The Whys of Adoption: Part 2

Well, happy November...and happy national adoption awareness month!  Perfect time to dust off the blog and pick up our series of the "whys of adoption". If you missed my first post, you can check it out here.

Another question we're often asked is, "Why international adoption?" "Why Ind*a?"

To be quite honest, international adoption has always been on my heart. I can't quite explain to you why, but it's just a desire that God has placed there. I think the question behind this, that many people really want to know is why we chose international adoption over domestic adoption.

I know there is a need here in the US, but we also must not ignore the fact that there is a need outside of the US as well. God does not see borders or race, he sees HIS children. And he calls us in James 1:27 to care for them. Some are called to care for those children right here in the US, and he calls others to care for orphans in China, Ethiopia, Bulgaria, Uganda, Korea, Haiti, Kenya, or in our case, Ind*a.

31 million is a HUGE number. The sad thing is that's the estimated amount of orphans in Ind*ia. The need for loving forever families is so great. From 1999 to 2013 there were only a total of 5,257 Indi*an adoptions to the US. In 2013, there were only 119 Ind*an adoption to the US, which is down from the previous year. These statistics break my heart.

Since I'm a total Netflix documentary nerd, I urge your to watch two eye-opening (and heart-wrenching) documentaries. The first is Mother India and it shares the stories of 25 orphaned and /or abandoned children in southern Ind*a and gives us a peek into their daily lives and what it takes to survive. The second documentary is hard to watch. And I mean, hard. It will break your heart into a million little pieces. It's a Girl reveals the sad issue of gendercide in both China and Ind*a.

With that being said, there are so many things that have drawn us to Ind*a. Obviously, God being one of them (and the most important in our book), the culture, the people we've met from this country, the food, the music, the beautiful children. There are really so many things we love about Indi*a and we can't wait to have a little piece of that country in our home! 

I hope that answers some questions for you! Part 3 we'll discuss more common questions...why does adoption cost so much, and why does it take so long?!

The Whys of Adoption: Part 1

"Why did you decide to adopt?"

Grab a cup of coffee, (or tea, or whatever you enjoy!) this may take a while to answer!

God called us to. The number one reason that I can give you is we truly feel that God is asking us to do this! We're simply being joyfully obedient with God's calling in our lives. From the time Mark and I began talking about our family and our future children, adoption has always been a part of our plans. We never knew the details or specifics, but who really does? We do know that God is writing our life story more beautifully and more perfectly than we ever could have imagined, so we'll continue to keep trusting that His ways really are much greater than our own!

Scripture. James 1:27 says we're all to care for orphans and widows. Whether that's sponsoring a child, being a foster parent, mission trips to orphanages, or helping out your next door neighbor who just happens to be a widow, it can look differently for each family. The Bible even talks about adoption. We believe that we have been adopted into God's family. What better way to represent the gospel of Christ than to take one of his children into our own family and love on them unconditionally, just like he loves us?

We desire more children.To really understand where we are coming from in this aspect, you would have to know that our journey to a third child has had a couple bumps in the road. Bumps that were devastating at the time, but bumps that ultimately allowed God to reveal more of His plan for our family.

I had pretty great pregnancies with both of our boys, so I never expected that future pregnancies would be any different! Our first attempt at number 3 ended in a miscarriage at 11 weeks. I knew miscarriage was out there, and it was scary, but until it happens to you, you feel safe. Oh, how naive. My heart was broken in a way that I could have never imagined. I clung to God and his word like nobody's business during this time. We grieved about the loss of our baby, but ultimately trusted in God's plan for our family. We knew that he had more children in store for us, so when the time was right we tried again.

About 5 months later we were blessed with another pregnancy! I was excited for about 5 seconds...and then the fear set in. My mind was filled with "what ifs" and worry. But again, I knew that God had a plan, and my job was to trust and enjoy my pregnancy as best as I could! Worry doesn't come from the Lord right?! We went in for our first ultrasound appointment at 8 weeks full of excitement to see our little baby. As soon as the image  projected on the screen, I knew something wasn't right. The horrifying words that I can still hear clear as day, "I'm so sorry, I can't see a baby." At that moment, my heart sank. How could this be happening again?? I'm supposed to see my baby today!! As the technician continued to take measurements, she mentioned that what she was looking at seemed abnormal and that she suspected a molar pregnancy, but wasn't quite sure. I was given a box a tissues and sent to another room to have an appointment with the midwife. I was placed on the roller coaster of uncertainty that sometimes comes along with miscarriage. Additional bloodwork, scans, appointments with a specialist...nobody quite knew what was going on, but I ended up being scheduled for a D&C a week and a half after that first ultrasound. At my follow up appointment, I got the devastating news that this was in fact, a complete molar pregnancy. There I was, grieving a second loss, and now that loss would be rubbed in my face with a weekly blood draw to monitor my hormone levels until they got down to zero (mine were over 150,000), and the possibility of a rare disease or even potential cancer (choriocarcinoma)  both of which would require the use of chemotherapy drugs.

