A few weeks ago I mentioned the shoe drive that Sports Chalet was conducting for Haiti. Our kids small Christian school of about 120 students have been collecting shoes for the past couple weeks.
This Saturday I spent some time bundling and counting the results of their efforts…
220 PAIRS OF SHOES!!
So proud of those kids!
We switched 10-year-old Noah to a gluten free diet in October to help with his ADHD (in addition to being preservative free and dye free). There have definitely been some struggles and a learning curve as we find new foods he likes, recipes for things like hamburger buns etc. He has hard days where he’s tempted to eat the leftovers his friends are all to willing to share with him in the lunchroom. But overall I thought we were doing pretty well. Then today I found this in his school folder… (translation is below if you can’t read it)
I laughed so hard. Glad to know he thinks so highly of my cooking skills.
Here’s the typed version…
I hate my diet for many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many reasons. First off it keeps me from having a lot of my favorite foods. I’d list them and the other foods I like that I can’t eat but that take a year or two. Second of all most of the food I can eat is disgusting because usually it has to be homemade. And last but not least, one of the hardest parts of a diet, the sweets. They are limited & I mean limited! There is only one kidn of candy I can have Hershey’s & Hershey’s Kisses. And dessert is probably the hardest part of anything my diet could throw at me. No kid (except my little sister Natalie) should have to go through dessert choices as limited as mine (my sister Natalie could go with no sugar at all. From the way she acts at night you’d think she’d eaten nothing but pure sugar all her life! So that’s why I HATE MY DIET!!!!!!!!
I love how he throws his sister under the bus. And the excessive use of the word “many”.
And for the record Hershey’s are not the only candy he can have, it is the only one he likes.
Because of my last post on why now is not the time to adopt from Haiti, I want to keep people apprised as I read about new developments.
First there were some rumors circulating that a large number of orphans were being airlifted to Indiana, but apparently this is not true.
The Christian Alliance for Orphans posted a blog entry answering many of the questions about new adoptions of Haiti and what kind of care orphan refugees might be placed under (i.e. foster care, etc.)
Time magazine just published on article about how the quake is speeding up Haitian adoptions that were ALREADY in progress.
Today Hope for Orphans launched their new blog with a post titled “Responding to the Haiti Crisis (Part 1 of 3): The Question of Adoption” It does a great job of delving into the point that sometimes our first emotional response in a crisis like this needs to be prayed about, researched and talked about. Especially one as serious as bringing a new child into your FOREVER family.
At the end of the article they do provide a link to Bethany Christian Services for those interested in adopting from Haiti. Please be aware though that there is absolutely no way of knowing what is going to happen with Haitian adoptions. If God is really calling you to adopt, pray and seek his wisdom about the when and where? There are thousands of children in the U.S. and abroad that are ready to adopt now. They are just as precious to Him!
I’ve been following the story of the Rescue Children orphanage in Haiti and the Lifechurch members who quickly got there to help this orphanage they had been supporting. There are many other orphan/adoption related stories coming out of Haiti, of course. When you scroll down to the comments on these stories there are inevitably a dozen or so that say “How do I adopt one of these kids?”
On the one hand, my heart is thrilled that many new eyes are being opened to the plight of the orphan – not just in Haiti but hopefully all over the world. While circumstances are desperate right now, none of these children were living in ideal circumstances before. Many orphanages cannot even provide 3 meals a day for the kids in their care – something we take for granted.
However, what most people do not realize is that international adoptions in Haiti are most likely going to come to a complete halt.
The Joint Council on International Children’s Services (JCICS) is working hard on developing a plan to help those U.S. families already in process to complete their adoptions. These are often families who have been matched with children for several months, many who have visited Haiti and met their children before coming home to let the Haitian courts complete the process. I am praying fervently for these families and their children.
Why not rush to get these other orphans adopted and out of this dire situation? The JCICS site explains it perfectly with this statement…
Bringing children into the U.S. either by airlift or new adoption during a time of national emergency can open the door for fraud, abuse and trafficking. Every effort must be made in a timely fashion to locate living parents and extended family members. Many children, who might appear to be orphaned, may in fact be only temporarily separated from their family. Our efforts must be to provide the families and children of Haiti with shelter, nutrition, water and safety. Once the situation in Haiti stabilizes and timely reunification has taken place, adoption may be an option for the children who remain outside of permanent parental care.
