I gave this info out to a friend this week so I thought I would go ahead and post it here. If you have thought about adoption but the costs scare you there are plenty of precious kiddos waiting that have grants to help bring them home. These are not grants you have to "apply" for but grants that are on these kids to help get them placed. Yes, these are kids with special needs, older or sibling groups.
Please do not let the words "special needs" scare you though. These are kids that God created just like any other child. The good thing about these kids is that a lot of times you have a good idea of their needs before you bring them home and you can ask a Dr. about it. Special needs can also be as minor as a birthmark or it could be very serious. When your pregnant you go into pregnancy with the faith your child will be healthy but the truth is most of us wouldn't care if something was different about them we would still love them. The awesome thing about adoption of special needs is you choose the needs you are comfortable with. A lot of the needs are correctable and the ones that aren't is just what makes that child special and unique, created by the hands of God. One other positive thing about special needs is there are tons and tons of kids on waiting lists for families. A lot of times if you go the route to get a healthy child you have to wait in lines for months to years to get a referral. Please don't get me wrong I'm not saying the healthy kiddos don't need homes to because they really do. I do try to educate people about special needs because a lot of people don't even know they have that option. When we started the adoption journey 6 years ago that didn't happen because we got pregnant we didn't know about waiting children. Can you tell I have a passion for these precious kiddos?
These are some places you can go to see some of these beautiful children waiting for families just like yours. They are not looking for perfect families, rich families or the perfect education. These children are looking for someone to love them.
http://www.rainbowkids.com/ (you will have to sign up for a password but no big deal)
http://www.brittanyshope.org/ This is a Christian organization that offers grants on harder to place children waiting. Jaxson had a grant through them and they were incredible. This is not an agency but a grant organization and they having waiting children on their site that have grants through them.
http://www.theshepherdscrook.org/ This is another amazing ministry that helps find homes for special need kiddos. Agencies contact them with children's info and then they try to help find homes for them. If you have time read their story, they are from Cincinnati. This is where God showed us Jaxson's precious face.
http://www.wacap.org/ This is an adoption agency started by adoptive parents. I have heard nothing but good things about them. You can sign up on their site for a password to see some of the waiting kiddos and you can also request a catalogue that has even more kids on it. This agency offers grants on some children of almost the entire adoption fee and has a $4,500 no interest loan you can get.
http://www.reecesrainbow.com/ This is a website of waiting children mainly for children that have down syndrome. There are also other children waiting on this site though if you go to "other angels". You can also join a yahoo group on this site for people adopting, considering adopting or just have a passion for these kids. Warning: there are some very precious children on this site so get ready for your heart to melt.
Have fun looking and maybe, just maybe you will find your child.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
I'm playing with the phrase "special needs" in my mind.
Please know before I begin that I mean in no way to diminish the needs of a child who has physiological or psychological "differences" when compared to the majority of their peers.]
I was born as one of that vast majority of peers in 1963. When I was 11 days old, I was taken home by a very loving couple who were not my biological parents, but gave me an almost magical childhood and many advantages that others did not have.
Unknown to them, or even ME, I did have special needs. By the time was was high school aged, I began to feel there was something fundamentally wrong with my character. I didn't deserve my Mama's love [which was larger than life] and I didn't measure up to my Daddy's standards. How could two such loving and fine people raise a child like me?
My adoptive Father "did the right thing" and stayed legally married to my Mama [the adoptive one] until my also-adopted younger brother and I were "grown", in spite of their legal and full separation 9 years earlier. He then quickly re-married and had a family of his own.
And yes, it appears his biological daughters have fulfilled all of his expectations and desires a man of his achievement would expect from his offspring.
I hate to begrudge his daughters' successes, their father's love and affection, their happiness, [though in all honest, I do and I'm jealous as hello about it.]
Truly, however, I feel like the fruit of the bad seed who deserves to be abandoned twice in my life by my first and second fathers.
I'm babbling here. Please forgive. My main point is that you are correct when you advice other prospective adoptive parents:
Do not to be scared off by labels such as special needs. Every adoptee has special needs, some harder to observe than others.
Even the physically "perfect", well-matched, and intellectually gifted caucasian child of well-educated birth parents, and doting upper middle class adoptive parents, have "special" needs to help them cope with the storm of conflict they feel inside from about 6th grade forward.
Love to your whole family and
Happy New Year!
Lisa Kay
FL Adoptee - born 1/21/63, Gainesville, FL
ISO bmother "Sandra Strickland", born around 1942.
Post a Comment