A Worthy Sacrifice

When some people hear the word "adoption," they think cost. International travel. They think questions. How could we bring home a child? What emotional baggage could they have? Will they adjust to our family? How could we ever afford it?

All worthy questions indeed. One or two of them are probably true for all of us. COST is an obstacle for just about all of us, I think. And it is an honest-to-goodness worry to wonder what things these precious children have gone through. After all, so many of these government-run orphanages DO have scary secrets no one would dare utter. And they can have adverse affects.

And yet for all of the if's and could be's and fears, I truly believe in my heart and soul that adoption IS STILL WORTH IT. Take our new child of the week, for instance:

Jonah. Good grief I love this kid. He's just so darn cute! And he is on the hairiest of hairy edges close to being transferred. Mrs. Nalle has raised a little over 5 grand for his fund. I link her name to that post not because it has anything to do with her fundraising for him, but because the title, "Abandoned-Aborted," is so true. Jonah was probably abandoned at the hospital he was born, and found to have Apert Syndrome. This syndrome literally just means you have some slight differences in the forming of your skull, face, hands, or feet, that may impair some everyday functions. This does not, however, impair anything cognitively, and the impairments in the way your skull forms can be fixed by modern-day plastic surgery. But it's enough to discredit him in his home country. And I dare to be so bold as to say that the "aborted" part of the title could very easily describe the type of existence he would have at the mental institute he'd go to. Not cared for, or loved, completely unknown to the outside world.

And that is why I'm asking you to pray. And if you can consider adoption as a call from God that you are meant to answer, PLEASE CONSIDER JONAH. It would be such a worthwhile sacrifice to give little Jonah a second shot at life, in a place where his needs and wants could be satisfied and worked with to give him the happiest life he could have. As we continue to lift the children close to transfer to the throne of the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, let us not only remember the families who may be adopting them right now, but the kids who aren't adopted right now. Forward, prayer warriors! The battlefield of child rescue is calling :)