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A family that I love made a trip to Michigan recently. They came back to raise support; they have decided to become missionaries, in Kenya. They will be living in one orphanage parenting the children there and over seeing five orphanages. Part of their responsibilities will be feeding 800 children a day, utilizing two one-burner charcoal grills. There are 150,000 orphans, under the age of five, caring for themselves and younger siblings in Kenya. They didn’t go looking for this adventure, but it found them. Seeing them brought back old memories and emotions.
The mother was one of my mentors when I began homeschooling 10 years ago. I also took over her job of directing our church’s vacation Bible school. I talked her family into adopting. They nearly adopted a sibling of one of my children, but that didn’t work out. I suggested they call Detroit, because at the time there were African American infants in private agency foster care without identified families.
They adopted a boy and then a year later they adopted a daughter. Both had been exposed to alcohol, both were paid adoptions, and both children were full African American. Before the adoption of their daughter was final, they realized they had conceived. That seemed to be a miracle because when they first married, they tried for 10 years to have a baby without success. When they began to investigate adoption the first time, they conceived and birthed three children.
At the time of the adoption their three birth children were12, 10, and eight. Everyone in the family was thrilled and their lives seemed perfect. The pregnancy went well and the adoption was finalized for their daughter a few days before the birth of their new son.
Tina went in for a routine c-section. The doctors came out to tell Paul that the baby was perfect but Tina wasn’t going to make it. Her organs were shutting down. They had given her 16 units of blood and they couldn’t stop the hemorrhaging. My sister had worked in surgery for 15 years at the time and she told me that she had never heard of anyone surviving a transfusion of that much blood.
Paul would be left with three preteens and three children under the age of two. He hit the floor on his knees and began to pray. He refused to believe that his bride would die. She lived. Her recovery was slow because most of her organs had begun to shut down. I told her at the time that God had saved her for something big.
Now we know what that something big is. She looks great today; you would never know that eight years ago, she died on the operating table. Her four youngest children, now seven, eight, nine, and sixteen, will be traveling to Kenya as well. The two oldest boys are adults; they will stay in the states to attend college.
Can You Influence Who Older Adopted Children Will Become?
Please Leave Babies on the Doorstep
The photo was actually taken in Kenya at the orphanage. Written permission from Paul and Tina Meek on November 14, 2007.
Hi Julia –
I have a friend here who has done something similar — a homeschool mom who started Aid for Africa’s Children (www.afachildren.org) in Swaziland. Amazing !! There a lots of kids there also, who could write their own “I’m raising my siblings” blog — if they were old enough to write, and blessed enough to be taught how.
Later this morning I’m heading down to the Court Building to celebrate National Adoption Day and the 16 adoptions being finalized . . . and realizing that it’s barely a percentage-of-a-fraction-of-a-drop in the (worldwide) bucket.
And I’m wondering if perhaps we should foster or adopt again? Or get behind an organization such as Encouragement, Inc. or AFA and help them do as much as possible in their corner of the world — which will still be just a percentage-of-a-fraction-of-a-drop in the bucket.
I guess if we all didn’t believe that lighting a candle is better than cursing the darkness — we wouldn’t be here. So: Let Your Little Light Shine !!
Rachel