Friday, January 7, 2011

A Home For Lisette

"The central struggle of parenthood is to let our hopes for our children outweigh our fears."
(Ellen Goodman)

I remember there was a time in my life when one of my biggest fears was to give birth to a child with special needs.  A fear known to many mothers who might have been told that their pregnancies have complications.  And as I have given my fears to God, He started surrounding me with beautiful people who give all their love to children with special needs and through those people He helped me see how beautiful life is to Him... even life that we consider unfortunate.
It is one thing to give birth to your own and take care of them no matter what their complications are.  But there are thousands children all around the world who are abandoned by their families because they are not quite what those parents hoped for.  Most of these children will never find a forever family because of fears in our hearts.  As a result many are institutionalized for their whole life and often die very early.

Today my guest is Faith Jobes, a beautiful woman who together with her husband Evan are seeking to give hope to one such girl - named Lisette.

Here's their story:
Faith writes, "Evan & I met and married after only knowing each other about 4 months. I was only 18. We got pregnant right away but had a miscarriage. It took us a long time to get pregnant again but we now have a 7 year old son named Morgan. In 2006, we were blessed with a beautiful daughter named Nora.

She was born with a variety of genetic abnormalities including 5P-, also known as Cri Du Chat (Cat’s Cry Syndrome). Her care was very intense but we now talk about how she showed us the value of all human life, no matter their disability. She was in and out of the hospital her whole like and passed away when she was 3 years old from Chronic Lung Disease. We believe she is with God now where she can dance and sing and waits for us.


 
We always wanted more kids but we were hesitant because we were in the hospital so much with Nora.

After much thought and prayer about how to fill the void left in our hearts and lives, we decided they simply have too much love as a family and would love to share that with another child who has special needs.

We have poured everything we have into this adoption and are only $3500 away from being fully funded. We just found out that our leave from work to travel will be unpaid so now we have to start praying for money to cover bills when we return.

This whole process is so trying for me. We have done so many fundraisers and accepted straight donations from even total strangers! I just HATE asking people for money, relying on others, being so exposed and transparent after being so hurt by losing our daughter is definitely the hardest thing I can imagine but I want to save that little girl so I keep on going! I guess Lisette has had other families “commit” to her and not be able to continue. BOY do I know that feeling. We originally committed to adoption Robyn from Russia but we couldn’t come up with all the money in a decent amount of time. It was heart breaking to “release” her. It felt like a second loss. But we had to focus the importance of saving a child, any child. There could have been another family who had the money or could come up with the money for Robyn’s adoption sooner than us. And we could come up with the money for Lisette’s adoption much sooner than the amount for Robyn’s soo…the difficult choice had to be made. Now we are so excited to bring Lisette home.  Our son cannot wait. He says every day, it’s taking so long! But we tell him it will be worth it!"




Lisette is currently living in an orphanage in Eastern Europe. She is almost 4 years old and weighs only 20 lbs. She needs a home and a loving family so badly, and Evan & Faith very much want to be that family for her. Going into this they knew that they would have to work VERY hard to fund an adoption. God has provided in ways that they could never have imagined, but they still need your help to bring Lisette home. Please consider a generous gift for this beautiful little girl! If you would like to make a tax-deductible donation towards Lisette's adoption - please visit http://reecesrainbow.org/sponsorjobes

Faith has also started a blog that is full of give-aways and gift ideas to help fund Lisette's adoption.  You will also be able to get updated on what's going on with their family - feel free to check it out.

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