Welcome Home Mackenzie & Quinton!

Through the months, I have gotten to know 2 awesome moms via email. Though I have only met one of them my life has been intertwined with theirs.
Hansina Mickschl & Carol Miller are such sweet ladies, & I am so happy I have gotten to know them. This post is the ending & beginning of 2 journeys who have touched my heart & life! For you see both Mackenzie & Quinton I fundraised for. As it so happens they traveled around the same time, and had their Gotcha day the exact same day! Heres something written to each of them:
Quinton, From the moment I saw your picture on Reeces Rainbow something about how we shared a birthday touched me. I had originally asked to be Celines Angel Tree Warrior back in September, but she already had one so they asked who I would like to be one for & I said you. I can't quite remember but I did the jbf consignment sale in the fall & I am pretty sure those proceeds went to you. November 1st came around when I posted a post on the RR board & your mom sent me an email saying they were commiting to you! Even though, you found a family before the angel tree started I still bought an ornament with your picture to support your adoption & tried as hard as I could during December to fundraise for you. February came next as I celebrated my 19th birthday & in honor of your 1st birthday I had a celebration for you. I collected change, had birthday gifts of donations, & made you a blanket. I hope you like it once it turns into fall! The last Fundraiser I did for both you & another family adopting was a yard sale. That raised alot of money & I am so glad I got to help! I cried tears of joy knowing now that the hardwork I put into all the various fundraisers paid off, & am so happy to know you are home & doing well! Love you buddy & hope to meet you someday soon!
For Mackenzie, I had followed your brother, John Davids story & he was the 1st orphan I shared via fb. Your mom emailed me asking if I had fundraising suggestions & telling me they were hoping to adopt another RR child which she later said was you. For you see I had never met your mom before, & had just been keeping up to date via fb & blogging. Well, when they had the chickfila fundraiser for you & I just so happen to live so closeby I wanted to meet your momma & your brother. I had the most enjoyable time & from that point on we became fast friends! I had a yard sale for you & another family as well as advertised/supported your other fundraisers your family was doing. I fell in love with you & this "sister/aunty" can't wait to meet you finally!
Welcome home, so glad their is 2 less orphans in this world! Please check out the giveaway! Pray for the girls to find families!

Greatful Heart Giveaway

To thank all my wonderful reader friends, I am doing a giveaway. Its not a very exciting prize but I have this book with stories from our local Down Syndrome group with stories from Parents, Grandparents, & ME the only sibling! Thats right, I have my story published. Now this is from a few years ago so not quite complete but my mom & I both hope to have our own book someday. My dad also wrote something in the book. You get the book, & if you want I will sign my name next to the page of the book I wrote!

How do you enter? all you have to do is the following:
1. Just leave a comment saying you are a follower of my blog, if your not become one or if you don't have blogger just say how much you enjoy reading along.
2. This is not required, but I am Celines warrior. She will turn 6 in October & I would hate to see her get transfered to an institution! Again don't feel presured to give, this is just one anxious girl trying to find her a family. Plus its very hard for them to find families the older they get.
I will draw a name on August 12th & contact the winner then! Edited to add the 5/5/5 campaign has ended but still feel free to donate to Celines grant. Sadly, she did not meet the 5/5/5 goal but she still has a decent size grant! Help Celine find her forever family!

Forever Family Friday

Today I have decided, to write about a little girl. A girl with a HUGE grin you could not resist, a girl longing & waiting for a chance to find her family.
She just loves to read, don't we all love a good book? Well, I am sure all who like to read fairytales love happy endings right? This little girl has not had her fairytale ending in her "book" yet. This precious child of God will be 6 yrs old in October, for alot of 6 yr olds thats a celebration of going off to 1st grade, playing & discovering new things but for this sweet girl their will be no playing on playgrounds, no going to 1st grade, & many other things.
Precious time is running thin for this girl, she is FACING IMMINENT INSTITUTIONALIZATION! NO 6 YEAR OLD NEEDS TO BE PUT INTO A ADULT INSTITUTION! Heres another factor, once they turn 6 chances of them finding families a sadly dimmer as most don't think they can handle a older child. I really don't want that to happen to Celine! So I am commiting to help fundraise & find her family by the end of October! Please help me find my family!

Thank you to all my wonderful readers!

First of all a huge thanks to all my reader friends! I have met some of the nicest people through Reeces Rainbow & am so glad to call them friends even if I have never met most of them in person! I am hoping to do a special giveaway for my blogger friends soon but need to find some creative prizes. So look forward to that coming soon!

