Love Starts Here (Love Without Boundaries Guest Post)

Just as mine is, Kelly’s social media feed is filled with images of orphans waiting in China. Sometimes it’s overwhelming. Sometimes those little faces get lost. But in February of 2013, my friend didn’t scroll past LWB’s blog post, “Jenny, Jenny”. She read it and took a moment to share it, urging, “Jenny needs a family.”

And our love story started there. With a keystroke, a friend introduced us to our daughter, and love came fiercely.

Her face appeared on the screen and our journey began. “Oh, we’d love her,” I responded in the comments. It was a casual response, but my heart was gripped. I smile now, unsurprised that first words spoken of her included love.

A long list of potential families had already responded on the LWB blog and Facebook page. Hands trembling, I emailed our agency, and they responded, “We will inquire, but prepare yourself, because it is a long shot.” We understood, but this little soul had seized our hearts.

As turns it out, love is a potent force. More compelling than agencies, countries and a long line of families in line for, or reviewing, a file. Miracles manifested, and remarkably, her file landed in our hands, requiring only a “yes”.

Before we could board a Beijing-bound plane though, we had to push and pray through a wall of doubt and fear over what “complex medical needs” might mean. Also in our way was an ocean of logistics, eight months of paperwork, fingerprint rejections, an extended LOA wait, and two countries’ worth of red tape.

As we awaited travel approval, our “Jenny” was hospitalized again and again for infections. We studied images of her in the care of “ayis” in hospital rooms from Beijing to Shanghai, and it was evident that she knew love.  Finally, we fully felt and understood the mission of Love Without Boundaries. Love. The true, breathing, active kind.

Despite the costs, our daughter received ongoing treatment and specialized attention at the Heartbridge Healing Home. She was listed as “urgent” on the list of children needing surgery sponsors, and people gave and sponsored, prayed and gave some more. Though she had no parents by her side, she had an army of individuals who’d said, “Love starts here.” And in the truest way, they made all the difference.

The day finally came when her new, terrified parents felt the weight of her in their arms, knowing her needs were urgent, but unaware of the severity. Cycles of surgeries, infections, and hospital stays in three cities had left her organs beginning to shut down, and we had no idea.

All we knew is that our beloved Han Huizhen was a feisty little one with a high fever, who either slept or watched us from a distance with traumatized eyes. She’d only known the care of nannies and nurses and they’d been taken from her. Her experience with love started with them. It was the best and most gut-wrenching scenario we could have asked for.

Read the remainder over at Love Without Boundaries. 

Worth the Fight: Bridget (17 of 31)

This little face is heavy on my heart.

Meet Bridget, found just days ago in Guizhou, China. 

Thankfully, she was placed in the care of Love Without Boundaries Foundation.   Suffering from one of the same conditions as Evelyn, her story wrecks us. 

She needed emergency surgery to survive, but LWB founder, Amy Eldridge, reported that "none of the local hospitals wanted to care for her because they didn't want a mortality to be recorded on their records."

The cards are stacked against her, but we are praying that she keeps on fighting.  She's been dealt an unfair hand, but she was found and now her redemption story has begun.  When found, she was one month old, having survived without treatment for those weeks.  Her belly was hard and she was in great pain.  One can only hardly fathom her birthparents' heartache.   

Flown to Shanghai and provided with a nanny by LWB, she survived, but still fights for her life. 

$6,480.00 was needed to pay for her surgery.  That surgery is very similar to one that our Evelyn will have in just a week. Their two stories are so parallel, and this momma's heart is burdened for Bridgett.  Because we have medical insurance, I'll get to hold my daughter's hand when she is wheeled into the recovery room.  Bridgette's parents likely did not have medical insurance, so she now fights alone in a city thousands of miles away from them.  If Blue Cross and Blue Shield could be convinced to pay for both surgeries, the world would feel a bit more just.  Instead, LWB is depending on those with hearts burdened to stand in the gap for orphans to cover this cost. 

I'm so grateful that she now has a nanny, but sad that her birth parents can't be by her side. 

I don't know how to raise funds.  I stink at it actually.  But I can donate myself, and can share her with you.  I believe she's worth the fight.  That she's worth any small donation made on her behalf that some reader might feel led to give. 

This is why I want to write. 
This is what I want to write about.
This is what stirs my heart. 

My heart longs for God to use my words to rally readers on behalf of little ones who need a team to fight when they can not. 

Love Without Boundaries still needs $5,029 to cover this surgery.  Anybody want to join her team? 

Unity (Compelled to Orphan Prevention)

There is unity among adoptive families, a connection of experience, passion and heart. Becoming a card carrying member of this big, powerhouse club takes tears, bravery, faith, paperwork and prayer. We’ve paid our dues and call ourselves blessed to stand shoulder to shoulder, unified in many ways.

