What if…

A whole lot of greatness starts with those two words. When Ben Leaman, a professional photographer and personal friend, joined our team for the second time to serve at an orphanage in Shaanxi, China where 300 children, most of whom have some sort of special need, call home, we asked a few questions that started with those two words.

What if…

What if we used our giftedness to offer something that had not been done there before? What if we offered children an opportunity to capture the world…their world…in an image? What if we offered some sort of workshop to call out their creative spirits while teaching them about life in the process?

That’s how it all started. We asked what if and then we slowly moved forward step by step as doors opened before us.

In October 2014, only 7 months ago, our team of 15 in partnership with America World traveled clear across the world to serve children without families and those who care for them day in and day out. At 4pm everyday we were there, we paired up one-on-one with 12 children the orphanage selected for our special class and saw a miracle happen.

Ben spoke truth about how shadows serve as a reminder that we make an impact on the world, how colors reflect emotions and how emotions are part of who we are, and how we are created beautifully simply as we are and that beauty is all around us even when it may seem hidden.

Those children’s lives were changed through this workshop as God spoke through Ben and the rest of our team and affirmed each one of these children that their vision is valuable and they are valuable. And, our lives were changed too as we got to take part in it.

What if…

We came home from China asking those words again. This time, they led us to something in our own neighborhood rather than to China.

This Friday, only two days from now, we will be hosting the premier exhibit featuring a sample of the images these children captured. 30 large-scale pieces of art will be on display as well as pictures of the artists themselves. We are fully expecting to have a crowd show up to take it all in. And, we can’t wait because we know that miracles don’t just happen during a weeklong workshop on the other side of the world; miracles happen right here too. And, we trust that this exhibit is going to change the lives of those who come as they enter into the beauty and the stories of the children who captured it.

We’re already thinking through what it would take to make this exhibit a traveling one. While it seems like a crazy thing as I look at the sheer volume of the 30 large framed pictures in my living room all ready to meet the world on Friday, we can’t help but ask…what if…

If you want to be on that list to first hear about what would be involved in bringing this exhibit to your hometown or your church or ministry, email me at kraudenbush@sparrow-fund.org, and I’ll be sure to send you information as soon as we put it together.

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Kelly has a passion for supporting adoptive families, specifically to encourage parents to be intentional and understand their own hearts more clearly as they seek to care for their hearts of their children. Kelly cofounded The Sparrow Fund with her husband Mark in 2011 to serve adoptive families. After a long time using her Master’s degree in counseling informally, Kelly recently joined the team at the Attachment & Bonding Center of PA as a cotherapist. Married to Mark since 1998, they have 3 biological children and 1 daughter who was adopted as a toddler from China in 2010. You can learn more about their adoption story, how they’ve been changed by the experience of adoption, and what life for them looks like on Kelly’s personal blog, My Overthinking.

It’s significant. As a team, we step out in faith, some traveling across oceans for the very first time. It is a big deal with lots of preparing and lots of money, team conference calls, and coordinating. We don’t do it to “give back;” we can’t possibly serve for essentially a week at a Chinese orphanage and come remotely close to giving enough to warrant the phrase. We go for relationships, to enter into life with people–the children who are alone in crowded rooms, the women whose lives are about caring for children so that they can become someone else’s son or daughter, and the men responsible for leading and making decisions that change other people’s entire worlds. We go so the bridge between us can get a few more planks. It’s what He is about, so it’s what we want to be about too.

On February 18th, registration opened up for our next trip scheduled for October 7th-18th, 2015. 3 hours later, registration was closed. In just a few hours, 11 women who had heard about the trip and prayerfully considered the trip opened their hands up and said yes, jumping right on in there. We have room to take 15 people total, but I closed registration with those 11.

Why?

Because we need a few good men.

I have served alongside women on previous teams who are 110% present. I’ve seen God use those women to meet the needs of those children and caregivers in such specific ways. Sometimes I have gotten to be a part of that, and sometimes I have gotten to stand back and simply watch God’s hands around someone using her as His instrument.

