An Added Mission

Painting I did tonight about my new calling to mobilize first the American Christians to adopt from Southeast Asia, and then Christians everywhere to adopt children in need everywhere. Sorry if you cannot read the captions, on the left in the U.S. it says "We have room and love for more!" in the airplane it is "I wonder what my new home will be like..." top in China "I wish I had a mommy & daddy" bottom in China "WAAAAH!" (It is a little baby crying) The top banner is "Families open hearts, hands, and homes to lonely babies and children all over the world"

Hello my dear friends and supporters,

Today has been quite the day! It started by getting to sleep in because thankfully my morning college class was cancelled due to the snow. I am still trying to get over jet lag so the extra sleep was much appreciated.

I am a bit embarrassed to say that I did not accomplish much with my morning and afternoon off. I allowed distracting thoughts to make me unproductive. Fretting about boys while trying to do accounting homework is usually not good for the accounting. Who would have guessed?

In the early evening I decided to look at some YouTube videos and take a break from accounting because I had gotten to a problem I did not know how to answer and I did not feel like going through the work of figuring it out. I started with some silly videos of my favorite YouTubing twins. They are so funny! I have always had a huge interest in twins, and I hope someday that I will be a mother to twins. After wasting fifteen/twenty minutes one of the suggested videos for me to watch was The Houses Where China's Babies Are Abandoned. After that I watched The Dying Room. I am going to link to the documentaries that I watched, but I will warn you The Dying Room is not pleasant to watch. It is not easy to watch. I would advise that you not watch it in front of your children. It is hard to see. Even if you think you are prepared, as I did. After watching these two documentaries about the how many babies are abandoned and the deplorable conditions some of them live in I was heartbroken, depressed, angry, and overwhelmed. I wanted to bring these children home and take care of them! However, I knew that is not an option.

Ever since I was five, I wanted to be a wife and a mother. As I grew and my hopes expanded to "I want to be a mother to a big family with some adopted children." When I was around ten I first heard about the Gilbreth family and my mother read me the book Cheaper by the Dozen. They were an amazing big family with twelve children who were completely misrepresented in the Hollywood movies about their lives. At the end of it I thought "If it is cheaper by the dozen; I'll take two." and ever since then I have felt a desire and the capacity to care for around twenty-five children. I still fully plan to mother around twenty-five children. I don't know where I will find a husband who will share this dream and passion for children, but I have decided if such a man cannot be found, then somehow, someway I will find a way to do it by myself. If Mother Teresa could, why can't I?
In watching The Dying Room and seeing children who are tied to chairs over their potties all day long, and babies who live in soiled diapers until they have sores, and sick ones left in rooms to die alone, I was broken again for these children.

I looked up some statistic numbers and discovered that if the numbers I got were accurate for every orphan in the world that is living on the streets or in an orphanage, there are eight Americans who identify as a Protestant Christian. We outnumber them eight to one and yet there are still over seventeen million of them out there. How can this be?!?!

Now I am well aware that not every Protestant Christian has the ability to adopt. I myself am to my great dismay not yet in a place to adopt. Many who care are too poor, already have as many children as they can take care of, are unmarried and unprepared for single parenthood, do not have the emotional strength, etc, but at the same time, eight to one seems like a ratio that we could handle and eliminate. If just one in eight Protestant American Christians would adopt one child we could get them off the streets and out of the understaffed and overcrowded orphanages. Some of the orphanages I have been in have amazing caretakers, and the children go to school and all their physical needs are met. I am not saying all orphanages are awful evil places. However, even in the best I have seen there are always many more children than adults, and I worry that the kids may not get a hug every single day. They may not have an adult who believes in them and takes the time to help them learn to be a healthy, happy, productive adult.

Eight to one seems like a ratio that we should be able to handle, even more so if we bring in more countries and religions. I am not asking or expecting other families to say that they want to have families with twenty-five children. I know that most families do not have the skills, resources, desire, or calling to have such large families. This is my mission and not theirs. However. I do think that Christian families should consider saving at least one. At least one little Honduran boy who sleeps on the streets every night and who collects glass bottles from the local dump to make enough money to eat. To save one little Ukrainian girl who is working in a brothel at 10 years old because it's the only option she sees. There are children who need homes. There are children who need love! There are children who need a family! There are children who need you. Even if you say that you don't have the ability to adopt right here right now, or ever, there is something you can do. You can support someone else who has or is thinking of adopting. You can help by praying for people who work with these children. You can help by just believing in us who are called to work with these children and giving us the emotional support and friendship we need.