My Mission

Some days I ask why? Why have they not found families yet? Why do they have to sit there waiting? I wonder if I should giveup, but know that without my part in fundraising & advocating more people would not know about their fate & others like them. I know that I should trust in Gods timing but sometimes I doubt & thats something I need inprovement on. I have learned that after doubting a miracle would happen & feeling bummed I did not raise enough money at the various yard sales. Gods timing will be his will alone. I don't think I shared this but the 1st day of the 2nd/3rd weekend we did a yard sale to fundraise for these girls. The 1st day we only made about $30 & I prayed before going to bed I know its not much but I am trusting you to provide for these girls. The following day, we made close to $400! Shows me to learn to trust & the power of prayer works! Oh the most God thing though was that I was looking in our donation jar & somehow I missed an "angel" putting $70 in there! I had even asked my friend if she knew about it & she said no she had not and that it was not from people purchasing things. I had been standing nearby most of the time & only had seen a lady drop change in the jar. I was very shocked to say the least! Also a friend of my friends came by & wrote a $50 check for Reeces Rainbow plus purchased a few things! God is amazing! My mission 1st of all is to trust God with all my heart in everything I do for these kids, 2nd is to NOT GIVE UP EVER, & Finally is to appreciate all my wonderful blog reader friends that I do have even if its only 35 & even if I barely get any comments. I know that everyone has their own lives to live & lots of you have loads of blogs to read so if you read my blog I thank you! Please continue to follow along my journey to find these girls families! I hope to add some more fundraisers for these girls soon so stay tuned! I also plan to host a giveaway for Celine so if you have anything to donate thats princess or pink let me know! Thanks so much!

My Journey with the Mickschl family & Mackenzie known as "Lydiah" on RR

So to get an idea of how I came upon the journey of Mackenzie ("Lydiah"), I thought to come up with some timelines/important dates I found out things.
Lets start with January 18, 2011 when I get this email from Hansina:
Thank you Leah for responding so quickly! Okay.....we have not been telling people this, but we are thinking of adopting again from RR. I am NOT a good fund raiser and I was hoping maybe you had some ideas. I think how you advocate for the children is amazing! God is going to bless your socks off for what you do, Leah!
If you have any ideas, they are welcome! Keep doing the great job you are!
Blessings,
Hansina
then another email on January 29, 2011:
Okay, Leah, we have committed to Lydiah! She is on the My Family Found Me page on RR. We saw her when we were there and fell in love. It's a big step of faith for us, but we are believing the Lord will provide. I just wanted to share with you!
Through the emails back & forth I knew I had formed a great friendship with Hansina. The 1st time I met them was at their chickfila fundraiser, to see my picture go back to this post-http://caring4celineandcoralynne.blogspot.com/2011/05/meeting-precious-john-mark-hansina.html
I so enjoyed that day finally getting to meet another RR child I had thought about & getting to know Hansina. That formed my friendship & passion to help them bring home Lydiah. So I held several yard sales to raise money for you to come home Mackenzie!
June 25, 2011- your parents met you for the 1st time (well 2nd if you count when they adopted your brother John David)
Tomorrow is your court date where they will determine your adoption. I am praying for you Makenzie & am so anxious to hold you in my arms! "big sister" Leah is so glad to see you enjoying the blanket I made & the cinderella doll! I am so happy the blanket makes such a good peekaboo game & chew toy!

Freedom

After chatting with one of my friends, in country adopting her little girl about what its really like over their in the orphanages I felt lead to write a blog post about Freedom & what it truely means for us.
What is Freedom? here are the definitions:
1-he state of being free or at liberty rather than in confinement or under physical restraint:He won his freedom after a retrial.
2-exemption from external control, interference, regulation, etc.
3-the power to determine action without restraint.
235 yrs ago (i think?) we got our freedom & continue to fight for it everyday. In certain countries right now kids face hunger, starvation, & other bad things some too harsh to even want to write about. Although America has made great progress about our freedom, these kids don't have that. Its so hard to put how urgent & desperately RR kids need families. will you help fight for their freedom? Even if your not in a postion to adopt or contribute to their grant Prayer is such a powerful thing too! Please pray for all these kids!

Dancing

Finally I am back to blogging! Its been a whirl wind summer thus far! I was not sure what exactally the best title for this post was but I hope this will do.
So last weekend at our church they were doing a sermon on the church being the green zone or "base", well my sister Sarah got to be apart of the sermon by dancing on stage. If you want to watch it here it is-http://impactcommunity.com/messages/messages2011/062611.htm
Let me just say their was not a dry eye in the house! I bawled like I never have before just seeing how far she has come! The other reason I cried is I kept picturing Celine & Cora Lynne, that if they had families they could have that same love & joy that not only a family brings but God brings us too. Its really hard to describe the emotions running through your head with that. I am planning on doing a giveaway for Celine in a few months & have had 2 lovely ladies offer to donate prizes. I want for it to be big with lots of prizes so if you want to donate something let me know. It will be called Pink Princess Giveaway in honor of my sister so anything pink, or something for a princess. Trying desperately so hard to raise $5,000 for Celine!