Seriously Big Bleg

UPDATE! at bottom of the post!

There is a beautiful Christian family (Adeye and Anthony Salem) that keeps a blog on life, love, and adopting special needs children (they have three birth kids, and four adopted). Through them, I am aware of a little girl named Yulia, almost three, who has an extremely rare (and sadly, fatal) disease who desperately needs to be adopted by a special family that will love her and make her comfortable as this disease progresses. Right now she is in an orphanage in Eastern Europe, in a room where those they deem as the medically "far gone" children are virtually ignored and given adult tranquilizers to sleep much of the day. The tranquilizers induce sleep--they do nothing for pain, which this little girl will have with this disease. Even more importantly, she needs a human being to love her--to be a "God with skin on" (if you know that story). Adeye adopted two daughters from this orphanage and she is trying hard to get this little girl, who she visited with for a month, a safe, loving home immediately, saying Nothing is Impossible for God!

Four things I ask you to consider:

1. Who know who reads this blog, but maybe you would take this child into your home. There is a program to walk you through international special needs adoption called Reece's Rainbow, and Yulia is listed with them.

2. If that isn't possible, Adeye is raising money for the adoption, because the family who receives Yulia should not have to deal with admittedly high international adoption costs. Could you spare a dollar, or ten, or fifty? She is generously running a giveaway--an IPad to a randomly selected person who "chips in" on this chip-in widget set up for Yulia--to sweeten that pot. The chip-in money will be held at Reece's Rainbow and given to the parents who commit to adopting Yulia. They need a lot of money ($25,000 covers everything)--but I've seen people pull this off, and the cause is more than worthy. FYI, if Yulia is not adopted, the money would stay at Reece's Rainbow and be applied to another special needs adoption. It is money well spent.



3. Spread the word. Who knows where this child's future parents are lurking...she may find a family through your post, your facebook update, your church group.

4. Pray. My heart just breaks, not just for this situation, but many like it. It seems hopeless, but prayer changes things. The movie got it all wrong: it's not pray eat love. It's pray, love, and act.

Thanks, all.

UPDATE! OK, God has worked through his people to fund this child's adoption in a mere 5 days. Amazing grace indeed! Thanks for the help! NOW we need to spread the word and continue to pray for this little girl's parents to step forward, with peace and excitement!

Also, if you are coming to this late, there are a lot of special needs children that will be put in a much better position for adoption if they are funded like this. At Reece's Rainbow you can fund the family that has committed to a child (most on this site have Down Syndrome) or the child him/herself. I interviewed the founder, Andrea, yesterday with my college class on Catholic Social Teaching, and she is an amazing witness. I encourage you to support this program in whatever way you can!