I often run into people who don't believe in or get what I'm doing. Who think it is a waste for me to go to Southeast Asia to help dirty, bedraggled, disabled children when I could have so much more comfortable and beautiful a life here. But while those children's lives are ugly, my life is pointless. My life only has purpose and meaning when I'm helping others. There's a verse in the Bible where Jesus says "Whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. " I find my life and my purpose when I am with these children in Southeast Asia. I hope someday to visit more of the world and more of these children to help them, but for now Southeast Asia has more than enough babies to keep my heart and my hands full.

The first video I watched, The Houses Where China's Babies Are Abandoned is about safe places the government has set up for parents to leave their children instead of abandoning them in alleys and public parks. It is a great idea! However, I was distraught that one of the drop offs was closed because the orphanage attached with it reached capacity when over two hundred babies were left. As I said I felt despair and hopelessness from watching both the videos. This problem is far too big for me to handle on my own. No matter how many children I adopt, no matter how many children I take care of either on my own, or with my husband at my side, I cannot care for them all. I started ranting at God. I looked around as I got ready to leave for class at church and I thought about how pointless the things that surrounded me seemed to be in light of these children's existence. I yelled at God "What is the point of pretty clothes?! What is the point of beauty?? What is the point of freshly painted walls if there are children who are spending hours in dirty diapers or tied to chairs?!?! He soothed and calmed me in His gentle way, but He did not put the fire out in my soul. He assured me there is purpose in beauty. There is meaning in love and romance. There is reason for joy. The injustice, pain, and deprivation breaks His heart too, but His heart can hold joy and suffering. God was showing me that I will see both in this world, and I will need to let Him carry me through the lows, and dance with me on the highs. He also wanted to expand my vision and calling tonight to be bigger than it was before. I said "God I cannot do this alone!!!" and whispered "You don't have to, and you won't. You will work with many amazing passionate people. You will call to arms hundreds." I feel vulnerable and exposed writing this down and sharing it with you all. Like if I say it I might pop the beautiful calling and be proven a crazy dreamer. However, I feel the need and desire to share. I ranted at God that His church was not doing enough. I asked Him why He let us have so much free will, and why we pick selfishness so often. I asked Him why more of His people do not adopt, and why he has not raised people up to galvanize the sleepers to action. Then I apologized for my outrage and passion, but He told me not to. He said the He is rising me up to turn attention to the orphans of the world. That one of my jobs is going to be talking to families and lighting within them a passion to care for the most vulnerable of the world. He told me not to apologize for the passion and outrage and fire. He lit it.

This song has resonated with me since I found it, but especially tonight.

Goodnight my dears. Please pray for me. This task is far beyond me.

Also, if you are wanting an organization to donate money to to help children I ask you to consider Orphan Voice. They are the amazing organization I have worked with in Vietnam. One of their many programs that I especially love is Keeping Families Together where they support poor families with food, medical care, and other needs so that they do not need to abandon their children. You can look at it as orphan prevention.

Link to The Houses Where China's Children Are Abandoned

Link to The Dying Room 

Getting to Know Her, Getting to Know All About Her, Getting to Love Her...

Hello my Fabulous Supporters.

Just spent the morning of day three with the kids. We're home for siesta now so I decided to tell you a little about how I am doing, and my favorite girl.

When I first walked in Monday morning and was confronted with twenty-five to thirty kids none of whom I shared a language with it was daunting to try to choose who to interact with first. A little tiny peanut caught my eye though. She is only a couple of months old and has huge loving eyes. I held her for a while and then moved on to one of the bigger kids. I bounced from one child to another all morning. We were all trying to make sure that every single child got attention, and it was rather a whirlwind of activity. By the time we finished lunch and headed to the hotel for a brake I was done in! It was exhausting in every aspect. I was excited and ready by the time our afternoon session came around though, especially because we were starting evaluations for the children we are working to find families for. It was a bit of happy chaos with Joanne, Kim, and Amy doing very professional checks on where the kids were medically/physically, and the rest of us scribbling notes, comforting children, snapping photos, etc. Their little personalities really started to emerge in that room. Jessica, the little show off who went up and down a little set of stairs over and over and with each completion looked to Barb for clapping. Jason, a serious little man who love to string beads or any other busy work. L, our emotional one who giggles, yells, cries, or wines depending on what is going on.

Yesterday began much the same as the first day. Lots of bustling around trying to make sure everyone got some loving. Until I was pulled aside to go to the sick room and photograph a new one of ours. She only seemed to have a minor cold, and was back with the whole bunch today. The first thing I noticed was the quiet in the room. There were only four children, and none were making any noise. At first I thought the one Kim was holding was ours, but she was just loving on the others while waiting for me. Then I got to meet the sweetest little girl I am going to call Susie for now.

