FYI - we are NOT crazy!

Well, someone has gone and done it again. They asked the dreaded, "Are you crazy?" question upon learning of our adoption plans. Please believe me when I tell you that it was after much prayer, thought, and research that we decided to make this journey. Do I need to justify my plans to anyone? Not really. Do I want people to think twice before making false assumptions about our plans or our intentions? You bet I do. It is in this spirit that I invite those skeptics to do the following: 1. Sleep outside tonight and maybe for a few nights that follow. 2. Skip the next week's worth of meals. 3. If you happen to catch the swine flu, don't call the doctor or take any medications to help with fever, congestion, etc. Even better, go back and repeat steps 1 and 2 while sick. Then, I want to you to stop and consider how you would feel if you were a child who had no home, no food, and no medical care. Can you imagine how frightening the world would be? How painful would it be to be hungry and sick and have no hope of anyone helping you?

Now let me tell you about my experience. Apart from the few "camping" adventures I had in my youth (when you have serious seasonal allergies, camping is not something you associate with pleasant memories), I have slept outside exactly one time. I was on a mission trip to Tampico, Mexico and the year was 1992. We had driven for two days and arrived at the embassy in Mexico very late at night. They decided that they didn't want to let us into the country just then. So, we began to clean the embassy building (to be a good witness and because we really had nothing else to do...). Eventually, exhaustion kicked in. After riding on a bus for so long, the last thing I wanted to do was climb back on and try to sleep. So, I got my pillow and blanket and fell asleep for a few hours on the ground. It was not fun. But it was only temporary. Imagine, if you will, what it would be like if tonight you did not have a warm, soft bed in which to sleep. I can't even fathom that.

Now let's talk about food. I can count on one hand the number of times I have gone hungry. Each of them was related to a medical procedure of some sort. You know what? I was extremely grouchy each time when those hunger pangs hit! Good grief - we are talking 24 hours! How would I feel if I only found scraps of food here and there to eat? Even worse, how would I feel if I couldn't provide food for my children? Again, I can't even fathom that.

How about medical care? What if I wasn't able to get treatment for my asthma? Would I have died by now? Possibly. There are so many preventable and treatable diseases that children all over the world are dying from simply because they have no access to medical care.

So, here I sit in my comfortable home, with every need I have met and then some and I think about the plight of the less fortunate. What are we to do? In our case, we are to bring into our family a child who needs one. What are you to do?