Archive for January, 2010
Wednesday, January 27th, 2010
I want to adopt. What next?
One of you commented about orphans in Haiti: “I just want to take at least one of those babies in my arms and into my house until order is restored, or even for the rest of their life.”
I can tell that many of you resonate with that desire to help, to be involved. You’ve written things like:
These kids have been through so much. I really hope red tape doesn’t get in the way of them starting over in new families quickly!
If there is ANYTHING we can do… We would love to share our family with these kids!I would love to try to adopt one of these orphans. I am just not sure how complicated the process is.
We have been planning on adopting in a couple years, but would love to accelerate that process if we can help care for these kids, but where do we start?
My wife and I have been seriously considering adoption for some time, but we don’t really even know where to begin.
If you come across any information regarding the adoption of these children, I would be very grateful to be informed.
Here’s the best information I’ve found. Please follow all the links to get the full picture.
This comes via the Christian Alliance for Orphans. I recommend that you bookmark their site and subscribe to their blog to stay abreast of the news about orphans. They’re one of my main sources for this kind of information.
Wednesday, January 27th, 2010
One day changes a life
Thirty years ago today, my husband preached his candidating sermon at Bethlehem Baptist Church. It was amazing to us that an old, established church like Bethlehem would consider a man who had never been a pastor before and had preached only a handful of times.
Tuesday, January 26th, 2010
Some will see him soon, face to face
Dr. Steve Nelson is back home in Quito now. He wrote this email as he was leaving Haiti after 10 days at the Baptist Haiti Mission Hospital in Fermathe, near Port au Prince.
Day 11, Jan 25, 2010
We have been listening to generators for the whole time we have been in Haiti … at least during the hours that we were working. I don’t know when the lights will get turned on in Haiti again, but they aren’t yet. The Haiti International airport is no exception. We are in the airport … full of generators … waiting for the flight back to Florida [and then to Quito].
We are going to miss our Haitian friends … both the patients in the hospital and the ones who worked alongside us the whole 10 days. With many of these fellow workers we didn’t even manage to exchange much in the way of words … just gestures and smiles.
You were praying for a new way to get patients up to the hospital last time and while we were hoping for something slightly more comfortable than a truck, it was indeed a truck we settled for. They came four at a time – closed femur fractures most of them – receiving 11 new patients for surgery that next day. Five came the following day as we finished up some of the cases that had been here since the beginning but that we had put on hold until we had the hardware to do things right.
We did rounds this morning and then headed off down here to the airport. Word was four more closed femurs were on their way to the hospital. This pace could go on for weeks as hospitals unload those cases they can’t handle in-house. Samaritan’s Purse is committed to the long haul here and four more new medical people are on their way in to arrive this afternoon. They will replace our orthopedic surgeon and anesthesiologist that are moving out with us. Pray for more Family Practice docs and nurses.
I went through the wards and said goodbye to my patients last night. Brave little kids with amputations and fractured limbs and pelvis … the most hurting ones squeezed out a smile anyway, while the ones that were feeling better had a glowing one fixed on their beautiful faces already.
We didn’t get the stories of these folks … except here and there … there just wasn’t time (nor translators). Still, stories we read later will fit correctly/sadly with the faces and folks we remember. One amazing thing about being here is we haven’t seen the news about what is going on here … the big picture that is. “The forest for the trees” I guess.
The Billy Graham people told us this morning that amidst all this pain and chaos, amidst all this suffering and loss, about 70 people got a good look at the loving, compelling face and person of Jesus and decided to follow him. Some of those 70 might get to see Him face to face in heaven soon. There are lots of complications to come. We lost two young men this week to pulmonary emboli after successfully treating their injuries. More will follow, so it’s a joy to add these 70 to the equation regarding why this is sooo “worth it”.
We are now in an airplane headed to Ft. Lauderdale. People will be talking basketball and super-bowl … or is that over already? My oh my what a change this will be.
Thank you for praying.
Monday, January 25th, 2010
What you need to adopt from Haiti
Many of you have asked about how to go about adopting from Haiti. Dan Cruver of Together for Adoption asks a question in return:
The day will come when the adoption process will open back up in Haiti; and when it does, what Haiti’s orphans will need is Christians who imitate the patience of their Father in heaven. How many of us who are now interested in adopting a child from Haiti will still be interested when the adoption process finally opens back up?
Please read the rest of his article. You may find it discouraging. Or you may discover that God is using Haiti to awaken desires in you and that now he wants to redirect those desires toward other children in need.
