Reigny Days

 Recently being an advocate has allowed for me to come across some pretty incredible kids who have been adopted. Some of whom I have met in person and others who's journeys I have been allowed to follow through blogs and other forms of social media. The children who tend to touch my heart the most are those who have serious or multiple special needs. Children like Reign. I have seen first hand all of the amazing transformations that theses kids make day by day, month by month, year by year.

Reign is another beautiful flower just waiting to be given the opportunity to bloom. She has spent a little over 15 years of her life living within the confines of a crib.

Society may look at Reign and children like her and think they have no purpose or use in the world, but the could not be more wrong. For anyone who has spent time with a person who has special needs they know that the truth is the complete opposite.

Children like Reign carry beauty in their souls that is unmatched by anything I have ever seen or felt in my life. They carry sincerity in their laughs and smiles and an innocence in their very being that you have to experience first hand to know is real.

If we do not find a family for Reign by December all of the incredible gifts she holds will not be able to be shared with a family. Someone, somewhere out there will miss out on the beauty that is Reign.
She currently has a grant of over $7,000 to help with the cost of her adoption. If you have any questions at all please please please do not hesitate to ask me.
http://reecesrainbow.org/59331/reign

My Heart

I was originally supposed to post for a T shirt fundraiser I have going on but something has been weighing on me heavily. Especially today. Older kids have my heart, they always have and I pray they always will. Something about kids that people have written off, Kids that no one wants because they want a child they can raise from infancy, Kids that no one wants because they think they have to many "issues." Kids who are aggressive or have behavioral issues, those are the kids that make my soul sing and ache 1,000 times over. So this post is dedicated to all of the beautiful angels out there awaiting their happily ever after. I hope that next time you look at a child you don't see all of the baggage or possible problems but the potential in each and every single one of them.

Pavel is a sweet 6 year old boy with cerebral palsy among other things who is just itching to learn how to walk and talk. He is not there yet but is trying his hardest. http://reecesrainbow.org/48454/pavel

From Someone who met David : This kid is AWESOME!!!! He seriously has no business in a level III/IV institution. His CP is so mild- he walked around, did all kinds of stuff. He’s smart and funny, he and my translator talked for about 15 minutes and she said he is a “very normal child and good at conversation.” He was very “appropriate”- I don’t know another way to say it- he was quiet and looked at us like “who are these strangers?” and looked to the nannies for approval, and only then spoke to us. My English (and butchered attempts at Russian) made him start to grin but he quickly got it under control and didn’t 
outright laugh at me (which makes him more polite than the majority of folks lol!) and he was very respectful .http://reecesrainbow.org/26542/david

Look at that beautiful smile radiating from his handsome face. Victor  just turned 11.  http://reecesrainbow.org/47858/victor

5 years. How has this kid been on the Shared List just waiting for FIVE YEARS. Gene is  11 years old and you want to know what his special need is???? A repaired cleft lip/palette. http://reecesrainbow.org/71268/gene-2

You want to see strength? This is strength. At 3 years old ON TOP of already being an orphan he went through not one but SIX rounds of chemo and BEAT Hodgkin's Disease. This young man is nothing short of amazing.  http://reecesrainbow.org/71810/conner

Sweet Jonathan. This love is Eleven years old. From someone who met him : A terribly sad rocking child whose face showed so much sorrow behind the eyes it was heart wrenching! He moaned and rocked and seemed untouchable! His eyes haunt me even now! How I wish I could have spent more time with him. He so needs a family to wipe away that sorrow. http://reecesrainbow.org/59278/jonathan

 

Little to nothing is know about Flynn. His profile has a list of diagnosis' but those don't define who he is. I would love to know the real him. Not the scribbles on a piece of paper inside of a file but the things that make him who he is. What makes him smile and laugh? What makes him feel safe? Loved? Wanted? and Necessary? That is what I want to know about Flynn. http://reecesrainbow.org/59406/flynn


Last but not least I am leaving you with a link to Orphanage 68. There are so many boys in this orphanage waiting to be loved and noticed. Please just take a moment to look at their faces, stare into their eyes and acknowledge them as incredibly strong spirited human beings that they are. The amount of inner strength that these kids carry is something you and I could only hope to achieve. When you think your life is bad and you want to give up remember these kids. They have every reason to let go and disappear from this earth but they CHOOSE to have hope.  http://reecesrainbow.org/category/waitingbycountry/ee-1/orphanage-68

Getting HIM HOME!

We waited and watched and begged and pleaded and prayed with all of our hearts for a sweet little boy named Andrei half way around the world to find a family. He was running out of time and it was almost to late. Just before he aged out (10 days to be exact) a family stepped out on faith to adopt this sweet little soul.

That family was the Stolz family. They had NO intention of adopting at the time but GOD had other plans. This sweet innocent little soul who has now waited just over 16 years to have a family now has a mommy and a daddy coming for him. A family who WANTS him and VALUES him. A family who knows that he is an amazing human being who will flourish and grow with love.

Being that they were not expecting to adopt they will need a little help to get him home. They currently have a page set up for accepting donations through You Caring.

I am personally offering a $500 dollar matching grant. As it stands his You Caring account has $3,153. When it reads $3,653 I will donate and additional $500 to his adoption fund. That means that your donations are worth DOUBLE the money. This sweet boy needs to be home ASAP and I know that WE as a community can make it happen. Please do everything in your power  to help Andrei. Pray, share, shout it from the roof tops wherever you can. School, home, work, church. Please tell anyone who will listen about this amazing boy who despite all he has been through has the most beautiful smile you will ever see. Who has survived through grim circumstances that we can not begin to imagine or comprehend. I think we could all stand to learn a thing or two from Andrei.

                                 
You can make your donations to Andrei at this link http://www.youcaring.com/adoption-fundraiser/andrei-s-turn/93874

A plea for LIFE!

At first glance you make think that this sweet little guy is an 8 year old boy with Down Syndrome who has all the time in the world for a family to save him. Truth is this is a 15 year old boy who is literally down to the wire. He has 13 Days for a family to say YES or his life will be forever lost in the confines of a mental institution.


HOWEVER all Brenton needs is one YES. One family to step forward and say that he is WORTHY. That THEY will love him. That they will gladly battle for his life because they KNOW that he is WANTED and not a MISTAKE.

You don't need to be in a perfect financial position. You do not need to be Home Study ready. You only need to file you i600A with USCIS. You will then be given additional time to complete his adoption. Families are stepping up in swarms to help fund him. He has a $1,700 grant available through Reece's Rainbow. In addition there is a pledge of $1,370 from various people once a family has committed to him and has set up their family sponsorship page.

This little boy has spent 15 LONG years with nothing or no one of his own yet he still finds the inner joy and STRENGTH to have a smile on his face. If only the world had more people like Brenton. Please consider saving that smile.

It's never to late to save a life.

Here is a link for Brenton :http://reecesrainbow.org/64325/brenton

You can contact Traci Heim - Traci@projecthopeful.org

As well as Debbie Hannon- debbie@reecesrainbow.org

Help Wanted

I will usually post about waiting children, BUT this time I am posting about something a little more specific. An orphanage in Eastern Europe is in DESPERATE need of new windows. Windows may seem like such a small almost unimportant thing to do for an orphanage, but in a country like the one these children live in, it can be the difference between life and death during the winter.

These kids are regular kids. Kids that you would see every day playing in the street, on a school playground, maybe even in your own home. The only difference is that in their home country they have no value. The are warehoused in old buildings that are literally falling a part because quite frankly no one cares. When they are between 4 and 5 they are sent to these places and hidden away. They are seen as something to be ashamed of, not as human beings who need to be loved or embraced.

 The institution consists of 3 different buildings, but at this time only 2 of them are being used because the 3rd is in such  poor condition. Life to Orphans hopes to eventually renovate the third building but they are starting out small and so that means WINDOWS.



Three RR babies will be will be helped along with the other 150+ Orphaned angels in this particular institution. http://reecesrainbow.org/category/waitingbycountry/ee-1/orphanage-67

If you would like to donated to the Life 2 Orphans , you can click this link and donate directly to their Paypal account

Life2Orphans/Orphanage 67 Fundraiser

Grant funds AHOY !!!!

   It just burns me up, I swear it does. I will never in my life understand how children with quite large or full grants sit on waiting lists for so long. In this blog I will be highlighting several of those kids who have those grants and still wait for families.

The first is Alyona she has a $20,000. She is 15 years old and will age out in less then a year. She is listed with Project Hopeful and is Hiv+. She has a younger who was adopted and two younger brothers who are still available to be adopted with or without Alyona. She loves her siblings and speaks very fondly of all of them.

 If you would like to learn more about this wonderful young lady please visit www.projecthopeful.org



This sweet boy is Preston and he is 7 years old. He at one point had a family that was committed to adopting him and they adoption fell through not because of Preston but because of things that occurred with the family and they were devastated.

 Preston currently has over $15,000 just sitting in his grant fund waiting to be used by his future family. Are you Preston's family? Check out his link http://reecesrainbow.org/4127/preston-2h





Little Miss Megan is in the same place as Preston AND can be adopted with him. She has a smile that just lights up the room.

Her grant has over $24,000 just imagine how much she could brighten up your family's life.

http://reecesrainbow.org/652/megan2h

 

 

 

 

Heath....awww what can I say about Heath. This sweet Angel Boy is almost 11 years old and spent every second of those 11 years being raised by caregivers in orphanages and now in an institution. He is in a very poor orphanage and does not receive very good care at all. A mom who adopted a little boy from Heath's is committed to helping him find a family.

 

He has a FULL...I repeat FULL grant fund. All he needs is his momma and papa to say yes.

http://reecesrainbow.org/1518/heath-47

 

 

 

Last but not least we have Celine. She has an advocate who has worked tirelessly to make sure that Celine had a grant. Thanks to her Celine has over $28,000 in her grant.

 

 

 

Does her life matter?

Sometimes......

Sometimes there are just no words. No words to describe what you need to do or how you are supposed to feel. Sometimes you have no idea what you are doing. But in the end it is not about YOU. It is about doing all you can to help someone else, even if it seems so so small. This lovely young lady's name is Diana. She is days away from being 16, literally days. I found her photo in the Russian database. She may be listed with an agency or she may not be. She is a lost and lonely soul looking for guidance and encouragement and LOVE. She is only 3 years younger then me and probably been through more in her short time here on this earth then I  could ever experience in many life times. She has been through FEAR, REJECTION, ABANDONMENT, and if we don't step up and do something for her she will have to go through one more sad emotion and experience DISAPPOINTMENT. I cringe to thing of the life she will live if we do not step up and save her. I don't know every little detail of how to make this adoption come together, but I would be more the glad to work with you and figure this out. Please do not leave her alone, broken and abandoned. Please do everything you can to save her, no matter how silly it seems.

You can read a little more about Diana here:
http://www.microsofttranslator.com/BV.aspx?ref=IE8Activity&a=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.usynovite.ru%2Fchild%2F%3Fid%3D2usa