Christmas Tree Ornaments

Just a brief break from blog posts about Brian’s trip to get our son to tell you how you can bring hope to another orphan boy. If we get together to support him, by praying, sharing his information, and donating to his grant… he can have a happy future too! (I will make up for it tomorrow!)

Blogs written about Valenz so far:
Human
Who is Valenz?
Valenz’s Need
The Angel Tree

In my last Angel Tree post, I said I’d tell you the story about what happened when we bought our first Angel Tree ornaments. These ornaments are mailed out to any donor who donates $35 or more to any waiting orphan’s grant on the tree. They can be given to friends and family to let them know you donated in honor of them. In our case, we wanted something tangible in our house to help teach our children about those with less than them. We wanted to point at a child’s face and tell our kids that this was a little orphan boy and we need to pray for him. We hoped this would help teach our children compassion and love and turn the focus of the holiday season a little bit towards others and away from self.

I’m tempted to say the plan backfired. But it didn’t, not really. Maybe the plan was hugely successful… certainly, God had much bigger plans for us than pointing and instructing to pray. We were already understanding of the conditions of orphans. We were already putting paperwork together to begin our own adoption process. But there was something about this child’s face hanging on our Christmas tree. I don’t know what it was. Was it that this child was in our living room, staring sadly out at us? Was it that this child did not have anybody coming for him? Or that he was on the tree… the tree that symbolizes plenty and celebration, life and hope? I don’t know what it was, but it became difficult to have him there. Honestly, I wasn’t sure I liked having him there.

Paul – the face on our tree:

But. He. was. there. And we prayed for him. And we read his profile and learned his story. We had been happy to donate a little to help him find a family, but as time went on, he became less and less a child on the other side of the world with a huge adoption fee and more and more a child. Just… a child! Oh Lord, but our hearts began to realize that he was an individual living in the place he did and it broke our hearts. And we were inspired to make a difference in the life of orphans like him. He is part of the reason that we are bringing home Jordan.

A happy ending – little Paul is being adopted! Actually… I just double checked and although their blog hasn’t been updated for a month, their status at Reece’s Rainbow says that he is HOME for Christmas this year! Oh, I am praising God right now!

Please don’t hesitate to bring hope to an orphan. And don’t hesitate to bring the face of an orphaned child into your home. You won’t ever regret it.

Donations:
$10 of hope for a bar of beautiful homemade soap (will ship)
$20 of hope for a gift basket (local only) – pictures of each basket posted on our Angel Tree page
$35 of hope for an ornament (shipped)
Or any combination of the above.