PENDANT SALE-DAY ONE!!!

TODAY'S THE DAY!!!!

I would have posted this waaaay earlier today, but we just got back from WV to get our biometrics done :). It was quite an adventure that I'll share about in a later post.

But for now....

Today is FIRST DAY of our Pendant Sale Fundraiser!! Please go to Sarah's Treasure Box and check out the unique, affordable pendants she is selling! Today through Saturday, for every pendant sold Sarah will donate $5 to our adoption grant fund!

One of my favorites!

PLUS....

If you buy any of her adoption and awareness pendants she will donate an ADDITIONAL $5 to Masha's grant fund!!!! How cool is that?!!! So you can help us AND sweet Masha at the same time :).

One of her Awareness Pendants:

Things To Remember:

1. They make great gifts!! Valentine's day is coming up!
2. Sarah ships them super-fast!
3. You MUST say when you check out that you are supporting the StClair adoption fundraiser. If you forget to mention it, just send me an email and I'll let Sarah know.

Please SHARE (blog, facebook, twitter, etc) this link so we can make this fundraiser as successful as possible!!

(Almost) Wordless Wednesday

A new picture of Masha!

Coming Up...Pendant Sale Fundraiser!!

Ok everyone, this is the OFFICIAL ANNOUNCEMENT!

Sarah's Treasure Box has graciously offered to donate $5 for every pendant sold through her Etsy shop to our grant fund! But this sale is happening for THREE DAYS ONLY: FEB 10-12!!!

That's starting this Thursday and going through Saturday. Buy one pendant, we'll get $5. Buy five pendants, we'll get $25. You get the idea :).  Please, please take a look and considering purchasing one (or more!) pendants starting on Thursday! They make great gifts, too!

Here's one of my favorites:

And another:

IMPORTANT: When you check out, make sure you note that it's for the "StClair adoption fundraiser". If you forget to mention it, just email me and I'll pass along the message :)

And please SHARE this link so we can get the word out!!

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Update on Masha: She still needs a family, and my heart is breaking. There is some good news, though. She hasn't been transferred (yet), but the place she will be going has never allowed an adoption before...until yesterday. :) Praise God for opening the door for Masha and so many other children in this institution! Now pray for God to reveal her family SOON!

A Roller-Coaster Kind Of Day...

Today has been an emotional roller-coaster. The first high is not related to our adoption and requires a little bit of a back-story, so let me explain.

As a graduate student, part of my job is teaching one course per semester. Last spring I had a wonderful student in my class who I can honestly say is my favorite student EVER. And I don't say that lightly. I've had many, many students over the years. I'll call him J.

In the fall I found out that J. had been hit by a motorcycle (he was a pedestrian) and was in a coma. He wasn't expected to live through the night.

But he did.

Then he wasn't expected to wake up from that coma until at least Christmas, if ever.

But he woke up three weeks later.

If he ever did wake up from that coma, it was expected that he would have to re-learn how to walk, talk, eat, etc.

He walked out of the hospital on his own just two months after the accident.

Up until this morning, the latest I had heard was that J. was in the hospital and responding to some stimuli.

At 1:00pm this afternoon, J. walked into my office.

I did a double-take. I thought I was seeing a ghost! But no, it was him! Walking, talking fine, short-term memory a bit fuzzy but he remembered what floor my office was on. And what floor our classroom was on.

Amazing.

I am still in utter SHOCK! God is so good. J. is truly a living, breathing miracle.

He could only stay for about 10 minutes, and as soon as he left I sat back down to my computer to discover that....

Masha cannot be held from being transferred.

Plummet.

Oh sweet Masha, you will be ripped from everything and everyone you have ever known. You will be shoved into a car for the first time and taken to a place far worse than where you live now. You will not get to go outside anymore. No swinging for you. No sunlight, no fresh air. You will never be taught how to eat properly, fed only from a bottle for the rest of your short life. You will be labeled "ineducable" and put in a crib with high steel bars. They will take most of your clothes and you will lie naked in your own excrement for hours and hours until someone comes to clean you. If you're lucky you might get a sheet to lie on. If you're not lucky, they will tie you up in a sheet, straight-jacket style. You will be drugged most of the time so that you lay quietly in your crib.

Oh Masha, I am so, so sorry we cannot save you from this fate.

But someone WILL come to rescue you. You will not have to live in that horrible place for long, God willing. Your family is going to come for you, little girl. Just hold on. Don't lose your spark or your smile.

