We End Where We Began…

To learn more about Joint Council’s National Adoption Month Advocacy Campaign-Click Here

Today, we are ending our 30-Day Challenge in the same place we began, in a childcare center in Johannesburg, South Africa.  Our story began with Mbali-Today it ends with Gabrielle, who passed away on June 26, 2004, the day after Mbali.  The story below was written by Thea Jarvis, who founded TLC, the day that Gabrielle passed away.  To read Thea’s story and the founding of TLC, click here.

Gabrielle passed away today.  Gabrielle’s story has been such a sad one from the beginning.   Her Mommy is a young girl who was found wandering around Baragwanath Hospital with the newborn baby in a duffel bag.   When a nurse from the psychiatry department noticed that the bag was moving she confronted the girl and called a security guard to check the bag, to confirm her suspicions.

They sent the baby and the Mom to TLC with the idea that Gabrielle should stay until the mother had received some counseling … Gabrielle was only a few hours old and the most beautiful baby.

Gabrielle’s Mommy’s story was one that is becoming more and more frequent.   The mother found out she was HIV+ and simply lost it!   She went crazy.   Gabrielle’s mother  tried to abort her baby, but when that didn’t work, she went  into labor, went to the hospital and delivered the baby.   She is still psychotic though, and has not shown any interest in the baby apart from the rare phone call.

Gabrielle has been a sickly baby from the beginning, even though she tested HIV-.  Gabrielle spent quite a few stints in hospital and always came home with the doctors scratching their heads and having no answers.   Her hospital file was full of question marks.

So, here we are today, our little girl has, like Mbali, taken her wings and gone home.  It was a shock for us .  It was so sudden, with Mbali we had due warning.   Even though Gabrielle was sickly we hoped that because she was HIV- we could put up a fight and win…because we usually do.   We did not expect this.   She drank her bottle.   Started screaming in agony and immediately died leaving us all in shock.  Good bye my little sweet girl!

Note: Rebecca, Joint Council’s Director of Programs and Services, will return to TLC  from December 15^th – December 26^th.  While there, Rebecca will be blogging and video-blogging at wwwbetheanswerforchildren.wordpress.com.

Today the task is simple- give yourself a big pat on the back and check out everything that Joint Council and you have accomplished this month through our I Am The Answer Campaign. You have successfully made it through the 30 day challenge! Congrats!

Give Yourself A Pat On The Back!

When was the last time you really made a difference in the lives of others?  If you participated in our 30-Day Challenge, then you made a real difference every day in November! Whether you checked out our blog daily, caught up over the weekends, or looked back towards the end of the month, your involvement has changed the lives of thousands of children.  Our estimates indicate that you, as part of our community, helped over 6000 children this month!   Below are the highlights of what our community accomplished during our 30-Day Challenge. After you read today’s final stories about Gabrielle and TLC Ministries and complete your 30 day challenge- Celebrate and feel free to pat yourself on the back!

1) Remember Song?  Well, because of his story on our blog, he found a family!  After reading about Song, a family has come forward and has begun the process of adopting him.  In only a few short months he will be living with a loving family.

2) Together our efforts helped ensure that the International Adoption Simplification Act passed Congress.   Your emails and phone call to Congress helped eliminate two big barriers which were preventing children from becoming part of an adoptive family.  Passage of the International Adoption Simplification Act helps over 2,200 children next year alone!

3) Although we haven’t yet been able to ensure the Help Haiti Act passed Congress (please keep calling your Representatives!), together, we raised enough awareness.  CNN’s Anderson Cooper joined in by doing a story about the Help Haiti Act!

4) Well over 100 individuals wrote on the Facebook page of Kyrgyz President Roza Otunbayeva, asking for her to advocate for the 65 Kyrgyz children who are still waiting to be with their forever families. We showed so much support that she responded! Check it out here.

5) Together we helped raise over $600 for Haitian Roots, $2 at a time.  How?  Simply by commenting on the SixSeeds blog!  Haven’t done this yet?  There’s still time.  Click here to raise $2 for Haitian Roots by reading the blog and commenting.