But, there is something men are able to do there that women simply cannot. In the orphanage of 300 children, there is not a single caregiver there who is a man. There are men on staff there, but they are the directors, the executives. The ones charged with the daily role of feeding, changing, wiping noses, calming the crying child? They are all women, a good number of whom grew up there themselves. The staff is amazed when a team of Americans is willing to come across the world to build relationships and serve alongside them. When that team has a few men, their amazement is multiplied, more questions are asked as to why we are there, more smiles are exchanged, more pictures are taken of the foreign men who were willing to play with children…and God’s work is magnified. All because a few good men said yes to being used by Him on a team full of women.

If you want to learn more about the trip, email us, and we’ll reply with more details for you. If you think your husband or your son or your nephew may be interested, send this link to him and tell him you think he’d rock it loving orphans and those who care for them.

Our first team conference call is next week. If we don’t get a few good men to join us in the next week or so, we’ll open those 4 remaining spots up for other women.

We can’t wait to see who is on this next team.

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Kelly has a passion for supporting adoptive families, specifically to encourage parents to be intentional and understand their own hearts more clearly as they seek to care for their hearts of their children. Kelly cofounded The Sparrow Fund with her husband Mark in 2011 to serve adoptive families. After a long time using her Master’s degree in counseling informally, Kelly recently joined the team at the Attachment & Bonding Center of PA as a cotherapist. Married to Mark since 1998, they have 3 biological children and 1 daughter who was adopted as a toddler from China in 2010. You can learn more about their adoption story, how they’ve been changed by the experience of adoption, and what life for them looks like on Kelly’s personal blog, My Overthinking.

You read THIS POST as the October 2014 team was just starting out.

You read THIS POST about one of our if-only-for-just-this-one-moment moments.

You read THIS POST about the heart behind the work, why we do it.

You read about team members’ experiences HERE and HERE and HERE.

It’s significant. As a team, we step out in faith, some traveling across oceans for the very first time. It is a big deal with lots of preparing and lots of money, team conference calls, and coordinating. We don’t do it to “give back.” We can’t possibly serve for essentially a week at a Chinese orphanage and come remotely close to giving enough to warrant the phrase. We go for relationships, to enter into life with people–the children who are alone in crowded rooms, the women whose lives are about caring for children so that they can become someone else’s son or daughter, and the men responsible for leading and making decisions that change people’s worlds. We go so the bridge between us can get a few more planks. It’s what He is about, so it’s what we want to be about too.

Today, registration opens for our next trip. October 7th-18th, 2015 seems so far away. But, we are starting now because there’s a good bit of planning to do. And, honestly, we’re pretty excited to get started.

We can take up to 12 women and at least 3 men. Some of the spots are already filled since previous team members are encouraged to go again. So, space is very limited. If you want to learn more about the trip, email us, and we’ll reply with more details for you. And, if you have a heart to get involved in any other way, feel free to email us too.

We can’t wait to see who is on this next team.

 

I realize something lately. I have been getting way too comfortable. See, it’s been almost 3 years since we adopted Hope, and over a year and a half since we brought home Sam, and things are settling down (relatively speaking).

When first home from China, the thought of your child having lived in an orphanage, having gone hungry, or having suffered, is so heavy that it sometimes it seems hard to breathe.

The enormity of it is overwhelming.

You look into the eyes of your scared and fragile child, and they are still so haunted by what has just transpired. They are scarred by what they have gone through, and most times will never form the words to tell you just how bad it was.

You are confronted with it like a smack in the face every single day.

Every single time they look at you.

The gut-wrenching fear when you leave the room.

The eating hoards of food as if there will never be more.

Or in Sam’s case…the not being able to eat since you were never given the chance and you just don’t know how to swallow.

The scared, distant look, or silent cries with puddles of tears that go on for weeks, months, sometimes longer.

It is easy after you have a year or more under your belt to see your now 33-pound toddler–laughing, playing, and loving…

to forget.

It is easy when your now 5 year old gets a glowing report from preschool at how “advanced” she is and how she is a leader amongst her friends and doing so well that she is sure she will excel next year in Kindergarten…

to forget.

To forget that your toddler was skin and bones and couldn’t walk, talk, or eat. That he was hosed off in dirty water and slept in a snowsuit because of the cold–and no heat at his orphanage. To forget that most pictures sent to you he had blue lips, despite their best efforts to keep him warm.

To forget that your daughter was once so petrified when she was handed to you that she actually caused other parents to cry at the pain she felt at being separated from all she has ever known. To forget that she had to be pried away from her caregivers at the orphanage–and that she screamed until she passed out. That she came home hyper to the point of where she couldn’t sit still for more than 3 seconds at a time.