We were told to wait to try again for at least six months to a year due to GTD. I was blessed to have so many prayer warriors on my side, but it seemed like the prayers just weren't going the way we had planned. We prayed for a healthy pregnancy (ended up with another miscarriage). We prayed that it wouldn't be molar, or at least not a complete molar (and it was complete). We prayed that my levels would go down without the use of drugs (and I ended up with Gestational Trophoblastic Disease or GTD and 8 weeks of methotrexate treatment). Somewhere along the middle of this road, I started to pray that God would just use this situation all for his glory and that he would reveal to me what I was supposed to learn from all of this. God used the loss, the sickness, the pain, the hurt, and strengthened my faith in such awesome ways.  I honestly can't pinpoint the exact moment, but I just couldn't shake the idea of adoption. It was always something we wanted to do, but I began feeling like it was something that we were supposed to pursue now rather than later. This little thought turned into a conviction! I started researching adoption, looking into agencies, looking at different country requirements, reading blogs, and reaching out to other families had gone through the adoption process. I also prayed  that my heart and mind would be aligned with God's will for our family. Basically, that He would either open or close doors, and change my heart one way or another. I'm telling you, when you pray this prayer, expect to be amazed! Mark and I felt a complete peace (and excitement!) about growing our family through adoption and finally decided that we needed to move forward. And that is exactly what we did!

Where my heart once ached to carry another baby, I am now at complete peace to have a child that has grown in my heart (Gosh, we already LOVE this little girl so unbelievably much and we don't even know who she is yet)! It's been so amazing to see God at work in the little time that we have been in this adoption process. I may have had a bit of a rough year, but I wouldn't trade it for one second, especially since it was all leading us to our sweet daughter.

Phew, if you made it through that, you're awesome!

Stay tuned for part 2 where I'll talk about why we decided to adopt internationally and why we chose Ind*a!

Little Hands to Heaven: Week 4

Isaac and His Sons (Dd)

Week 4 of Little Hands to Heaven was a fun one! Here's our week four in review!

We learned how Jacob lied to his father by pretending to be Isaac by acting out the Bible story, complete with hairy arms! Mason got a kick out of this...Max thought it would make a better hat! 

 The weekly math concept was general measuring and comparing distances. One day, we pulled out some yarn and I measured each of the boys. They practiced writing their names on notecards, then taped in up on the wall. They loved this activity and it stayed up as decoration all week!

We also used counting bears as a unit of measure. Mason collected items from the house and we measured how many counting bears "long" each item was.

This math activity below went along with our Bible story that day about how Jacob traveled a long distance before he met Rachel. The boys were pretending the bear was Rachel and we compared the jumps using words like shorter, farther, and closest.

This is one of the math activities we do every week. Mason practices drawing two items in each box and then counts by 2s. 

 We had our first rainy school day (definitely worth documenting here in Phoenix)!

 They love finding the letter of the week in the Hide and Seek pages.

We read about how Jacob wrestled with an angel all night to win God's blessing and then used stuffed animals to act out the scene. 

And more acting when Esau forgave Jacob and God blessed both brothers. I'm telling you, when these kids act out the Bible stories, they really do have a better understanding of it! It's also so much fun to watch them play. 

 Here is Mason doing the fingerplay for the week. He's pretending to hold the reins of a d-d-dusty camel!

 We are having a lot of fun with our letter activities each week. I think the highlight of the week is whatever day we make our crafty letter of the week. They just love this!

 We also have a good time with salt trays, wikki sticks, playdough, do-a-dot markers, books, and a whole bunch of fun letter activities to reinforce the letter each week.

And of course, they always love walking on our big letter of the week and practicing it's sound!

 My two little crazies are always bringing toys to school...and eating snacks!

