What an Awesome God!!

We all had had them.  Those situations that happen that when you stand back and look at it you realize that what just happened was not a coincidence.  That there is a God orchestrating everything under the sun and every once in a while you get a glimpse of what he is doing and you can only stand back and say WOW!  But I am getting ahead of myself, lets go back a few days.

We have been officially recognized as a Nonprofit Organization for a little over a month.  We knew the initial start up was going to be hard as there are a number of things that we need to get in place before we can really pushing on towards our mission.  One item that was high on our priority list was getting funding going for the transition home in Donetsk.  We had posted a blog and on Facebook about the need and we decided to let God work.  While we were thinking financially, God had another idea.

A women from Northwest Indiana had messaged me (Matthew) about how she can help.  She was not able to support us financially but wanted to use her gifts to help where she could.  After a few emails back and forth about how she can help the conversation took a different direction.  Here is that portion of the email.

Also, there's a girl that I really have had on my mind. She is listed on Reeces Rainbow (Karen) and is Donetsk (sp), Ukraine. She has no special need but has a younger sister that does which is why she is listed. She has turned 16 and is in danger of aging out. I thought I read that you had contacts there. Is it possible to connect them somehow?. I really really hate to see this girl fall through the cracks. To top it off shes Roma so that seems that life will be doubly hard for her. If there's anything I can do, Id love to help. Thanks so much.

I really wasn't sure how we could help, but it was worth at least looking into.  I decided to email her back to get more details, I also carbon copied Shane on the email as he was the one with the connections in Donetsk.

I have attached Shane Lewis in this email.  He has the connections in Donetsk, and is going to the Ukraine later this month.  What do you have in mind as far as trying to help this girl out?  We love it that you have a heart for orphans and would love to try to assist you in whatever way you might want to help this girl.  Please share with us what God has put on your heart.

And she replied.

Well.... I'm not sure what is feasible. Obviously the most ideal thing would be if someone adopted her and her sister (They have to be adopted together at this point) but I know that's realistically probably not going to happen. If you have the contacts in Donetsk could there be someway to connect her with them? Maybe some church there would be willing to help her with housing, school, a support system etc...I don't know if some type of student visa here to the states would be possible either. This girl has just broken my heart! Let me know what you think please!

This email was sent to me so I forwarded it over to Shane knowing he would have some ideas.  Shane has adopted 5 children from the Ukraine, first a set of 4 girls, and most recently his daughter Lakshmi joined the family a few months back.  Shane and his wife Diana are going back later this month two adopt two more daughters.   Shane has the connections in Donetsk, if there was someone that had a chance of looking into Karen while in Donetsk it would be Shane.  It was long shot, but I figured it was a chance.  Imagine mt surprise when I read his email.

The girl she is talking about was Lakshmi's best friend when they were 5. She was also good friends with Ella, the girl that we just took into our transition home. The orphanage they were in together closed and they were separated  Lakshmi was super excited when I showed her the picture today.
 We do have an opening in our transition home. I'm not making any promises. If you'd like I could go and visit her when we are in Donetsk.
 There is a possibility of bringing her here on a student visa, but it is very difficult before the age of 18. If she were to stay with us for two years, then we could file the paperwork to bring her here to study, if that is what you wanted to do at that time.

Now I cannot be the only one with goose bumps after reading that.  There are estimated 147 million orphans worldwide.  This is not a coincidence.  We don't know how this story is going to play out.  But this small glimpse of the way that God is working all things to his good was humbling to say the least.

I think it is time to quit looking at 147 million orphans and not seeing 147 million faces.  We need to start this journey by looking at one orphan, it we can change the life of just one orphan any amount of effort will be worthwhile.  Maybe this is the one.  Say hello to Karen.