It is easy to get comfortable. It IS easier to push all that unpleasantness far away in your brain and live in the now, relish in how they are doing now, forget what they went through. It is easy and comfortable to do that.

But it is so important NOT to do that.

You see, when you “forget” or “move on,” you forget that there are millions of kids out there–millions of Hopes and Sams. You are ignoring the fact that just because your kid is okay now, that many others are continuing on in that existence who we try and push to the far recesses of our brain.

So I will choose to forever be uncomfortable.

When my babies are sick, and I am holding back their hair while they are vomiting, and nursing them with ginger ale and crackers, and running them a hot bath, cuddling them into clean, cozy jammies…

I will remember the baby I saw in pictures from Sam’s orphanage–face burning with fever, tied to his/her crib in an upright position, probably sick with a cough of some sort. I will look at that picture and the sadness in that baby’s eyes…

and I will feel uncomfortable.

While we are out to eat as a family, ordering appetizers, meals for each kid, and dessert–and most food doesn’t get finished…

I will think of the children who hoard their food, saving for the next pang of hunger to strike. Or think of the babies with prominent ribs, malnourished and waiting for any morsel…

and I will feel uncomfortable.

When we have a birthday party, inviting friends, family, spending money on cake, food, decorations, and most likely a blow-up thing of some sort….

I will think of the children who never have their birthday marked with any special recognition. I will think of the fact that two of my children had birthday’s “assigned” to them since there is no real record of their birth. I will think of the pain of that day for their birth parents…

and I will feel uncomfortable.

When my 6 kids are digging for sandcastles on the beach, frolicking in the waves, and screaming with joy as they do on vacation, getting ready for their 5th night of ice cream…

I will remember the children who have never, ever, left the four walls of the orphanage. Never rode in a car–except when they were brought there. Maybe they will get some time to play outside once and again…but their days, nights, holidays, are all spent within the confines of those walls. Some of them aren’t babies; some are 11, 12, 13 years old and have never left their orphanage. I will remember them, and, yes,

I will feel uncomfortable.

When I snuggle in front of the fire on a bitterly cold day, I will think of them.

When I fill readily available prescriptions,

when I sign kids up for sports,

when I browse the aisles in the grocery store filling my two carts with food,

when I tuck my kids into bed, kissing their sweet smelling heads goodnight,

and when I greet their sleepy eyed, bed-headed selves in the morning…

I will think of all the beautiful children waking to no greeting, no morning kisses, cuddles, and hot breakfast…

and, yet again, I will feel uncomfortable.

When I stop those feelings, is when I am forgetting. Forgetting means orphans do not exist.

To be comfortable is to be ignorant.

And in this case, ignorance is not bliss.

Ignorance hurts children and their chances for a better life. For even one person like myself, sitting and staring at my computer screen in my slippers, can make a difference to them. If only by caring and remembering they are there.

On this very day I urge you…

FEEL UNCOMFORTABLE.

Remember them.

Do something to make a difference.

Think of them every single day.

They just might change your life. They sure did mine.

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My name is Amy, and I have been married to Darrin for almost 16 years. We have 4 biological kids (Hannah 12, Joseph 8, Caroline 6, Charlie 5) and two children from China (Hope 5 and Samuel 3). Both of our blessings from China were born with limb differences. We are incredibly blessed by the miracle of adoption and would love to talk to anyone about adopting a child with a limb difference. I am a stay-at-home mom who also is a volunteer for Love Without Boundaries. I am the Fundraising Coordinator for their Orphanage Assistance Program. It is an incredible way to remember those children still waiting for a family! I am just happy to be living an amazing life with my family and sharing a bit of our continuing story on our blog.

Dare to watch. Dare to get a glimpse of people on the other side of the world whose stories we’ve only just gotten glimpses of ourselves, children and students and adults who hold our hearts.

Be ready.

You’re going to want to go and enter in.

And, we’d love to have you.

I’m a new woman today.

