Orphan: The Unfair Name

I have four siblings with a different skin color.  And I'm OK with that.
I have four siblings who speak a different language.  And I'm OK with that.
I have four siblings who have lived in America for three weeks.  And that makes me happy.

Adoption is kind of a crazy thing.  It's hard and it takes work.  But the results are so beautiful.  Adoption - it's an oxymoron.

One event, one fact, one person can change lives in the matter of a second.  For The Four, one person meant a whole new life.  It meant and means a different future than the original one.  You see, we're Plan B.  This new forever family that they have didn't even know they existed until several months ago.

Just think.  Close your eyes and imagine.  At the edge of a valley lives a family.  A small family, working to survive, but happy.  The children love their parents and the parents love their children.  Can you see this family?  Now, picture a map of the world.  How many of those families are there on that map?  How many of those families live in this world?  But, one day or maybe over a few months, that family is changed, ruined.  Their future is bleak and only a few options remain.  What would you do?

Life might not be fair, but being an orphan isn't.  Living without a family - it isn't right.  

There is a side to my siblings that I will never know.  Their first steps, their first loose tooth, the clothes they wore, the places they saw and things they did.  Unless they speak about it or remember those things, I'll never know.  Those things, they're supposed to be remembered - by a mother and a father.  But they won't.  We missed twelve years of a boy's life; twelve very important years.  We missed a lot of years.  No.  Actually, we didn't even think about those years.  When these children were born, they weren't even in our thoughts.

There are 147 million orphans in this world.  One hundred forty seven million.  Do you know how many that is?  That's an unfathomable amount.  In this house live just four.  My family didn't even make a dent in that number.  They need you.  They need all of us.  Being an orphan isn't fair and ignoring their cry isn't either.  Please.  If you can.  Change a life for one of the 147,000,000.  

Your family might be Plan B, but any plan is better than none.  Orphan.  It's an unfair name to place on a child.  It's like a condemnation.  But God.  But you.  Together, you can change that name.  You can change a life.