Today is the day to sign up to sponor the holiday season fundraising for an orphan living overseas to the goal of raising $1,000 to the adoption costs of bringing that child home to a family in either the USA or Canada. I have participated in this fundraiser since 2012, which is quite a long while now. The event is held by Reece’s Rainbow, a non-for-profit program that supports the advocacy and pairing of special needs children overseas with families here. Reece’s Rainbow has a very comprehensive website through which families can find a child of particular interest to them and pursue adoption of that specific child, this is a piece of the adoption journey that I’d never heard of before: not just knowing which country you’d like to adopt from, but knowing the face of a child. Adoption is expensive, the wait is long from signing of initial papers, to visiting and bringing the child home and all the stages in between.
It’s this financial bit that Angel Tree is meant to help with, but I’d like to think that equally is the advocacy…we’re putting forward the faces of these young children which makes them seem so much more real. On sign up day, we usually pick three child that we’re interested in seeing on the Angel Tree and working toward that 1,000 additional funding boost in the money banks available for their future families.
The child I raised funds for (and met my goal) is Scarlet. My draw to her is that, like me, she has a seizure disorder and an older brother. I’m also Scarlet’s, “Prayer Warrior” that means I’m supposed to talk about and pray for her all year. I have her picture up in my room and look at her often. My heart really only feels sadness anymore as I do wonder how she is, while really knowing that there isn’t anything I can do. Truthfully, her face is so familiar that it’s part of my room the environment private to me and indeed I rarely speak of her at all.