6 days post China and I finally feel myself again. 10 hours of uninterrupted sleep last night may have something to do with it. I woke up ready to jump up, open my curtains wide, and sing The Sound of Music or some Chinese equivalent. But, saying that I’m “feeling myself again” and finally getting back to “real life” just doesn’t seem totally fitting. I’ve been to China a few times now. And, I’ll be going there a few more times. And, every time I go, I feel like I come back changed. I can’t help but come back changed because while I’m there I encounter Him and experience the world in a way that demands a response, demands a change within me. I can’t come home and put my best pictures into a photo album that sits on our coffee table for guests to admire. I didn’t go to China to take neat pictures of a fog-covered Great Wall and meet cute kids.

I went to China to be a part of His story by entering into their story and allowing them to be a part of my own.

We blew a lot of bubbles and drew a lot of chalk sunshines.

We watched some serious dancing.

I played musical chairs…and lost.

We rocked babies and prayed a lot of blessings.

We told children who know they are different that they were beautiful.

Above else, we built relationships. We gave our hearts away. We fell in love…with them…with the ones He loves…with those He has called to care for them…with the One who made all things who we see more clearly and understand more deeply because He allowed us to see a glimpse of Him there.

Today marks 6 days after coming home from China, and I’m feeling myself not again but for today, right where He wants me to be, knowing that our God is sovereign over all things everywhere and that He is for the fatherless, that He is close to the brokenhearted, and that He redeems all things.

I’m feeling myself now.

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Kelly has a passion for supporting adoptive families, specifically to encourage parents to be intentional and understand their own hearts more clearly as they seek to care for their hearts of their children. Kelly has a Master’s degree in counseling and has been working with adoptive families since she and her husband Mark founded the The Sparrow Fund. Married to Mark since 1998, they have 3 biological children and 1 daughter who was adopted as a toddler from China in 2010. You can learn more about their adoption story, how they’ve been changed by the experience of adoption, and what life for them looks like on Kelly’s personal blog, My Overthinking.

I’ve been wondering ever since I committed to The Sparrow Fund’s team why I’ve been called to go to China on this trip and serve at this orphanage halfway around the world. The call, the timing were clearly orchestrated by God in the craziness that only His hands can perform. Yet, my role on this trip has been foggy. I feel like I am in a waiting period. Like dusk, that time right before the sun is about to rise. It is still nighttime, the stars are slightly visible and most of nature and people are still asleep, but the moon is beginning to set and shades of purple fill the sky. Birds are starting to sing and slowly you can make out the shape of the landscape surrounding-all indicators of change happening. That is where I feel like I am. Dawn is on the rise and I will soon be able to see what God is doing in my life, but for now I am still waiting on Him, listening to the birds and seeing the beauty of dusk.

So what am I hearing, what am I seeing in China?
The beauty in holding a little boy, 13 months old, who is not yet walking nor crawling nor even standing up as he should be doing and, therefore, often sits all day, watching a DVD on loop play, playing with a handful of the same toys on a mat only 12×15 feet in size, rarely leaving that space. And, yet, he laughs. He smiles big melt-your-heart smiles. He has dimples and only two little bottom teeth. He loves to be tickled. He has a silent chuckle of pure joy. He loves to be held. He baby talks. I find myself holding him many of the days and I consider where would he be if he was in a normal home setting with furniture to pull up on, space to be mobile, family to play with? Would he be walking? Eating cheerios out of snack cups and playing with matchbox cars? I find myself whispering to him to fight. To grow strong, to work hard and crawl. I want his chances for adoption to be better. I want him to know what it is like to have a Dad and Mom, siblings, pets. But I know that is not fair to ask him that, and he can’t really understand me and what an expectation to ask of a child? And then I realize in the unfairness of it all, I’d take him as he is. Isn’t that what God does for us? He takes us in our weakness because He sees our inner beauty. He fights for us to be in His family.

That little boy is just one song. One shade in this dusk sky that surrounds me.

There are many more. I had 19 kids in my room at the orphanage alone and each is another story—a different shade, a beautiful shade in the sky.

It is my prayer that as the sun begins to rise in my life, it would on many other lives as well, and they would be moved by the Spirit to search for their role in this story and take steps in faith to mesh their story with the stories of these children.

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Kelly has been married 13 years and has two children, Charlotte age 7 and Jasper who just turned 2. Passionate about serving and discipling teenage youth, she works part time as a middle and high school science teacher to home-schooled students in the greater Philadelphia region. In addition, she is involved in mentoring youth at her church as a youth group leader. Through a close friend, God brought her to join The Sparrow Fund team to Shaanxi, China where the world of serving and caring for the orphan became part of hers.