6) By suggesting to your friends that they should ‘Like’ Joint Council on Facebook, we expanded our community by 87 people!

7) Thanks to your social networking, our photo contest is off to a great start!  There’s been a record amount of submissions so far!  To learn how to submit photos, click here.

8.) With your help we’ve raised over $5,285 which will be used to  to continue our efforts to ensure more children live in permanency, safety and love!  Haven’t donated yet?  Click here to do so.

 

9) Be The Answer shirts are being worn by fathers, mothers, children, and child advocates in states all across the USA.  Purchasers of these shirts are showing their Be The Answer pride from the California coast all the way to New York City!  Want a t-shirt?  Check them out here.

10) Joint Council received over 95 stories for the 30-Day Challenge!  Sixty of these stories were viewed over 17,000 times on our blog.  Together, we raised awareness.  Together, we have shown the face of children who found a family through adoption.  Together, we gave voice to children who wait alone. Together, We Are The Answer!

Although the 30-Day Challenge will end, the needs of children will not.  So what’s next?  Here’s a quick highlight of what we already have planned for December…

1)      A $20,000 matching grant for every donation made in December.  Your end of year tax-deductable donation will go twice as far in December!  More details coming soon…

2)      A blog post from Joint Council’s President & CEO regarding his recent child advocacy trip to Russia.

3)      Joint Council advocacy trip to Ethiopia, with daily blog posts and updates from our travels!

4)      Rebecca will be working with orphans at TLC in Johannesburg, South Africa.  Stay tuned for her posts and video blogs!

And this is just the start…check out our blog throughout December to see what we as a community are doing and how you can join in!  Because as you know, Being the Answer for Children doesn’t end in November – it’s a year round commitment! Don’t forget to read the final 2 stories of November.

As always, thank you for your continued participation and support of Joint Council and the children we all serve!

Be The Answer for Kyoo Bin

To learn more about Joint Council’s National Adoption Month Advocacy Campaign-Click Here

Despite the efforts by public interest groups and government entities in Korea and abroad to support and encourage parenting by single-birth mothers, domestic adoption, and birth family preservation, close to 10,000 children continue to be lost, abandoned, left to be found, and relinquished by single and married birthparents every year in South Korea.  Last year, only 24% of these children were placed with permanent families (in Korea and internationally).   There is a loud outcry by those who oppose inter-country adoption of Korean children as they make the claim that because Korea is a modern, developed nation, Koreans should be taking care of “their own children”, but the reality is that Korean attitudes and emotions towards orphans, homeless children, and domestic adoption are not receptive to this argument.  When the birthfamily cannot be preserved as a permanent solution for the child, domestic families are not stepping up, to the degree that is needed, to provide permanent Korean homes for these children.  In these cases, international adoption is the path through the child’s basic right to a family can be realized.

Kyoo Bin* was born to a young single woman in August of last year.  Unlike the majority of single birthmothers who are ostracized from their schools, families, friends and communities with no financial, emotional or physical resources, Kyoo Bin’s birthmother sought out her own parents (with whom she had been estranged) and received their counsel and support while making a decision as to her child’s future.  Based on her own belief that she was emotionally incapable of being responsible for her child, but also due to the lack of financial support available and because of social barriers that exist for single mothers (lack of access to re-enter high school, lack of affordable and available regular daycare, difficulty in securing a safe, stable, single-parent conducive job, strong traditional beliefs against women with children marrying, etc.), the birthmother decided upon adoption for her son.  Also very important in the decision for adoption by the birthmother were the real issues that Kyoo Bin would have had to face as a child (and later as an adult) being raised by a single mother in Korea.  These challenges include discrimination and social stigma that result in significant (of a much higher degree than anything experienced by adoptees in the US or European countries) denial of access to jobs, education, marriage, and family acceptance/belonging.  (The lifelong prejudice and denial of access to basic social and economic rights is even greater for children who grow up in Korea with no permanent families and who have been identified as having “orphan” status.)