I am going to write a whole post about this one once I have the go ahead from America World. They will make sure all of her information is correct, that she is adoptable, and that her paperwork is ready first. This will be with all of the children so stories about them will be limited for a while. I spent most of the rest of the morning checking in with people who were working with our listed kids adding in what they had observed to the children's evals. In the afternoon I got to spend most of the time getting to know little Susie. She likes Eskimo kisses and has the cutest little giggle.

I am hoping that we find her a wonderful family because she captured my heart in just a couple hours. It is amazing how kids can do that. Today I was in the sick room again for about an hour. It was not with Susie because she had been deemed well enough to go back with all her little playmates. There was only one little delicate baby in the sick room today. I walked her back and forth in front of the windows singing every song I could think of. She has big eyes and tiny feet. Once I got tired of walking in circles I sat down and leaned back with her on my chest. I sung her to sleep while patting her back to help with the congestion until one of the nannies came to take her, I think for a bath. That little one stole another piece of my heart. I think I am going to have to grow a bigger heart to share if I keep meeting so many kids who steal pieces of it away!

Thank you for your support. It still means a lot!

~Tatiana

• Please be thinking about these kids and hoping for good families with me.

Coming Home

Guys, I cannot tell you how giddy/happy/excited/nostalgic I have been since we got to our new province. I stepped out of the airport down here and the first thing I noticed was the heat and humidity. Any thoughts of that were totally overpowered once I took my first deep breath. It smelled exactly like the outside of Da Nang International Airport in Vietnam. We crammed into our van, and with only a little bit of tetris managed to fit everyone and all our luggage without anyone needed to be on someone's lap. Once we left the palm trees caught my attention, the last time I saw full grown palms outside was also in Vietnam. So this place so closely identified with another place so dear to my heart. It already has a fond place in my heart too now. It feels like coming home. Gosh I just got teary eyed writing that! I do not know how South East Asia caught this American girl's heart so strongly, but it did and I would not change it for anything!

Look Guys it's palm trees!!

Oh and guess what? Never mind, you can't seeing as how this is a blog post and you all are in different countries and time zones than me. I will just tell you.  I got my photos onto my laptop!!! This is so exciting. I forgot my cable at home, and one of my lovely teammates informed me that my laptop has a SD card reader. Who, knew?...well I guess Lois and Jenna did. 

Joanne and Barb. I think this is the only time Barb stopped talking the whole three hour ride.

Jenna and Kara partying in the back of the bus like true high schoolers

Amy enjoying a drink after our pitstop

We are in quite the populated little spot. We spotted two Apple stores, a McDonalds, KFC, and a Walmart within walking distance. We have yet to enjoy going out on the town because we were all tired by the time we finished dinner, planning for tomorrow, and devo time. I have immensely  enjoyed the spot because it is full of motor scooters which honk non-stop, which might be annoying to some, but I love it! I left our window open till we were going to sleep so I could enjoy it. I will try to put up photos of my view tomorrow. The internet is starting to cut in and out again.

Tomorrow is big day! We will finally be doing what we came here to do, we will be meeting the kids and loving on them and getting to know them so that we can tell their stories.

Please be lifting up:

• Health. Some of the team is really tired and a few people have coughs and/or sore throats. The last thing we want is to get the kids sick, or be less effective because we are weak.
• Good connections. This Child Welfare Center has not worked with an adoption agency in over two years. Ask that we be patient, kind, loving, and that we start to build a great relationship for America World Adoption Agency.
• Families for these kids! Not all the kids are what is called "paper ready", which they need to be before any adoption could be considered, and only some of the files of the adoptable children have been sent to America World. It is the choice of the director who he wants advocated for at any point in time. The first set of kids the orphanage sent files for are all older boys with cerebral palsy, and other profound disabilities. So it will be more challenging to find families. However, I know that there are families out there who have the love, energy, and resources to care for these boys. Please ask that America World would be able to find them, and that they would prove themselves a good agency to work with to their new partners. 

The photos below are some of the ones I would have shown you earlier if I had figured out how to get them off my camera. They are from the night of day one, and the beginning of day two. Hope you all enjoy!

Goodnight Loves.

Hanging out in the lobby waiting for Shawn to check us in on day 1

Random cool building

Super cute street lights!

Random dog taking over the town

Tian Anmen Square, unfortunately we did not get to walk in it because they were having a special meeting.

The first of many many buildings

Do y'all remember when I said all the posts and ceilings are painted? It's so crazy detailed!

Photos of the Biggest Wall in the World

Hello my friends.

My goodness I was talking nonsense at the end of the last post! I fell asleep at least three times writing the last sentences and when I looked at them this morning I saw that I should have given up because it was not understandable. It was English words, but not English sentences! It is fixed now if any of you were wondering what I was trying to say. I never knew I could sleep type before....and I don't recommended it based on my results!

