This would not keep Emmalyn from her dreams of having a family of course! She would make a wonderful daughter, sister, cousin, and friend. If Emmalyn were born in America she would be attending school, playing sports, and dreaming of being a prom queen!
But she lives in Eastern Europe and she truly needs her family to find her soon! She is 12 in chronological age, but most likely functioning at the age she was transferred (5 or 6). She has it better then most there because she is mobile and can take care of many of her own needs, and is more then likely taking care of the non mobile children, as we all know children with DS, are resilient, forgiving, and very loving! Please help me help her by clicking on the button in the upper right column, look for her name, and make a small donation. The further she climbs the Angel Tree the better the odds are of her forever family finding her.
Before you do that please read this post from an amazing family that is saving two wonderful young men as I type! They will have Micaiah ( above age 15 with spina bifada), and Levi ( below age 13 with moderate delays) home for the Holidays. These adoptions are not for the weak , but the Baker Family is anything but weak! This is their reflection on their visit to Micaiahs orphanage last week. Its a must read and a huge eye and heart opener! Emmalyn would be in a place like this.
We visited Micaiah again this morning for as long as we could until we were told we absolutely had to go. It is impossible to put into words all the emotions. Each time we come, we seem to be more accepted by everyone. We walked right into his room today and interacted with the other boys/men in his room. It takes tremendous love and strength from God to not just run from the room weeping; that is if you look at them, I mean really LOOK at them. If you look into their eyes, and you see the boys inside -- some mother’s son, someone’s brother, someone’s grandson, if you see them in a different light, and all they might have been if born in a different situation… if you really SEE them, and feel how it must feel to be them, and think what their days must be like. If you watch and notice how they interact with each other, and look beyond their appearances, and beyond unusual actions that we are not used to, and just see who they are… it can’t help but wring your heart and fill you with floods of emotion and crowd your mind with thoughts.
We saw these boys/men interacting, despite their own inabilities, helping each other, caring for each other, being kind to each other. It was humbling and beautiful. One man lay on a bed. He seemed to have at least cerebral palsy. Another boy was carefully covering him with his blanket so that he would not be exposed, and the man was laughing and enjoying it very much. The boy was doing it so carefully and being so kind to him. Others came up to us, and with our limited (nonexistent) Ukrainian, we communicated what we could. We loved on them, and joked with them, laughed with them and acted out. We gave them candies and showed them our phones and games. I tried to absorb everything and not miss a thing, just watching how they patiently interacted with each other, older ones and more able ones not rejecting the actions of younger ones or less able ones. They joked with each other and shared with each other. I saw some struggling with the candy wrappers, and others coming over to help them when they could barely open them themselves.
And as we sat and visited together, each one seemed to crave just to be touched, to have someone look them in the eye and talk to them, to shake a hand. One young man just leaned against me the whole time I was sitting there, and when I would speak to him he would laugh and laugh with such great joy. We hugged them all and told them good things about themselves that we knew they could not understand, but we hoped they would somehow feel the spirit of what we were saying to them.
And I wanted to go and visit them every day, and to show them that people do care, and that they are valuable. How much effort does it take to give someone a hug, or look them in the eye and laugh with them? And yet, such a small thing could give a person so much joy? It was very humbling. But this place is so far from anyone who could visit, and we were told that people do not visit there very often at all.
Micaiah is only the sixth child to be adopted from that institution, EVER. People do not go there. Think about it. Micaiah has never been in a car, because he has never left the institution since he arrived. His world has consisted of his room, with about ten boys/men, where he sleeps and eats and plays and rests and watches TV, and another room with a TV and some tables, and a stretch of pavement in front of his building where they can go outside when it is nice enough to. It is hard to imagine. On his bed he has a bag with a few of his treasures he has collected over the years.
We saw these boys/men interacting, despite their own inabilities, helping each other, caring for each other, being kind to each other. It was humbling and beautiful. One man lay on a bed. He seemed to have at least cerebral palsy. Another boy was carefully covering him with his blanket so that he would not be exposed, and the man was laughing and enjoying it very much. The boy was doing it so carefully and being so kind to him. Others came up to us, and with our limited (nonexistent) Ukrainian, we communicated what we could. We loved on them, and joked with them, laughed with them and acted out. We gave them candies and showed them our phones and games. I tried to absorb everything and not miss a thing, just watching how they patiently interacted with each other, older ones and more able ones not rejecting the actions of younger ones or less able ones. They joked with each other and shared with each other. I saw some struggling with the candy wrappers, and others coming over to help them when they could barely open them themselves.
And as we sat and visited together, each one seemed to crave just to be touched, to have someone look them in the eye and talk to them, to shake a hand. One young man just leaned against me the whole time I was sitting there, and when I would speak to him he would laugh and laugh with such great joy. We hugged them all and told them good things about themselves that we knew they could not understand, but we hoped they would somehow feel the spirit of what we were saying to them.
And I wanted to go and visit them every day, and to show them that people do care, and that they are valuable. How much effort does it take to give someone a hug, or look them in the eye and laugh with them? And yet, such a small thing could give a person so much joy? It was very humbling. But this place is so far from anyone who could visit, and we were told that people do not visit there very often at all.
Micaiah is only the sixth child to be adopted from that institution, EVER. People do not go there. Think about it. Micaiah has never been in a car, because he has never left the institution since he arrived. His world has consisted of his room, with about ten boys/men, where he sleeps and eats and plays and rests and watches TV, and another room with a TV and some tables, and a stretch of pavement in front of his building where they can go outside when it is nice enough to. It is hard to imagine. On his bed he has a bag with a few of his treasures he has collected over the years.
Thanks for reading my post, and the Bakers post! Love you all!
Jenni
Stay tuned for more stories about these wonderful families whom save these wonderful children!