Born at nearly full-term and healthy, Kyoo Bin has been in the care of a loving foster family since shortly after he was relinquished on the day of his birth.  Kyoo Bin is an active, bright-eyed child who I have had the pleasure to meet with his case worker and foster mother.  After having recovered from transient tachypnea at birth, Kyoo Bin has been healthy, but continues to show delayed motor skill development.  Cerebral Palsy, Fragile X syndrome, and Prader-Will Syndrome have all been ruled out as any potential cause for Kyoo Bin’s delays.  Now, over a year old, Kyoo Bin is not yet walking, but crawls well and pulls himself up.  He is positive, easy-going, and quite social while his favorite place to be is on his foster father’s knee.  Kyoo Bin enjoys playing with his toys, but has started to exhibit head-banging behaviors one time per day if at all.  His aging foster parents are providing him with a loving, but temporary home.  The hope of Kyoo Bin’s birthmother and her plan for him was that he would thrive and be able to meet his maximum potential.  This will only truly be possible when he is in a permanent family.

*Name of child changed to protect identity and at the request of the Korean adoption agency.  If you are interested in adopting Kyoo Bin, please contact Jane Lee at jlee@chsfs.org

Be The Answer For Kyoo Bin and other children by Watching Joint Council’s Be The Answer Video. Share your thoughts on the video by leaving a comment on YouTube.

The Answer for Evyn

To learn more about Joint Council’s National Adoption Month Advocacy Campaign-Click Here

Happy National Adoption Day from Joint Council. Watch the video below as Bryson and Emily share their journey to adopting their daughter Evyn from Ethiopia.

Find and Attend a National Adoption Month Event in your area. Email Joint Council at betheanswer@jointcouncil.org with what you did. Include pictures so we can share them with our followers!

The Answer for Josie

To learn more about Joint Council’s National Adoption Month Advocacy Campaign-Click Here

Forever and ever changed . . . yes, that is the position we find ourselves in. The Nelson six pack became the Nelson variety pack and we find ourselves forever changed.
In January of 2006 my husband and I took our four kids over to Kenya to volunteer in an orphanage with the hopes of showing our children that there is a big world out there that exists beyond the riches of America. We spent three months volunteering in a local Nairobi orphanage with no intentions of adopting and big plans to open our arms wide and love on these kids who innocently find themselves trapped within the quagmires of a children’s institution. Success. Total victory. We all fell in love with the idea and knew that God had called us to adopt.

We returned later that year, on Christmas Day, to adopt two orphaned Kenyan girls. After a disappointment with one little angel (whom you can read about here) the Lord surprised us with Josie. Meeting Josie is a special story in itself. . . a story worth sharing. I actually joined my friend on a visit to an orphanage because she wanted to expose her only child to babies. Well, an orphanage is a great place for that. That’s for sure. Walking into the building was an emotional experience, for me, as I was grieving the loss of the little girl who we thought was going to be part of our family. Inward turmoil was swallowing me up. The sight of all the babies was both depressing and overwhelming. While fighting the tears I kept hearing a little girl crying. Determined to ignore her because I wasn’t open, at that moment, to the idea of exposing my heart to an infant and risk being hurt again, I cranked my neck in the opposite direction of her plight for help. My heels were dug in. However, little did I know, my strong willed daughter was going to keep calling for me. Josie was lying on a mat crying continuously . . . she needed to be burped and she wasn’t going to give up. We wordlessly battled against each others will. Needless to say, but I am so grateful – she won. I picked up that nine pound angel and she proceeded to empty the entire contents of her stomach on me and then greeted me with a huge grin. Her beautiful, toothless smile captured my heart and our lives have never been the same. Forever changed.
When I returned to the townhouse we had rented (Kenya requires a year in country stay to adopt) I asked my husband to step outside. He looked into my eyes and knew something very incredible had happened. I asked him if he would be willing to jump in a cab and take a trip to meet the child I believed God was giving us to adopt. He was a bit confused as two hours earlier we were not sure what direction our family was to go in after facing a closed door with Mercy. After explaining the story to my husband he said, “Sure, I’m open. Can we go see her?” Together we went back to the orphanage to see “Baby C.” When the director or the orphanage brought her out the myth that a four month old can’t smile was forever squashed. Former Baby C, now Josie, looked into my husband’s eyes and threw that same irresistible smile at him and we held each other crying and thanking God at the same time. What a wonderful feeling to feel that perfect peace that passes all understanding. We both knew that Josie was ours.
That February day in 2007 has been deeply imprinted into our lives. It is now 2010 and we are getting ready to celebrate Josie’s fourth birthday in October. Our variety pack family strongly supports and encourages adoption. One family cannot change the whole world but one family can certainly change the whole world for one child. Josie is a happy, well adjusted four year old who loves life. She adores her four teenage siblings and is quick to say she hates the word college. Having to say good-bye
to two siblings was heart-wrenching for her. It is incredible to watch and listen to her tote a cell phone around talking to them like she’s a little adult. Yes, I’ll say it again, we are forever changed.

