The Forgotten Initiative (TFI), foster care ministry of Lifesong for Orphans, is bringing joy and purpose to the foster care community by LEARNING the needs, SHARING the needs and EQUIPPING the local church to meet those needs. 

Check out what TFI is doing to serve the foster care community...

PROJECT SUNSHINE: FOSTER HOME EDITION

Project Sunshine: Foster Home Edition is a fundraiser & service project all in one!
After foster children are removed from their homes, they often wait for hours in agency rooms. These same rooms are also used for weekly visitation between the birth parents and their children while they are in care. Project Sunshine was birthed out of a desire to create friendly spaces for kids during this dark time in their lives.

Project Sunshine: Foster Home Edition simply takes the Project Sunshine concept and applies it to a foster parent's home and at the same time raises funds for The Forgotten Initiative!
Check out this video to meet the families we are serving this year in Peoria, IL on May 17-18 and click here to see how YOU can play a part in serving the foster care community!

How can YOU help Project Sunshine: Foster Home Edition?

Volunteer
Participate "in-spirit"
DonateLearn more about Project Sunshine: Foster Home Edition>>

WHAT WE DO...

Watch our new vision video to get a better idea of how The Forgotten Initiative, as a whole, seeks to minister to the local foster care community by bridging the gap through Forgotten Advocates. 

Learn more about Forgotten Advocates & how you can help >>

UPCOMING FOSTER CARE MENTORSHIP TRAININGS

Mentors Needed: Step into the lives of children of vulnerable adults affected by foster care through relationship building, tutoring, job/life skills training, etc.

Register for the next Mentor Training>>

Tuesday, April 23, 2013
6 - 9 PM
Richwoods Christian Church, Peoria, IL

Read more from The Forgotten Initiative... 

Project Sunshine: Foster Care Edition 2012 - "My home looks so beautiful. The impact of being gone and coming home to see this is almost unbelievable. I just don't know how to say thank you enough." Watch the Video

American Orphans - "Only a life contemplating the love of Christ becomes a life acting the love of Christ. And love always moves. Loving first and foremost Christ. And loving others." Read Full Story

Perspective from Foster Care Caseworker - A caseworker's job is heart-breaking, challenging, and can be extremely overwhelming.  Read as Jenna shares her heart with us! Read Full Story

Impact of Journey Bags - "Last night at midnight three precious little beauties showed up on my doorstep. They each had with them a blanket, a stuffed animal, and a book bag, their Journey Bags of course..." Read Full Story

Medical Update On Maya

We had a phone call today with Dr. Jennifer Chambers with the International Adoption Clinic in Birmingham. It was so good to talk with a professional that could really decipher everything we were reading in these two pages of Bulgarian-translated-into-English-and-hope-its-right blabber. Here's what we've found out . . . Her heart condition is a little more complicated than we first thought. I had a gut feeling about this when we were in Bulgaria after talking with a pediatrician there. However, more complicated doesn't mean less manageable. Her condition has improved greatly over the past couple of years, since she had surgery to correct her Tetralogy of Fallot. You can read the specifics on this if you'll follow this link: http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/tetralogy-of-fallot/DS00615/DSECTION=causes.

  As of now, the general plan once we get her home is to meet first with a pediatric cardiologist at UAB. We intend to use Dr. Colvin because of our pleasant experience with him when he saw me during my pregnancy with the twins. He'll perform an ultrasound on her heart, and she'll also undergo a heart catheterization so that he can see exactly how her heart functions. That will determine what kind of treatment she'll require from that point on. She's currently taking two medications for her heart, and Dr. Chambers is encouraging us to be pretty insistent with the orphanage about being able to take away a month's worth of medicine when we leave the country. This is because of the variances in dosages when converting from European medicine to American medicine. Once we get her home and know better what we're looking at, we can then make the necessary adjustments in dealing with medications for her.

