[Faith-talk] asking for prayer

[Barbara Hammel]

On the contrary, they don't want their blind themselves.  I know, some 
parents do keep them, but many don't.
In fact, I'll tell you the whole story.

We waited for a year to adopt domestically but because of my being blind and 
my husband being much older than me, we were never chosen by a birth 
mother--or our portfolio was never shown.  That's neither here nor there now 
because it's the past.  Only the workers know for sure and maybe they'll 
have to answer one day.

So September of 04 I called to check on our status and they asked if we'd 
thought about going international.  (Of course, blind parents would make 
excellent parents for a blind child.)  We said yes we could do that.  They 
told us about a little boy in Hong Kong who was four years old.  We saw 
video and decided that autism just might be more than we could handle so 
said no to him.  While we were waiting to hear about another four-year-old 
boy in the Phillipines, a family wanted one of the ladies to go with them to 
China to help them through the process.

While she was there, in November, she asked the Chinese lady if there were 
any blind children.  You see, there is a list of children of promise that 
some Asian countries list their special needs children on.  China does not 
put blind children on this list because they figure no one will want them.

The lady checked and very shortly reported to the American that they did 
have two two-year-olds.  And, yes, they were twins.  I had always wanted 
twins.

We got all our paperwork done by the first of January and miraculously the 
twins were okayed for just us.  If they'd gone on the regular list they'd 
have been there for anyone.

Our dossier got to China, after taking only three weeks to translate it, and 
arrived just before the New Year which is a fifteen day holiday.  At the end 
of April we finally heard that we'd been approved.

On our seventh anniversary we walked in to the adoption center in Kunming to 
receive our children.

And as you saw in an earlier post, ironically, the thing I didn't want I 
ended up with double.

I know God does not give us more than we can handle but for the past three 
years this family has barely been able to keep our noses out of the water. 
I just keep praying that one day we'll look back on these days and not 
believe how awful they were.  And maybe they just seem that way because for 
the first few months all both did was scream.  Then this past January Jesse 
screamed nonstop for six months because it took that long to find the 
hernias.  Praise be for their teacher who discovered one.  Then two months 
later Paul started screaming and hurting anyone who came near him.

This time I think God gave us a bite that was too big to swallow.  But He 
knows what He's doing and no matter how little or much I teach them, as long 
as we try our best to love them the best way we know how, God will work His 
plan with them.  I just wish He would enlighten me.

Barbara

--------------------------------------------------
From: "Beth" <thebluesisloose at gmail.com>
Sent: Friday, November 14, 2008 9:12 AM
To: "Faith-talk,for the discussion of faith and religion" 
<faith-talk at nfbnet.org>
Subject: Re: [Faith-talk] asking for prayer

> Well, I'll pray for them.  That's nice you've adopted twtin boys from
> China who are blind.  You would think the Chinese wouldn't allow that
> to happenh because they don't want their blind outside of China or
> they don't want their blind to see the world.  Anyway, I'd like to
> adopt special needs children myself if I get married.  Good luck.
> Beth
>
> On 11/14/08, Barbara Hammel <poetlori8 at msn.com> wrote:
>> Since I am new to this list, most of you may not know that my husband and 
>> I
>> adopted twin boys from China three years ago.  They are blind and on the
>> autism spectrum of disorders.
>> Well, constipation has been an ongoing occurrence with both of them. 
>> Jesse
>> did have double hernias that were taken care of in late summer.  But now
>> Paul spent last weekend in the hospital to clear him out but he is not 
>> back
>> to normal.
>> The request is that we and the doctors would have wisdom as to how to 
>> help
>> this child get back to his bright sunny self.  He has missed quite a bit 
>> of
>> school in the last few weeks.
>> And yes, should anyone suggest, they are already on Miralax which is a
>> natural stool softener.
>> Barbara
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