This was The Answer for Josie, Be The Answer for another child today by buying an adoption book (Click the link for a list of recommendation) and donate it to your local library to raise awareness about adoption in your community!

Be the Answer for Nikita

To learn more about Joint Council’s National Adoption Month Advocacy Campaign-Click Here

The Russian Orphan Lighthouse Project brings adoptable older Russian orphans to both the United States and Moscow for fun-filled visits with families interested in adoption.  For more information, visit www.lhproject.com or www.RussianOrphanLighthouseProject.blogspot.com.

Angelic

Mid-March, toward the end of recruiting, four unusually young children were added to my end-of-month Moscow trip.  One of them, five-year-old Nikita, came without details beyond his orphanage director’s glowing verbal report.  With his age, sandy curls, and personality, the only reason he wasn’t in Russian foster care was his HIV-positive status.  His biological mother shared her disease, not her life, with him, and lost custody through her neglect of his medical needs.

I promoted Nikita, but insufficient time, scanty information, and his diagnosis conspired against him.  When I left for Russia, he was destined to travel without a host family; still, his presence provided me the opportunity to formulate an impression of him.

When the kids arrived, his small stature surprised me, though Russian orphans are generally small for their age.  Nikita was delightful, a standout in attitude, intelligence, attentiveness, cooperation, kindness, and industry.   Cuddly too, he loved sitting on the lap of a lady who had taken a shine to him, but when it was another child’s turn, he would work diligently at different activities.  Young enough to seem genuine, I never sensed his exemplary behavior was a show for the benefit of potential adoptive parents.

One day, as we presented the kids their gifts, cherubic Nikita beamed, thanking me unprompted with a joy-filled, “Spaciba!”   His stoop from the weight of the bagged treasures on his shoulder demanded a photo; instead, when I asked him, the little tyke with great effort straightened tall for me.   Photo formalities over, he dragged his bag behind him to his room for safekeeping.

He personified persistence; on our long walks, he marched along, never complaining.  With the common room a frenzy of activity, Nikita worked solo on a puzzle, rotating the pieces to attempt all possibilities.  Occasionally other kids flitted by to help, but never stayed.   He showed no resentment at their late coming, or early going.   Even when a girl capriciously destroyed the nearly-completed puzzle, Nikita neither groused nor retaliated.  He just started over.

During my days with him, I thought repeatedly that, were I to design the perfect child, Nikita would result.   Yet he remained a little boy, on the lookout for puddles and whispering in ears when he had something to say.   One lady decided to pursue his adoption, though circumstances months later precluded her from proceeding, an outcome over which she shed countless tears.

Much later, I viewed Nikita’s orphanage interview.  Unlike most interviewees his age, he was talkative, responding readily to questions.  Noting he was anxious to begin school, he counted several numbers between one and ten and identified the colors of his sweater’s stripes.  Queried about his hopes, he wanted a mama, a papa, and several different toy vehicles, in that order.  Naming his hometown, he added he’d waited for his mother at the orphanage there and she “never, ever” came for him.

