It was a
Thursday night about 4 weeks ago. We had just gotten home from our Empowered to
Connect Class. I remember standing in the kitchen talking with Ryan about each
of our relationships with God. I told him that I had distanced myself from God
because I knew what we wanted from me…and I was right. I just knew that God
wanted us to adopt again. He had been tugging on my heart for quite a while and
I didn’t want to listen. I was too scared of the unknown, of the mountains that
I would face on the journey. The adoption that He was calling me to was that of
an older child. I thought that what God wanted was impossible and definitely
not at all logical. Not long after that conversation, I decided to let God take
control. I began praying BIG prayers for God to mold my heart to look like his.
I also prayed that if he wanted it, he would have to shape Ryan’s heart too.
Orphan care has always been our passion, especially the older ones. Being a
part of the orphan ministry at church, we have heard so many heartbreaking
stories, seen so many pairs of precious eyes staring into ours. There was
nothing compared to what we were about to feel. A little over a week ago, Ryan called me and
asked if I had been on Facebook. He told me that he had sent me a link to
something. I immediately logged on and saw that he had sent me a link to a
child needing a home. I immediately thought “God is this you moving in Ryan’s
heart too?” When it comes to adoption, usually I am the instigator. This was
totally unlike Ryan. I clicked on the link and immediately saw this face
staring into mine. I felt things that I have never ever felt before. Everything
made sense. I saw this face and all of a sudden the impossible became possible.
I just had this deep feeling that God was going before us. I knew that he was
meant to be our son. I told Ryan to contact them but honestly I didn’t think he
would, so I did. Little did I know that by the end of the day, he had contacted
them 4 times. The more we discussed, the more I realized that Ryan had the same
feelings about this one. We both just felt an extreme peace and hope that God
would work miracles through this experience.
Here is that face….
This face belongs to a 15 year old boy from Ukraine named
Slavik.
Here is his story….
March 1st
is his 16th birthday. In Ukraine, that means that he ages out of the
orphanage that he has been living in most of his life. With little to no money,
he will be completely on his own. The life of an aged out child is not very
promising. An overwhelming number of these children end up trafficking, drug
dealing, or committing suicide before the age of 18. He wants so desperately to
have a family, to have someone that loves him and believes in him. All that
have met him, including his host family that he stayed with last summer,
describe him as very kind, quiet, and trustworthy. We want to be his forever
family but we only have about 3 months to raise $35,000.
I know it
does not seem logical but God’s plans do not always make sense. He does not call
us to the perfect and put together, he calls us to the broken and hard. He makes all things beautiful. We DO
know what we are getting ourselves into. For the past two months we have been
taking a class on parenting children from hard places. We completely understand
the issues that we will have to work through. Also, for the past year we have
been mentoring a 20 year old that has aged out of foster care. We do not have
all of the answers, but we feel like God has been laying the foundation to
prepare our hearts for this. We want to answer this call from Him and bring our
son home.
So here is how you can help:
PRAY! PRAY! PRAY!
Donate at: http://www.gofundme.com/74pb54
Send a tax deductible donation to: (UPDATED INFO)
Sycamore View Church of Christ
1910 Sycamore View Road
Memphis, TN 38134
Make Check payable to Sycamore View Church of Christ and on
the “memo” line please write “Handprints Ministry”. On a post-it or sheet of paper please write "attn: Musick Adoption"
If you would like more information feel free to email me at
sbmusick@gmail.com
Love,
Sarah
No comments:
Post a Comment