Congo-Special Needs

Warning: These pictures are not easy to look at and may be graphic. This is life in Congo for special needs orphans. There is one picture of a man in a white jacket. He is absolutely fabulous! He owns the whole place, runs it, everything. He is so nice! The kids obviously love him. He always has a hug ready for any of them who run up to him and he speaks very softly to them.

He has about 700+ orphans and I don't know how many are HIV+-can't rembember but it's a lot. He also has a section where people sit all day because they have no home-they are homeless. They are guaranteed 2 meals there. He is quite simply an amazing man.

This is for people who ask "why not America?" I challenge you and say "why not Congo?" You won't see this in America. Some of us are called to adopt internationally and some are called to adopt domestically and then some are called to do both. There is no way that one way is the best way. We are all blessed by building our families through adoption-no matter what type of adoption. Children who need families, get one. Parents who need children, get one. Families are made. It's a win-win, no matter what. Get over it.

Cloee is 10 months old today-raising awareness.

She has come so far in her short life and traveled halfway around the world. She was ever so tiny and only by the grace of God is she alive and a part of our family. She is amazing. She was ever so tiny when I met Jilma at the airport in Washington DC on November 18th, 2009. I wasn't sure what to think....she was so tiny. Could I really do this and parent this tiny baby? Cloee had been so sick when Pastor Loma took her out of the orphanage to foster her until she could come home. She would have died otherwise, I know this in my heart. I can only thank God for the grace He extended in Cloee's life and ours.

It was not always a happy story, this adoption from Congo. Do you remember? I do...every day. The pain lessens but the memories stay forever. Cloee was not our first daughter from Congo. We have another, do you remember? Cassie Jamila, a precious daughter who was called home to Jesus September 30, 2009 at 3 months of age. Never having held my little girl in my arms, I was struck by the intensity of grief, the heart-break. For God called her to be our daughter and she was....in my heart, in my soul, in my spirit.

This is not an easy post for me but I feel compelled for a very specific reason. Cassie died from Malaria. It is a horrible but preventable disease-do you know that? Do you know how easily preventable it is or that, yes, indeed, you can be treated for it and live? Malaria is transmitted by the mosquito, it's in their stomach. You get bitten and the transfer is complete. What happens after that is terrible-it travels through your body, it can take over your red blood cells, it continues its path of destruction and makes its way to the brain and it destroys it. It is not an easy death, it is painful. My Cassie died a painful, preventable death. It still hurts. In America, we are blessed with money, healthcare, clean water, food, formula, everything we need. In Democratic Republic of Congo, that is not the case.

Our Family Adoptions is the non-profit humanitarian organization who helped us with Cassie and Cloee's adoptions. They are made up solely of volunteers. Chase Bank is running a fundraising contest on FACEBOOK to give money, lots of money, to the top 200 winners. That's $20,000 - imagine what could be done with this money, the orphans that could be helped...the orphans that could live. We are getting closer to reaching the top 200, but we have to stay there also, until the contest is over. Take a minute out of your day and click on the link, follow the directions and "vote" for Our Family Adoptions (OFA). If I can share Cassie's story and it can raise awareness and help these sweet children in Congo, then I will....every day.

The War Rages On....

This massacre happened in December yet we are only hearing of it NOW nearly 4 months later. This is only a portion of the article and I have taken this information from a couple of blogs to spread the word.  It's not an easy read but it is life in Congo and cannot be ignored.



KINSHASA (AFP) – Ugandan LRA rebels killed at least 321 civilians in a previously unreported "well-planned" four-day attack on villages in the DR Congo last December, Human Rights Watch said on Sunday. In a report released in Kampala, HRW said 250 others, including at least 80 children, were abducted in the December 14-17 Lord's Resistance Army attack in the remote Makombo area of northeastern Haut Uele district.

A Catholic clergyman at Isiro-Niangara in the same district, speaking before the report was issued, confirmed that 30 members of the rebel LRA attacked a dozen villages of Haut Uele, which is in Orientale province. "They killed at least 300 people. They also kidnapped between 200 and 400 others before disappearing," clergyman Dieudonne Abakuba told AFP.

