Thursday, February 12, 2009

Our little girl....

Yeah, that's right, I said it. Let me tell you a story.

There is a little girl. A sweet little girl who desperately needs help. (And I'm such a sucker for situations that need fixing!) Her name is Saraphina and she has been in the same Haitian orpahange we adopted our 2 boys from, for 2 years now. Some of you may know, some of you may not know, but she was in the process of being adopted. That was until recently.

Recently, it was found out that she has Sickle Cell Anemia. For those of you unfamiliar, I will give a brief synopsis. Sickle Cell Anemia is a disease in which, basically, your blood cells are misshapen. While normal blood cells are round, squishy little things, Sickle Cell blood cells are shaped like crescents. This makes for very painful passage through the blood cells, bouts of "pain episodes" and a shortened life expectancy (about 40-50 years). Now, in America, this is both a very treatable and in fact, CURABLE, illness. In Haiti however, this can be quite fatal. Blood type/availability is not certain, nor is the affordability/availability of transportation to where blood is for a transfusion should a "pain episode" occur.

Long story short, she desperately needs to come to the States on a medical visa. Here she can get the treatment she needs and a chance to not only survive, but be cured. Here's where we come ito the story. Because of our involvement with her previous adoption process and many other issues that I won't get into here, we feel it our duty to step up and take responsibility for this little cast away. God has not yet said no and plans have been set in motion to get her here. We will be her host family while she is receiving treatment and she is likely to be here around the end of March if all goes well.

Honestly, after much deliberation and prayer, we've realized that it will likely be very hard to give her up to another family, both on us and her. So, we will likely begin the process of adopting her a few months after she gets here.

We don't even have a car that fits our whole family at this moment. Our truck got totaled and our awesomeness of a pastor is loaning us his station wagon. We don't have anything for a girl.....don't even know what to do with one of those! Point is, this is what we have been called to do. To obey - to step out - blerg, to leap out! And that's what we're doing. God will take care of the rest.

Just thought I'd give everyone a heads up so that when you start seeing random pics of a little girl in our house in a couple months, you won't be all like wtfrak? what just happened?