moment of the day with them anymore...no more summer days at the pool, staying until it closed and walking home for bedtime (I mean until they fell asleep)...no more running up to the snack shack for cheetos (Lera's favorite) and goldfish (Hannah's favorite)...no more soaking in the sun and being lazy watching them play in the pool...no more asking them to take their swim test so they could go off the diving board and slide (they both certainly know how to swim, just waiting for them to swim across the pool - on their own - with no help - or touching the wall, or ropes)...no more pull-ups...YES! I said it, and it's TRUE!!!...Lera has not worn a pull-up to school all week and has managed to stay dry all day!!! (well, she did have 1 change on Monday and 1 change on Tuesday, but NOT on Wednesday! ~ She did it! And if it wasn't for her laughing so hard at home, all because she and Hannah had way, too much fun, goofing off, with their super - COOL - big brother, Caleb, that it made her pee her pants, she would still be dry after school too! But hey, that happens, right?!) Back to my story with the picture I posted...if you look closely, you can see Hannah is wearing glasses, not just any glasses, but the ones from Kindergarten that we lost and were recently found when I was cleaning up some old stuff we didn't need anymore. The amusing part was watching her put them on her face...she brushed her hair carefully behind each ear (so cute!) and proceeded to put them in place while watching t.v. The same glasses she wouldn't keep on her face, suddenly appeal to her, and she wants to keep them on! Well, most of the time...almost never taking them off, she went to school with them on all week! The note in her back pack after school, said - she kept them on for most of the day! YES, it's TRUE! She finally wants to wear glasses!!! - But guess what happened next? She LOST them again!...Somewhere between her teacher writing me a note to say she kept them on most of the day to catching the bus back home at then end of the day, they went missing, LOL! Oh well, I hope they turn up in school today. But if not, there is still hope for our girl because she has a doctor's appointment coming up next month with the eye doctor and she will probably get new glasses, anyway. I can't wait for our two little joys to come home from school today! First thing I want is two BIG hugs and two High Fives. By then I will know if Lera stayed dry all day when I see the outfit she is wearing, and will be able to tell if it's the same one she had on when she left for school or not...and, if Hannah has her glasses on, the mystery will end there...unless we have to wait for her to get new ones. ;-)

Friday, August 24, 2012

A little bit of Lera

Lately, I read several blogs about children that were adopted from Torez and it sparked something in me. It was the place we prayed and prayed our daughter, Lera would not go to. We didn't want her to die of starvation and abuse like the e-mail said! Miraculously, the e-mail we received was forwarded all over the United States from one support group to another until we got it in our mailbox about a "little blond angel" that needed a home at Christmastime. We didn't plan on adopting her, it just happened! Prior to that, I guess you could say we were found first by our new friend, Jane Miller, when she spotted my husband carrying Hannah up to the snack bar in the bowling ally. That's when she introduced herself to us and her support group with the Anne Arundel County Down Syndrome Connection. We were only familiar with the group for a short period of time when we got the e-mail from them. All we knew was our daughter, Hannah had Down syndrome and God spared her life. It was all so fresh knowing Hannah, too, could have died because she didn't have a rectum when she was born. We were just getting over the operations that saved her life when the e-mail came. How could we say no to another little girl that needed us when God just saved our Hannah? There was no time to waste when we responded. God called us and we knew we had to make a choice, and we said YES! It would take another two years before God would make her our daughter. So we prayed for God to hold her for us until we could hold her for Him. (Please refer to my book for more interesting details about adopting our daughter, Lera.) When I thought about writing this post the picture of Lera sitting at the airport waiting to go home for the first time popped in my mind. Up to then, she lived in the baby house in Donetsk for the first five years of her life, and then right before we were able to get to her, she was transferred to Druzhkovka.

Lera the day we left Kiev, Ukraine and headed home to the States. This is when we are waiting in NY to board to plane to DC to head home.