We have been loving All About Reading, but I was having a hard time with the fact that AAR lessons (introduces all capital letters, then all lowercase, then sounds) weren't matching up to LHTH which introduces a letter a week. So this week, I decided to be crazy and do AAR out of order, so it went along up with LHTH better. Going out of order in AAR is somewhat challenging, especially since the curriculum is not designed for this. However, since he knows all his letters and the sounds they make I figured he would be up for a little challenge. I think it will work our nicely for him!

The Whys of Adoption

Since beginning the adoption process, so many people have been curious about our adoption plans. Many of the common questions are, "Why exactly did you decide to adopt?" ,"Why Ind*a?", "Why international adoption?", "Why not domestic adoption?", "Why is adoption so expensive?", "Why does it take so long?", etc. I can't speak for every adoptive family out there, but I can do my best to shed some light on some of the answers to these questions for our family personally.

So, stay tuned for the first installment where I'll be sharing why we decided to begin this crazy, beautiful adoption journey!

Adoption Fundraisers

Time to give a little update on the fundraisers that we have going on here, but first I just have to say,

"THANK YOU!!!"

We are so blessed by the amount of support that we received during our t-shirt fundraiser (and the process thus far, in general)! It's been said that it takes a village to raise a child. Well, it also takes a village to bring home a child from another country! We're so thankful for our amazing "village" of family and friends who have offered words of encouragement, kept us in prayer, purchased t-shirts, or donated money. You all play such a HUGE role in our daughter's life and our journey to get this precious girl home!!

T-shirt fundraiser:

We were able to raise just under ONE THOUSAND DOLLARS selling our shirts! You guys are seriously AMAZING! This money went directly to helping offset the costs of our home study fees covering about half of the cost! 

All of the shirts should be delivered to my house TODAY! As soon as I get them, I will get all the out of state orders packaged up and sent out, then I'll work on putting together all the local orders and getting them to their new homes! I can't wait to see everyone wearing their shirts! Our hope is that these shirts will be a reminder to pray for our family, that you will become a walking, talking advocate for orphans and adoption every time you wear it, and you'll have an awesome, new shirt!! How cool is that? 

Garage Sale Time!

Our adoption fundraiser garage sale is going to be held on Saturday, October 11th from 7am-2pm.  We are going to be having our garage sale during our neighborhood's big community garage sale, so it will definitely be worth saving the date for this event and doing a little shopping. Our sale is going to be HUGE. We've been clearing out our own junk, and collecting other people's stuff, so I can assure you, this will be a garage sale that you won't want to miss! Even though we already have a lot of great stuff, we are still looking for more donations. Perfect excuse to go clean out your home and de-clutter before the holiday season! We're more than happy to take your junk! 

We hope to see you at the sale...wearing your super awesome adoption t-shirts if you can! ;)

If you would like to donate to our garage sale, please email me at megansalonga {at} gmail {dot} com. 

Please share the garage sale with your friends and family. We really hope to see you there!

Also, please continue praying:

• for us to make progress in our homestudy process and that it will be completed quickly and efficiently.
• that we can finish gathering all the documents needed for our homestudy
• that our daughter will be kept safe and loved on until we can love on her.

Little Hands to Heaven: Week 3

Week Three: God Blesses Abraham (Cc)

Welcome to week three of Little Hands to Heaven! Here are some of the highlights and favorite moments from our week!

Much to my surprise, we're still enjoying the fingerplay activity. This week it's all about the letter C and Abraham.

 We made our number 3 page to add to our number book.

We read about Abraham and Lot,

then acted out the story.

Some All About Reading activities with the letter H

We don't do a ton of structured math around here. Just lots of play!

This week the boys got to drive their cars on the large letter C.

In Bible, we learned that God promised Abraham a son and that he would have more children than stars in the sky. The craft below reflects this Bible story. This craft is a little different from what was in the lesson plans, but I liked how the boys were able to get a little fine motor skills practice in by peeling off their own stickers.

Here is Mason acting out the above story!

In week three we had our first official "school in pajamas day". Ha! In Bible, we read about the three men that visited Abraham and then pretended to have our own three guests. The boys were so excited to choose which "friends" they were doing to act out the story with. The boys had to get the right amount of plates, bowls, utensils, and napkins for their guests. We practiced being gracious and having good manners.