  Because I'm such a 'big picture' person, I asked the question that I wasn't sure about asking. But, I wanted to know. I asked Dr. Chambers what effect this would have on her life expectancy. As of right now, with what information she has, she doesn't expect a drastic change in how long Maya should typically live. However, we won't know anything for sure until this ultrasound and heart cath is done. That will tell us so much that we're not sure about right now. She did say she would expect that, at some point, Maya will probably have to have her pulmonary valve replaced, but no other specifics are going to be know until we begin her treatment.

Most other things we talked about dealt with her development. Straight up? She's underdeveloped. She's mentally and physically at the point of a 9-month-old. That doesn't scare me, though. Once we get her home, I have no doubt that things will begin to change for the better very quickly. The scariest part to me was what to feed her, especially while we're in country. Because she's never had solid food, Dr. Chambers suggested keeping her on whatever disgusting stuff she guzzles down with that bottle. Or maybe even taking American formula with us, thickening it with a bland rice cereal. Yes. Remember my post about the non-identifiable nastiness from that bottle? Once we're home, we'll hit the feeding issue pretty hard so we can begin to get good nutrition in her little body.

If you saw my Facebook post earlier this week, you know that we're excited about where things are in the process right now. We know that things could slow down at any given time, but we're very encouraged and pleased with the speed of things. God has given us sweet patience in knowing that his timing is perfect in all things. Continue sending prayers for Maya, that she stays healthy, safe, and strong until its her turn to feel the arms of her mama and daddy again.

Love,

Paige

In The Throes Of Waiting

Not a whole lot going on to speak of. Since we returned from Bulgaria, we've gone back to our everyday this's-and-that's, and we're talking occasionally with our people in the adoption world. We received our i800 approval this past weekend. That was the first step of a few that need to be taken in order to travel back to Bulgaria and bring our girl home. From here, we wait. I have learned to
 wait . . . and wait, and wait. However, I have to say that I'm actually surprised in how quickly this process has moved for us. We started this whole shindig last August and here it is being April. So, in eight months, we've gone through what I THINK will be the most time-consuming parts of this. Not only that, but we made our first trip almost a month ago. I fully expect to have this over and done with (meaning she will be HERE) by August of this year. Crazy. I really can't complain about anything. Our social workers with Lifeline have been super-duper about handling all of our questions (and there have been many) and they've really worked to get this thing going, too. Just love them.

Today I've been working on some paperwork for her appointment she'll have with the International Adoption Clinic in Birmingham. The doctors there are specialized with adopted children coming from other countries, and they know what things to look for in aiding with diagnosing and treating common issues that these children have. We're getting ready to send them our file that has all of Maya's medical information, along with some of the pictures and videos we collected while we were there. Another benefit is that when we travel back, they'll provide prescriptions for whatever medications she is currently taking for us to take with us, along with a 24-hour number we can call directly with any questions or concerns about her health we have while we're there. We weren't sure that we were going to utilize the referral services, which is what I just explained, but I think we'll feel much better about doing so once we're there. That way, if something happens that we're not sure about, we have somebody looking out for us that will be just a phone call away.

 The next thing we wait for is our court date. That's really the only big thing scheduled to happen next. She comes home when court is over. We're really, really, REALLY hoping this will happen sometime in May. It may be a teensy optimistic, but none of the professionals we've spoken with seem to think there's any reason for delay, despite the government troubles they're having right now. I could go into the explanation, but . . . it's really kinda boring. If we can get court in May, we're pretty sure we can get her in June. Which would be FANTABULOUS, because she could start RISE in August. That is, if there's a space for her, and we're praying hard that there will be a space. She needs that school and the therapies they could offer her tremendously. Pray for that.

The other kiddos are hanging in there. The boys are counting down the days until we're done with school. We don't have just a whole lot left, because we usually kick it into high gear when the county schools are out. We push through with our tunnel-vision on the prize that May brings of summer vacation. Ryan goes to his first formal this Friday night. He'll be all dressed up, and might even cut a little rug at the par-tay. When did my firstborn get this old?

So, that's it. I just felt that my blog had been a little lonely, so I figured I could type a few words in here to make it feel loved and wanted again :). Take care, peeps, and enjoy SPRING!

Love,

Paige