So Nikita, an angel in orphan’s clothes, awaits someone else to come for him, someone whose education about his condition trumps unfounded fear and prejudice.   His HIV status made him an orphan. I’m praying it doesn’t leave him one.

Be The Answer for Nikita by visiting the Both End Burning Website– watch the video, read the petition and sign it today!

P.S. we don’t choose the winner of the $50 gift card to Target for yesterday’s task until next week Wednesday so keep sending your “I am the Answer” pictures!  For more info (read the bottom of the post).

Be The Answer for Banoo

To learn more about Joint Council’s National Adoption Month Advocacy Campaign-Click Here

I watched little Banoo come into the room and her face was so serious.  She is nearly five years old and had been found abandoned, malnourished and scarred by abuse.  Beautiful little Banoo has scars on her face, head, arms and legs from burns, marks on her wrist that indicates she was tied at some point.  She has been in the orphanage for nearly two years and although I didn’t see a smile cross her face during my visit, I saw intelligent eyes and the potential for a child to be happy.  We know Banoo will need a lot of love to get past the scars inflicted upon her – the ones that are visible and the ones that I’m sure exist and are invisible.  She will need counseling, support and patience to trust and know she will not be hurt or left hungry.

It’s not too late for Banoo.  Yes, she is underserved, but she yearns for love like all children.  It is not too late, but she still waits  for a family who cares.  To learn more about Banoo, contact Deb Dryer (ddreyer@CHSFS.org) at Children’s Home Society and Family Services.  Children’s Home Society and Family Services website can be found by clicking here.

Were you inspired this week through these stories? Be the Answer for Banoo and other children by submitting your personal story about a child who impacted your life.  Your story will help us advocate for more children. Visit here for more information on how to submit your story!

The Answer for Maya and Devi

To learn more about Joint Council’s National Adoption Month Advocacy Campaign-Click Here

Were you inspired this week through these stories?  This was The Answer for Maya and Devi –  Be the Answer for another child by submitting your personal story about a child in your life. Visit here for more information on how to submit your story!

Be The Answer for Evan

To learn more about Joint Council’s National Adoption Month Advocacy Campaign-Click Here

This is the story of an adoption of a special boy from the Republic of Georgia who tragically took ill while still in his native land. His journey home was not what was expected, it was instead into the arms of his Heavenly Father.

Be The Answer for Evan by asking your local Barnes & Noble bookstore about setting up a gift wrapping table in December with all proceeds  going to Joint Council or one of our members.  Click here to find a Barnes & Noble in your area!

The Answer for Wen

To learn more about Joint Council’s National Adoption Month Advocacy Campaign-Click Here

Wen (age 7) and I became a family on January 29, 2007, this is also the birth date of my mother who I had lost to cancer 7 years prior.  Wen is from Chongqing, China and was born with Bladder Exstrophy (the bladder is inside out and on the outside of the abdomen); she was abandoned at age 2.5 with her bladder still exposed.  She was cared for in a wonderful orphanage (Chongqing SWI) and with funding through Families Thru International Adoption’s foundation;  Heartland Medical Express, she had two surgeries in China where her bladder was ultimately removed and her ureter’s were connected to her sigmoid colon.

Fast forward 3.5 years, Wen is on target for her grade level at school, actually testing “accelerated” in reading comprehension, has had one major surgery to open a blocked ureter.  This past Spring was the USAG Level 4 State Gymnastics Champion in Ohio for her age group on the Uneven Bars and on Floor, she placed 2^nd on Vault.

She is a dynamo, makes friends easily, has a wonderful sense of humor and is the light of my life!  She is a competitor and never gives up once she sets her mind on a goal.

This was The Answer for Wen, Be The Answer for another child by Visiting the National Adoption Month Website to find a local event to attend in your area!