"During the well-planned LRA attack," the rebel outfit "killed at least 321 civilians and abducted 250 others, including at least 80 children," said the HRW report headed "Trail of Death: LRA Atrocities in Northeastern Congo."

A Congolese villager with machete wounds to his head -- from an attack by the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA). Ugandan LRA rebels killed at least 321 civilians in a previously unreported "well-planned" four-day attack on villages in the DR Congo last December, according to Human Rights Watch.

"The vast majority of those killed were adult men, whom LRA combatants first tied up and then hacked to death with machetes or crushed their skulls with axes and heavy wooden sticks".

"The dead include at least 13 women and 23 children, the youngest a three-year-old girl who was burned to death. LRA combatants tied some of the victims to trees before crushing their skulls with axes," said the report, written after a mission visited the region in February.

Between 25 and 40 rebels had walked for 100 kilometres (65 miles) during the operation which was aimed at killing, abducting and pillaging, Human Rights Watch said.

"The Makombo massacre is one of the worst ever committed by the LRA in its bloody 23-year history, yet it has gone unreported for months," said Anneke Van Woudenberg, a senior Africa researcher for the rights watchdog.

"The four-day rampage demonstrates that the LRA remains a serious threat to civilians and is not a spent force, as the Ugandan and Congolese governments claim." Human Rights Watch said witnesses it interviewed said that "for days and weeks after the attack, this vast area was filled with the 'stench of death.'"

Children and adults who escaped gave similar accounts of the "extreme brutality", it said.

"Many of the children captured by the LRA were forced to kill other children who had disobeyed the LRA's rules. In numerous cases documented by Human Rights Watch, children were ordered to surround the victim in a circle and take turns beating the child on the head with a large wooden stick until the child died," the report said.

The clergyman said the rebels were wearing military uniforms. "They killed a lot of people on the road and attacked them with bludgeons," he said. "They killed mainly men. They chopped some people's heads off and kidnapped children on their way to school," added regional lawmaker Jeannette Abakuba, confirming the more than 300 dead.

You may be wondering how an attack this brutal didn't make the news when it happened. The anwser is chilling. The few victims that the LRA showed "mercy" to by letting them return to their villages, were sent home with their ears or lips or sometimes both cut off to serve as a warning to themselves and others that talking about the attrocities would result in swift punishment from the LRA.

WHAT CAN YOU DO?

Eight short months ago, secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, visited Congo in a visit that got a lot of press. She stood up in front of God, the Congolese and the American people and pledged to end the conflict in DRC. She has yet to act. Please urge her to use her position to help! Pull out your cell phone and text her. I want her line to absolutely blow up today. Text something like- HELP CONGO or END THE WAR IN CONGO to 90822.




Email your senators. Here's how you can find out who your senator is and how to email them.



http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm





I'll make it easy. You can copy and paste this if you don't want to come up with something on your own.



Dear Senator,

While the world turns a blind eye, thousands are dying every week in the Democratic Republic of Congo as a result of the genocide that has been going on there for nearly 15 years- genocide cause by fighting for control of mineral mines. I urge you to create policies that will help to end the conflict in the Congo. Specifically I ask you to support or co-sponsor the Conflict Minerals Trade Act (H.R. 4128/S. 891) that will help end the trade in conflict minerals.

Thank you,

YOUR NAME HERE



Because if it important to stay informed, if you want to learn more about what you just asked your senator to do- here is more info on the bill.



http://www2.americanprogress.org/t/1659/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=6273&elq=9e92044b037046a48bdcb80ff24b9ddd



YOU do have the power to create change. Look at your children. Aren't you thankful that they are safe? That you don't have to worry about someone coming in the middle of the night to take them away, make them march 60 miles, and then rape and kill them? Every one of those children, is somebody's child. Somewhere in the Congo- a mother is grieving that her baby was burned alive. Somewhere in the Congo a family has been ripped apart. Somewhere in the Congo, little children are now orphans. Do something. Please.