Unified in celebrating adoption.
Unified in raising funds to bring babies home.
Unified in advocating for children who wait.
Unified in cheering on travelling families and holding signs at airports.
Unified in praying for newly home little people facing surgery, therapy and emotional challenges.
Unified in our deep appreciation for the Peoples Republic of China.
Unified in our heartbreak for, and desire to serve, the waiting children we left behind.

Together, we’ve shed tears, encouraged, penned blog posts, donated and prayed.

And when our time came to walk into orphanages, we all realized that adoption falls on the redeeming side of loss and trauma. We stood close to the fire, and felt the heat of searing hurt. The sparks lit fires in our hearts, burdening us to consider how we might extinguish some of the flames for the fatherless.

We had to leave China though, and got to start moving toward the happy redemption side of our children’s adoption stories. But, if you are like me, you still feel the heat.

For us, the fiery trauma started with three sets of parents somewhere in China who carried the weight of our children before we did. We try not to conjure romanticized versions of stories that we’ll never know, but we do know that children are abandoned daily due to the cost of medical care. Three of our children have special needs that might have resulted in their abandonment, and this grieves me. Two of them were with their first parents for several months. They were fed, bathed, dressed, held and nursed  by them until they no longer could, until the smoldering fire of loss was lit.

The ugly truth is that we might possibly get to parent these three precious souls because our fallen world is turned upside down, and we’re blessed with really good medical insurance. We are deeply grateful that part of God’s redemption plan included them forever calling us mommy and daddy, but we can’t ignore the story’s beginning.

Though I’d like to, I can’t believe that our adopted children were “meant for us”. God placed our babies in the wombs of other women, and I don’t believe He makes mistakes. I presume that when those families deemed it necessary to abandon their babies, it crushed God’s heart. As those mothers wept, I trust He grieved alongside them.

Parents having to give up a lifetime with their child is unjust. I can no longer walk humbly with my God on the adoption journey, and not be burdened by what He has opened my eyes to. I can’t do orphan care well without pondering why orphans enter orphanages.

Read the rest over at No Hands But Ours.

This sweet one has a father in China who loved her so desperately that he wrote to Love Without Boundaries, begging them for help with his daughter's medical care. 

Heartbridge Healing Home: Evie's Home

On the other side of the world, Evie waits for us at the Heartbridge Healing Home in Beijing, which is a  Love Without Boundaries Foundation care facility.  Our girl was originally at the Xuzhou City Social Welfare Institure in Jiangsu Province, until one of her first miracles took place. 

 

Love Without Boundaries Foundation had heard about a baby really sick with a heart condition in Jiangsu.  LWB contacted the orphanage and asked about caring for her.  On the phone that day, someone shared that they did indeed have a heart baby who needed help, BUT that there was another little one more in need of emergency medical help that they asked if LWB would take instead. 

Her name was Han Hui Zhen, our Evie.  Love Without Boundaries saved BOTH babies. 

Thank God. 

 

Ever since that time, she's been at Heartbridge.  A friend recently sent us these pictures.

Heartbridge is on the second floor above the New Hope Foundation,

which also cares for medically fragile children in Beijing. 

Love being able to see the outside of the building and imagining our little lady on the second floor. 

We hope she has been able to play on all this playground equipment! 

This is her crib!  Our little "HH Zhen". 

And the cribs of her buds...
Where she takes in her meals. 

Love Without Boundaries has created an amazing care facility, and we are so grateful for the glimpse. 

So grateful for Heartbridge, and for the lives of all of her bumbo buddies!

Images of a Daughter

Two families visited our girl for us during their recent trips to China to adopt. 

Brittani, a LWB volunteer with a special heart for our girl, took this video during her visit.  

 

Those 34 seconds have been watched again and again, searched again and again.

Oh, how we ache to hold her and teach her to smile, give her somebody to forever trust. 

Amanda, another adoptive momma, travelled to Heartbridge shortly after to adopt her amazing daughter.  She had a tiny corner of suitcase space, so we sent some more pics, a dress, a disposable camera (hoping nanny's will take pics) and a stuffed animal.  Here she is, looking at photos of her forever.  We are told that they had woken her little sweaty self up from her  nap to visit. 





When I stood in Target looking for a little outfit for our love, I picked up an 18 months sized outfit to send.  Holding it up, my heart couldn't help but skip imagining having a daughter so little again. 

Turns out our girl is wee bit smaller than we even imagined. 

 

It is so sweet to see such recent photos of our little beating heart living in Beijing, but so hard on the heart too.  We trust that someday soon, the love of a family will strengthen her body, lighten those sad eyes and put a glow into her little skin. 

 

Thanks so much, Brittani and Amanda.  Every image is a treasure.   

Love Without Boundaries

THIS ministry is saving lives every single day in China, and has saved the life of Evie multiple times.

 

 

 

It was started in 2003 by a few passionate adoptive mothers. 

 Their impact? 

Life. 

 

LWB recently made a thank you video for their supporters. 

A chuck of our heart appears at 2:01.

 

 

Evi