help bring him home

well hello, friends [and hopefully family, who have just started reading. hi!]

i wanted to pop in and share a little story with you. maybe some of you have already caught wind of this? i read about it on shauna's blog today. 

there's a sweet momma, Danielle, whom i've never met, and she has a blog... and her family is adopting a precious baby boy from Eastern Europe. this little guy, Sergey, has downs syndrome.

what i didn't know, and i assume most of you didn't know either, is that if these sweet babies [who are currently staying in orphanages] are not adopted by the time they're 5, they are admitted to adult mental institutions with terrible chances of survival. Danielle explained it this way on her blog:

If these children are not adopted between the ages of 4 and 5 they will be sent to an adult mental institution where they will be tied to cribs to live out the remainder of their lives.  Which statistically 95% of these children will die in the very first year of being in these institutions mainly due to starvation, as well as trauma from the other adult patients and just plain loss of hope.  I share this with you not to be a downer but to be a voice of hope for these children.  "Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves...defend the rights of the needy."  Proverbs 31:8,9.  And because until last December I was completely ignorant to the fates of these children, so I know for some of you reading this right now it is also the first time you are hearing of this.  Just like you I sat reading a blog about a sweet little boy needing a family and my heart was broken.  I clicked on the link to learn more about these children who were waiting for their forever families and was led to Reece's Rainbow.  When I visited RR I fell in love with these precious children, which inevitably led us to find our son.

[i hope you'll click over to the "Reece's Rainbow" website and find out how you can help even more, if you so desire]

many of you don't know that my niece has downs syndrome. she was the very first grandchild born to my inlaws almost six years ago. while i'm sure her mom and dad [my husband's brother and wife] would have never chosen this six years ago, i have watched them raise her with unbelievable grace, into a beautiful, kind, gentle little girl, who is smart, independent and totally fun. she has changed all of us in ways that we are so grateful for. we couldn't imagine life without her.

such a little model!

i just can't even bear the thought of other little babies just like her being chained to their beds for the rest of their lives. [that sentence was difficult to even type.]

so, here's an immediate way that you can help this one little guy escape that awful fate. Danielle is having a little fundraiser on her blog. they have to raise $25,000. yes, twenty-five THOUSAND dollars. basically, she has a bunch of amazing prizes up for grabs on her blog, including an iPad!?! if you donate $10 to the adoption fund, just leave a comment on the blog post. that enters you in to the giveaway for all the great items. for every $10 you donate, leave another comment. 

why don't i stop explaining it... you can read all about it by clicking over to her blog here. i hope you decide to help, even if it's only a little bit. that's $10 they wouldn't have had otherwise.