Now let's flash back to yesterday. Here is my translator and his wife. She also speaks very good English and hung out with us for the day. She is not coming with us when we go south to the orphanage and was jokingly trying to convince Barb to stay behind and go to her job at a major college here. It is beautiful to see how well and how quickly Barb connects with the people here. We regularly turn to see her wondering off to greet some super cute little Chinese kids, which usually turns into a photo shoot.

Shawn and Cindy. Aren't they such a cute couple?!

The wall is remarkably uneven in the height of the steps. The builders just followed the rise and fall of the land without making any effort to even it out. Sometimes a three inch step will be followed by a ten inch one. This means you have got to pay close attention to where you are stepping the whole time....unless of course you desire to go tumbling down the equivalent of six stories of stairs!

My little babushka and me at the bottom in the plaza

Barb, Cathy, (top) Lois, Anna, Kara, (top) Jenna, Joanne, Me, Kim, Amy

Aren't we all so fabulous?

After a long and active day we were all pretty hungry for dinner. We had some confusion and needing to shuffle around when we first got to the restaurant for dinner because they put us in a room for eight, but after we tried for a while to squeeze four more chairs in, they found us a bigger room with a large enough table for the twelve of us to be together.

Chilling waiting for the food

So delicious!

The food comes out one at a time, and I was already full and tired so I laid back and my team thought they got a photo of me napping, but if you look closely you can see I'm trying not to laugh and ruin her picture because I was awake the whole time.

Time for me to pack and eat breakfast now. We are leaving soon to go to the hotel near the orphanage we are working at. A few hours of flying, followed by a few of bussing...and then we will be that much closer to the kids!!!

Team Bonding on The Great Wall!

Hello everybody!

As I mentioned in my last post today was all about cultural assimilation and team bonding while taking in some of the most spectacular things China has to visit. We started nice and early at the Forbidden City. Guys it is so massive. Like HUGE! It takes about an hour and a half to walk straight through. Straight through. It has amazing detailed painting on all the pillars, roofs, everywhere. There are also lots of fun statues, my favorite was the turtle with a dragon head! 

Me with my favorite turtle dragon :-D

Me, Joanne, and Lois

The whole team! Anna (my roommate), Kim (Our Leader), Barb (My Mentor), Cathy, Amy, Joanne (Who took almost all these photos), Lois, Me, Jenna, Kara

Barbra deemed herself a photography model by the end of the day with how many photos she was asked to be in. 

After lunch we took a rather harrowing ride to The Great Wall. We have a very good bus driver, but it can be a little unnerving the way they pass each other and bikes on the side of the road heading straight for oncoming traffic, or on blind corners. I was already pretty used to it from Vietnam, but poor Lois was freaking out.

Then we had my highlight of the day. We walked up a stretch of The Great Wall of China. And friends I do very much mean up! Barb stayed at the bottom because after walking so much in the Forbidden City she was not up to hiking, which is a totally fair feeling for someone in their mid-seventies! Kim was a little worried about leaving her at the bottom by herself and said "I'll just go quickly up towards the top and then come back down to keep Barb company. I don't want her to be lonely." I  didn't even have to think about my reply. "Lonely. Yeah right Kim! You and I both know that she'll have taken at least twenty photos with people by the time we make it back down." I will write more tomorrow. Literally falling asleep and typing nonsense...which I think is a good sign that sleep time is now.

Goodnight loves!

I am Safely in China/Plans for Today!

Hello my dears.

It is 7:00am here right now, and I am about to head to breakfast, but first wanted to let you know what's up. We made it in safe last night, and although everyone was really tired (Barb did not sleep at all on the plane, and I watched Anna my roommate fall asleep sitting up three times trying to read and update her own blog) we are doing fabulous! We went to a fantastic restaurant last night and I am pleased to report I love authentic Chinese food so far. Our translator, who is everything I hoped for ordered us such a feast that Kim was teasing him that he must be used to ordering for ten men. In reality he is so thoughtful and considerate that he figured we must all be starving because airplane food is not very good. We had lots of people struggling with chopsticks, and some people too tired to even try. Barb suggested that if you couldn't get the chopsticks to pick up your food properly, you could just use them as spears and stab the food. It was a fun night. Unfortunately the pictures are taking too long to upload so those will have to wait till tonight.

The plan for today is team bonding and cultural assimilation. Three of my teammates had never met anyone else until yesterday at the airport, and myself and another girl know some of the New Hampshire crew, but not very well. We are going to the forbidden city, Tiananmen Square, and the Great Wall. It should be a long and spectacular day.

Talk to you all later!
Love,
Tatiana