Time to Celebrate!

June 30th 2009 was a huge celebration here at Door of Hope. Our little girl that is terminally ill, turned 1 year old! This is something the doctors said that she would never do. They said it would be a miracle if she lived that long and that is just what she is! Our little miracle! Not only did she celebrate her birthday, but she was off her oxygen for the whole day! She still stays on it most of the time but we are working on weaning her off of it. This is also something we were told would never happen. She is growing so well! She can hold her own bottle and even sit up on her own! It is amazing to watch her grow and get stronger every day. Now I am praying that we will find her a family. One that is willing to love her despite the problem with her liver. I know she would make a family very happy whether it be for a few months or a few years, she deserves a family just as much as the other kids do! Please pray that we find a family for her. We have a follow up at the liver clinic in a few weeks time so please pray for healing! I know that God has great plans for her life!

The other exciting news that we are celebrating here is that we are about to have our very first adoption from our starfish department! Our starfish department was started in October of last year with a little girl who had been severely neglected. No one though she would grow or thrive let alone be adopted. The first few weeks with her, I wouldn't let anyone else touch or hold her. I really felt that she needed to bond with someone and so I did Kangaroo care with her all day every day. Now she is not a little baby anymore but a big beautiful princess who is about to get her forever family! My heart is so sore thinking that very shortly I will have to give her away to strangers but I know that this is the family that God has planned for her right from day one! They will love and care for her better that I ever could. I am so thankful to them for opening up their hearts and their homes to this precious child and I know she will be a daily blessing to them. I will miss my precious girl but her adoption is such an encouragement! It is proof that our starfish program is working. We have kept her out of a permanent children's home and after a lot of hard work, have found her a family! It gives us hope for all our other children. I know that God will use the starfish program to bless my children with forever families rather than be stuck in an institute and my precious girl is an example of that.

Otherwise things at Door of Hope are good but busy! We have had a lot of staff changes recently. Some that I do not agree with but I trust that this is the Lords ministry and I am just here to love these kids.

We have also had 5 premature babies (including a set of boy/girl twins) come in over the last few weeks which keeps us very busy! Two of them weighed 920 and 980 grams at birth so we have to work very hard at keeping them healthy. Not an easy task in winter when all the other kids have sniffles and coughs but so far we are doing ok.

One last story I need to share with you is a story that even now completely blows me away! In February I found out that one of our previous birth moms was pregnant again. This mom does not have the means of caring for a baby and since she didn't directly bring us the last baby, I wasn't sure that she would bring us this one. I started to pray that God will would be done, that he would bring us that baby. I knew if that baby was abandoned we would never know whose baby it was. The weeks went by and I watched this mother get bigger and bigger. finally at the beginning of June I had not seen this mother and I asked some of the staff to try and find out if she had given birth. Just a few days after that, I received a call from the hospital asking me to come a fetch a baby. As I drove to the hospital, something inside me just told me that this was the baby I had been praying for. when I got to the hospital and met with the social worker I found out indeed that this WAS the baby I had been praying and hoping for! The mother was sick and could not care for the baby and so they called us! I was speechless. Here I was holding the baby in my arms that I had been praying for for 4 months! 4 years earlier I was holding the sibling in my arms and now I had this one as well. God is just so good! The baby is fine and healthy and we are hoping to place it with the older sibling as soon as possible. God is just so good. when we pray, not only does He listen but He also answers! It is actually sad how easily I can put God in a box sometimes. This was just one more example of how much he blesses me as well as the ministry!

I don't have any photos on this computer but will try to post some soon. For now, be blessed knowing we serve an awesome God!