So, if you’re one of those that have begun to think about adoption, I would urge you to do 2 things:
If you have questions about adoption – international OR domestic, please leave me a comment and I’ll do my best to answer them and point you in the right direction.
Update: The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has announced the provision of “humanitarian parole” for certain Haitian orphans. For now that means children that have previously been documented as eligible for adoption and matched with a U.S. family for adoption. More Info.
I’m 2 weeks into my new job as Director of Communications for World Orphans and I am having SO MUCH fun! I feel like I’m drowning half the time but I keep kicking and there is a smile on my face the whole time. WO does so much stuff that I’m spending a lot of time just catching up, seeing all the things my team had in progress, getting lists of things that need to be done, etc.
We are doing some major rethinking to our overall marketing and communications plan and my brain is working overtime. There’s a new web site to plot out, new marketing pieces to develop, processes to put in place etc. But this is the part that totally excites me. The first week I kind of felt a little bit like I was wading through the water, floating an idea here and an idea there, testing the waters. And the reaction has been overwhelming – this is a group of people who are SO open to new ideas that it astounds me. Not once have I heard “well, that’s not the way we do things” – in fact it’s just the opposite. They have met every one of my ideas with not just acceptance, but excitement. They believe in me, my experience and my desire to do what is best for this incredible ministry. You have NO idea how good that feels!
I have an awesome team of guys working with me. Marcello and Marty knock out some brilliant design work – award winning design work in fact (Pikes Peak ADDY Awards). And Luke is our resident programming genius who makes all our back end systems work. The best part is that these guys are here not for the paycheck, but because they are passionate about the orphan and what World Orphans does. It doesn’t get better than that.
I’ve got lots of projects on my plate and some opportunities for others to get involved if you’re looking for a way to help the orphan community. Not a lot of experience needed. All you need to help with my first project is a love of reading adoption/orphan blogs and the ability to cut and paste into Excel 
If you’d like to help, just leave a comment and I’ll get in touch ASAP.
We’ve been talking to the kids this week about what happened in Haiti. We rarely have the news on in our house (no cable or satellite anymore so no 24 hr news to watch). I read all my news online. So in one sense I guess we’ve sheltered them a bit. I don’t necessarily think they need to see the images of arms protruding from piles of rubble and bodies being emptied into a dumpster by a huge front loader to understand the gravity of the situation in Haiti.
We’ve talked about what an earthquake does (which led to questions I had to Google to answer) and what that means in terms of buildings collapsing and lack of clean water, power, etc. We prayed together – for those missing loved ones, for those who already know the fate of their loved ones and for the many people in need of food, water and medicine.
This morning as we were going through our morning routine (which is spurred on by my “What do you need to do next?” every few minutes), Natalie is frantically running around looking for her wallet. I was getting somewhat impatient with her but was luckily distracted by a sibling for a few minutes.
Before I knew it she had dug out a few dollars and handed it to me.
“It’s for the kids in Haiti, mom.” (insert guilty silence and a few tears from mom)
They get it!! They have not, like so many of us, been jaded by life’s disappointments. They do not succumb to “the problem is so big what can one person do?” excuse that passes through our heads.
If we let them, they will just give.
So talk to your kids. This is a perfect opportunity to demonstrate being the hands and feet of Christ – whether that means your family donates $10, $100 or $1000. If you give them ownership in it, you’d be surprised at some of the ideas they come up with.
If you need one to get you started – try this:
All 55 Sports Chalet locations are accepting donations of gently used kids, mens and womens shoes that will go to Haiti in coordination with Soles4Souls. Go door to door in your neighborhood, get your kids school involved. (I’ve already talked to our girls Girl Scout Troop leader.)
Shoes may seem unimportant in contrast to food and water.
But wearing shoes prevents feet from getting cuts and sores from contaminated soil. Not only are they painful, but these sores turn dangerous when they become infected. The leading cause of disease in developing countries is soil-transmitted parasites which penetrate the skin through open sores. This is true in “normal” times. Think about how much more dangerous it is going to be for the people of Haiti to be walking around without shoes in a city that lies in ruins and without proper sanitation.