Our God is the God of miracles. I just witnessed one today. I am believing for one for Masha. Pray with me.

Update On Masha

Thank you, everyone, for sharing about Masha and praying for her. I found out this morning that a very generous donor has raised her grant fund to....drum roll...

$17,412.75!!!!!!!

I love to see God move this way. But she is still days from transfer and needs a family. The place where she will be transferred is one of the worst and she may not be adoptable after she is transferred. I just received word about the type of family who would qualify to be able to save her:

"I am waiting for a call back from our facilitation team about how quickly we would need to have a family THERE to adopt these children, and if it is even possible to postpone their transfer.   But anyone who is interested would have to be:

1)  financially comfortable enough to show a judge you have the resources to care for these children

2)  have private health insurance already in place

3)  be nearly PAPER READY....this means already approved in a *current* and completed home study to adopt two older children with significant special needs

4)  and either already have USCIS approval or just need to update it.  You need to be ready to travel SOON.  

MARRIED COUPLES ONLY!!"  

We qualify on the first three, but not the last. We are also not able to travel soon.

But I know SOMEONE out there, is! If you qualify, email Andrea here!

Pray for them. Pray for Masha. Pray, pray, pray...God works miracles!!!

For Real This Time!

We got our fingerprinting appointments in the mail yesterday...yippee! Two things surprised me about this:

1. Our appointment is in Charleston, WV (I thought we'd be going to Richmond, VA), and
2. Our appointment is LESS THAN TWO WEEKS AWAY!

Yup, on Thursday, Feb. 10 at 8am we will be giving our identity to the U.S. government in the form of federal digital fingerprints ("biometrics" for those in the know).

When I opened the letters I was expecting an appointment in late Feb. or even March! But nope, next Thursday. This is a good thing, though, as nothing can move forward until we get fingerprinted.

Since Charleston is about 2.5 hours away, and we CAN. NOT. BE. LATE...we will be driving up Wed. night and finding a hotel. Anyone out there got a recommendation???

One more thing...I found out this morning that sweet Masha is going to be transferred to an adult mental asylum NEXT WEEK. My heart is broken. Please, please pray for a miracle. This is the 11th hour, truly.

Crazy In Love With Masha

UPDATE: "Oh my!! Today while we were waiting for Carrington (Anastasia) we had about 15 minutes of watching the children in her groupa. Sitting right in front of us and just chatting away and smiling was little Masha!! Oh she is so so precious and smart and friendly!! She kept playing peek a boo with us and waving and talking to us in her language but never the less she was talking. The speech therapist came in to work with the kids and soon it was Masha's turn. But here is where it gets very sad....the doctors were there to do medicals for the children being transferred to the adult mental institute sometime in the next week and Masha is one of them. Oh Please someone come forward right now and be her family. Stop her from going where our sweet Reagan(Tori) is. We are getting such negative reports about where Reagan is and there is no way Masha belongs there. She just turned 4 in January and is maybe 18 month to 2 year size. Help her!"

Masha will be transferred NEXT WEEK! Someone please save her!

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Ok, time to share the burden that has been on my heart....

Sweet little (and I do mean little!) Masha:

She just turned four years old. That's right, F-O-U-R! Does that look like a four-year-old to you???

Little Masha was born with FAS and she is in a very poor orphanage. You can tell just by looking at her, how little she is, she is undernourished and unstimulated. Her little body has literally stopped producing growth hormone because of the conditions she lives in. This past summer she weighed just 15 pounds. 15 POUNDS!

Oh, how I long to bring her home...but God has clearly told us "No" once again. She is in a different orphanage from Riley, one that transfers their kids to the institution immediately at the age of four. She has very little time left and needs a family NOW!

I have struggled with not being that family, but God has a plan. God has a plan for Masha, and He cares about her more than I can ever understand.

 

Are you my mother?!

You can check our her page on Reece's Rainbow here for more information about her. Right now she has a $5300 grant!

Stephanie is having a giveaway fundraiser for Masha, you can read more about it here. She's got some great items to give away, and the drawing will be held in just two days, Jan. 31!

I just donated to her Chip-In fund. Will you join me in doing the same? The more money she has in her grant fund, the more likely her family will step forward soon.

Most of all, please pray for Masha. Pray she will not be transferred before her family finds her. Pray for her new family, and pray for her grant fund to grow.