Some of the seat work for the the day. Mason's still working on counting by two's

and finding the Cc in the Hide and Seek fingerplay. As you can see, Maxden just enjoys finding alllll the letters. I help him find the C's, then he ends up dotting the rest of the letters.

This week we made our fun letter of the week craft...and boy, we're on a roll. PJ's and shirtless all in the same week! ;) No dress code at our school!

 On day 5, the boys had to go collect some of their favorite toys along with the Bible. I had the boys hug their toys (you can see Mason picked his two Hot Wheels cars), and say "I love you more than anything". Then they had to pick their Bible up and say, "I love you more than anything." 

We were able to discuss which attitude pleases God more. Love for our earthly possessions, or a deep love for him and his word. Then, we talked about how we can show God that we love him. Mason said, "We can talk to God and tell him we love him when we pray and when we read our Bible."

I am so thankful I decided to use Heart of Dakota this year. I love how every single thing we do points to God. For our family, that's the most important thing we can learn! 

We finished the week by looking at some baby pictures of the boys and talking about how they have grown up, just like Abraham's son, Isaac. They loved seeing how cute and tiny they were as babies! 

That's a wrap!

Little Hands to Heaven: Week 2

Week Two: The Earth and the Flood (Bb)

We had such a fun week learning about all about Noah and God's promises this week. Here are some of our favorite moments from our second week with Heart of Dakota's Little Hands to Heaven!

We learned a new finger play! Here is Mase showing us part of it:

And the boat did float...

/b/, /b/, /b/ (he's making the letter b sound while rocking back and forth...just like Noah might have on the ark!)

We pulled out the wikki sticks to have fun making letters.

We made another page to go in our number book. The two handprints were a reminder that Noah used his own two hands to build the ark.

We acted out all the different types of animals going on the ark. A lot of the Bible lesson plans involve acting out the story that was read each day. This is such a fun way to help the stories that they read in the Bible come to life.

We really do have a lot of fun in school. But, please don't think that our school is always perfect and my children love every single second of it, because we all know that would be a lie! Remember, we're talking about teaching a 4 year old and a 2 year old! There are plenty of moments that look like this. Just keeping it real for ya!

But, then I tell them it's time for "Ziggy school", and all is magically right in the world. They sure do love All About Reading lessons.

Here Mason was playing a game called "Get out of the wagon" I put three cards on the wagon, and he takes the card that does not rhyme with the others and tells it to, you guessed it, "get out of the wagon". He's super dramatic about it and literally throws the card that doesn't rhyme.

This week, we had some dear friends come over so their mama could get an idea of what a typical homeschool day looked like in our home before she began her homeschooling journey. She probably came away with three lessons:

1. Megan gets her children through their "school" time with lots of snacks. 
2. It's pretty chaotic...in an organized sort of way.
3. Have fun and go with the flow (seriously, it's only preschool).

We had a lot of fun with all four kiddos! 

Their favorite activity was the sink or float science experiment. The key idea for this lesson was that God told Noah how to build the ark so that it would float.

Every week we do a Hide and Seek page where they learn how to recognize the letter of the week within text. They also do a Count on Me page. Here, Mason drew 2 raindrops (since we were learning about the flood) so he can practice counting by twos. Younger kiddos can draw 1 item in each box to practice counting by 1s.

Each week, I've been trying get books that go along with the unit we are doing in Little Hands. We had Noah's ark from Sonlight P3/4, but found Big Bear Hug, The Busy Beaver, and letter Bb book at the library. All of these books went along perfectly with this week's fingerplay and theletter B theme.

Maxden's favorite part of school is our morning calendar time! And yes, this shows you all just how far behind on blogging I am...

The boys had fun building their own "ark" and bringing all of their stuffed animals into it.

We learned about rainbows and God's promise to never send another flood. I deviated a bit from the rainbow craft in the LHTH lesson plans, but I knew the boys would love painting their own rainbows. I think they turned out so cute!

Each week in little hands, there is a day where me make the masking tape letter on the floor. This is such a fun activity for the boys. It gets them moving and thinking about the letter of the week. They loved putting blocks on the letter B and I had them say the /b/ sound every time they placed a block.

Once they were finished, they wanted to continue playing with the B. I love how it became a race car track...

and then a church service! See Mason delivering the sermon?! ;) The things these kids think of!

We also made the cutest letter of the week craft! 

We really enjoyed our second week of school!