Forever Family

永久的家庭 (Mandarin)

हमेशा परिवार (Hindi)

milele familia (Swahili)

No matter which language it is in, it all revolves around the premise of FAMILY.  In our daily lives, as hectic as they are we take for granted that we have family to rely on.  Think about it, you have two kids who have events that are scheduled at the same time; we have someone in our family that can help us out.  When the holidays roll around we have family to spend them with, even if it is a crazy ordeal.  No matter what is going on, we have that place or family identity where we belong.  But there are so many who do not have that comfort, or even understand the concept of family.  Sure, they understand the concept of a caregiver but how much love can that caregiver actually display to these little ones.  The caregiver’s roll is to make sure the little ones are ok.  They may feed them and change diapers, but to pick up a crying baby and comfort them may not be an option.  I remember when Belle was just a few days old and how just by the simple touch of her mother or I would calm her down and let her know that someone was there for her.  It just breaks my heart to think of all of the babies who have to comfort themselves in their crib because the number of them is far more than that of the caregivers in the orphanage.

I am slowly trying to teach myself, with the help of a language program, some basic Mandarin. I am amazed at how each symbol or combination of symbols brings words to life and gives it deeper meaning.  For instance, the above combination of symbols is just one version of how “Forever Family” can be translated in Mandarin.  I had a foreign exchange student last year from China write it out for me and he explained this version to me, and that is why my wife and I use this one.  The combination of the last three symbols simply means “the family.” There were four other ways you could combine symbols to represent forever, but my student specifically showed me this one saying it meant “eternal or permanent.”  I was instantly hooked because although I know that adoption means that they will become part of our family in an earthly realm, the reality is that through Christ they will have the opportunity to be a part of our family for all eternity

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So, what now?  Here where we are:

• We are sending off our I-800A (homeland security/immigration) paper work this week
• We are about ¾ finished with our dossier
• We need about $2,000 to pay for our dossier processing
• We need to raise more funds for the actual adoption process as well

Here is where you have the opportunity to help us in bringing our little “baby Asia” (nickname until the real name reveal) home.

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• We are giving away a new laptop computer.  You can buy a chance to win for $20.  You can donate here on our blog, through our PayPal account, through standard mail, or in person.  We will have tickets and for those of you who are not local to us, we will write your name on the ticket for you.  We will have a drawing around the end of November to determine the winner.  If we do not have enough people purchase tickets, we will draw for a cash prize for the winner.

• We are creating a painted canvas to put in “baby Asia’s” bedroom.  We need your help to fill the canvas.  You can “paint a square” for a $10 donation.  You can either put a small message in the square or choose among the colors listed below, or both.  You also get to choose the location of the message/color.  We will regularly post pictures to Facebook and here on the blog so you can track the progress.  This will be a way to show and explain to “baby Asia” as she gets older just how many people were involved in bringing her home.

That is all for now.  Please keep us in your prayers through this process.  It is daunting and nerve racking.

The Satchers