If you have other ways for kids to get involved, leave them in the comments section. I would love to hear what you and your family are doing.
As most, I have been watching, with a heavy heart, the news that comes from Haiti. Mark was there several years ago on a trip with our last church. There are so many obvious needs but what has overwhelmed me today is thinking to the weeks ahead and the domino affect this tragedy has on so many things.
There are adoptive parents in the U.S. with no idea if their soon-to-be-children are okay. Even those families that have gotten good news must now wonder how long it will take them to bring their children home. Adoption paperwork has most assuredly been lost for many. Will the Haitian government be flexible in allowing these families to bring their children home sooner rather than later? I can only imagine the worry and anxiety that is facing so many.
Unfortunately this tragedy will bring many who seek to profit from it. An already troublesome sex trafficking industry in Haiti threatens to loom over the many new orphaned and frightened children. World Orphans is partnering with churches in Haiti who will hopefully get to these children and provide protection before they are forced into child labor or worse.
You can read more about World Orphans relief efforts on Paul’s blog.
More stories:
Monday marked the end.
The end of a very long process.
Our 12 month post-placement social worker visit.
The last interview was performed.
The last check was written.
Apparently they’re going to let us keep them
I can remember those first few weeks home where the thought of trying to find something to fix for dinner (that they would eat) often drove me to tears.
I remember having to referee their fights with each other when we had no idea what they had just said to each other in Amharic – but it was obviously NOT nice.
I remember the jet lag.
I remember the tears.
In some ways it seems like yesterday, in other ways it seems like I’ve known them forever.
Either way, I can’t imagine our family without them.
December 2008
December 2009
I spent most of December reflecting on “What was I doing this day last year?” and thinking back on our trip to Ethiopia – meeting the kids at Hope for the Hopeless, falling in love with sweet Mary (whom we now sponsor), and bringing Wen & Beza home. In fact last Friday night I sat in the Denver airport and realized that the last time I was there I had two very tired and very overwhelmed children with me.
This year we had so much to be thankful for.
It was so wonderful to celebrate Christmas with the whole family together this year and have Beza and Wen experience all the Gumm family traditions – decorating the tree, making sugar cookies, opening gifts and eating Cornish pasties (they got a thumbs up from Beza, a so-so from Wen). We tried to spend some time in the weeks leading up to Christmas preparing them for what the day would be like – who would be there, what order we do stuff in etc. We also had to explain the whole concept of gift equality (one child might get one more expensive gift while others get 2 or 3 smaller gifts). I think it was really helpful and we survived the day without any major meltdowns.
I was especially thrilled to get to spend some time with our new niece Julia – brought home from China by my brother and his wife in October. It warmed my heart when I heard that precious little girl call my big brother “Papa”- something he has waited a long, long time to be. He and Trish are amazing parents and Julia, well, she is just a hoot and a half. She’s the most darling little thing – you could just eat her up. I had her calling me Auntie by the end of Christmas day and made sure to reinforce it the rest of the week. I’m sure she probably thought I was completely daft because I kept asking her “What’s my name?” a gazillion times. But hearing her say “Auntie” was just too irresistible.
My other brother Brad and his family were here too and stayed at our house for part of the trip. Grace is just 6 weeks younger than Natalie and they have a fantastic time together. We had one or two “third wheel” issues which is almost inevitable when you have an odd number of girls but in all they did great together.
I stopped to remember also that this time last year my mom was nearly bedridden with crippling back pain and muscle spasms and spent her Christmas in a care facility. She missed out on so many celebrations that year – Thanksgiving, Christmas, the kids homecoming, birthdays. We are so grateful to God that her surgery last May was successful and she has come so far in her recovery. She’s now walking without any assistance and was able to participate Noah and Natalie’s birthday this fall as well as Thanksgiving and Christmas.
The day after Christmas we took advantage of the fact that all my siblings were here to get some family pictures done. I have to give props to Kim who came out the day after Christmas, 8 months pregnant, and got soaking wet in the fountain to get some great family shots of our crazy crowd of 14.
A year ago today Mark and I were sitting on a old brown couch in a small room at our agency’s transition home. Each time a child crossed the courtyard outside we would look at their face. My stomach was flipping over and over in my stomach.
I cannot even begin to imagine what these two were thinking:
