i've added melanie's button and am reposting my friend's hubby's letter concerning their journey to adopt melanie!
It is getting to be that time of year again, it is getting cold here in the Midwest and our minds all start gravitating towards the holidays that are upon us. Another thing that a number of us start thinking about this time of year is how we can reach out to serve other people that are in difficult situations.
With that in mind, I would like to share with a story about how my wife Dena and I’s life has been changed recently and how we would like to enlist your help as the end of the year gets closer.
As most of you know, Dena and I were blessed 4 years ago to bring into this world a little girl that has some special challenges in life. Ragen Lynn Sader was born to us with Down Syndrome and Autism, a dual diagnosis that makes life a bit of a challenge sometimes for us all. But a dual diagnosis that is nothing but a pure blessing in our lives. Over the last 4 years, we have learned, gotten frustrated, grown and ultimately realized that maybe we were given this special challenge in life because we are being prepared for making a bigger impact on the world. It is at this point in time that Dena stumbled upon a website called Reece’s Rainbow and our lives would never be the same again.
The sad but cruel reality is that most children with special needs that are born in less developed countries in the world are immediately put into orphanages to live out their first four years of life and then as soon as they turn four years old, they are transferred to mental institutions, where 85% of them will die over the next two years of life due to malnourishment or lack of resources to help with basic surgeries to repair common physical impairments that they are born with.
After being confronted with this reality and really praying about how we could help, Dena and I have decided that we have been uniquely equipped to try to help just one child out of that cold, cruel and dark reality. We have been blessed with a warm home, a pantry that has food, family that has lots of love to give and experience with the challenges that will confront a child with Down Syndrome as they grow. Because of these blessings, we have made a decision to move forward and start the adoption process for bringing home a little girl that is now two years old from Eastern Europe. Her name is Melanie and her picture is below.
So, now is the part where I ask you to get involved to help us bring her home. There are three ways that we would ask that you consider helping us on this journey:
1. Donate Money- We need to raise around $20,000 for the costs of the adoption over the course of the next 4 months and any little bit helps. Even a donation of $10 will help to bring her home. The donations are all tax deductible and very simple to do online at this website
2. Pass on This Story- Dena and I have had our fair share of ups and downs with finances and completely understand if even $5 is out of the question. If that is the case for you, please just pass along this story to all your friends on Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, MySpace and anywhere else that you connect with people. You never know who the story will touch and inspire to use their resources to help.
3. Pray- I know that some believe in God and some don’t. If you do, I would just ask that you pray for us that we might have the strength, wisdom and courage to keep pushing through, even when the process gets hard. We believe that this is truly the work that God would want us to be doing and just would ask for your prayers to that end.
Thank you for taking the five minutes it took to read this and think about helping us to make even a small difference in the life of a little girl half way across the world.
If you have any questions please just reach out to me or to Dena.
Thank you so very much,
ROB
http://reecesrainbow.org/sponsorsader
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