When Brian and I contacted Reeces Rainbow about the sibling group "Samuel" and "Sara" (whom have a family now working to adopt them!) we were introduced to the role of a Prayer Warrior. The prayer warrior program is for a family to become designated "prayer warriors" for a specific waiting child. There is no cost to participate so everyone can easily become a part of the program. I blogged a while ago about how we are commanded to care for orphans and that even if we can't adopt we still can do something...well here is your something! The more prayer warriors the better as these kids need desperate prayers! Reeces Rainbow is a ministry that lists and finds families for international orphan children mainly with down syndrome, but has branched out to include "Other Angels" which are children with other special needs be it physical, mental, or even just sibling groups or older children that are hard to place due to age. The objective of a prayer warrior is that you will pray daily for your specific waiting child that they are receiving the proper care and all their needs are being met, that they are being loved on, and that their forever family will see them and they will be moved to the "My Family Found Me" page as a family proceeds with their adoption. Our role is to pray for that child now as they wait, continue to pray for them when hopefully a family steps up to make them their own, then we will continue to pray for them during the process, and also even once they are home in the loving arms of their parents! Prayer is a powerful thing and when you pick out the specific child you wish to pray for you potentially (and most likely) are the only person out there saying a prayer for that dear child which is sad but realistically true. We were jumping for joy when we found out "Samuel" and "Sara" were chosen after praying so hard for them. It is amazing when you see your prayers become fruitful and we look forward to following their new family's journey as they work to bring them home!
So most recently Brian and I decided to become prayer warriors! If you feel led to chose a child you and your family would like to pray for, a listing of the waiting children can be found here: http://reecesrainbow.org/new-family/thechildren
The children are in different categories: the children with down syndrome are split by age and gender, the other angels are split by age and gender as well, HIV+ children are split by age, and then there are the other angels sibling groups category. I will warn you, once we started to go through the listings we became overwhelmed with the multitude of waiting children. According to statistics there are 143,000,000 orphans in the world today. The groups we went through while the listings of faces seemed endless however knowing there are 143 million orphans out there, these few listed children are only a minute example of children needing parents put it all into perspective.
To pick our prayer warrior child we decided to go through the HIV+ and the other angels boys and girls 0-5 and 6-9 groupings. We opened new windows when a child stuck out to either of us and once we were done going through those six groupings we then went back through the children that stuck out to us that we saved. After prayerful consideration and about 8 kids we pulled from the long listings, we both decided we wanted to become prayer warriors for "Juri"! It was actually Brian that really selected "Juri" as he said he was the only one that seemed perfect for us to pray for and I agreed with his decision that we could be his prayer warrior. I am partial to "Juri's" green eyes (or hazel as Brian insists they are called) as my husband is also a green eyed babe :)
Once you select a child you can go to this page: http://reecesrainbow.org/sponsorship/prayerwarriors and fill out the form to be formally matched as a prayer warrior for that child. Since selecting "Juri" we have both prayed daily for him and will continue to do so.
Here is "Juri" (they use alias names for privacy so that is not his real name):
http://reecesrainbow.org/53217/juri
His snippet bio states this:
Boy, born November 2007
Cerebral palsy, flail legs
Juri sits and crawls, but does not walk without support. The boy is very good, sociable and cheerful. He is very positive and bright! Can eat and dress without help. Juri is a favorite in the group, likes to play. He is very friendly and doesn’t create conflicts. Also, he is very cute!
So "Juri" is 5 years old and will turn 6 sometime in November and lives in Eastern Europe. We were also able to view a short video of him and he is just a doll! The undated video highlights him standing with a walker on his own trying to take some steps and then laughing, giggling, and throwing balls as he plays in the ball pit. After coming across this little video gem we knew we found the diamond in the rough and it cemented our decision to be his prayer warriors! Seeing him standing on his own, we are sure with physical therapy and possibly surgery and/or leg splints "Juri" could be running in no time! He also can be seen chatting it up in the video and he looks like such the talker and is said to be very bright.
(Does he look mischievous or what?)
These are more recent pictures we are led to believe:
He is said to be in a great orphanage (as good as an orphanage could possibly be for a child) right now but once he is older (could even be transferred this year due to his age) he is destined for an invalid institution much like where "Samuel" is living if his family is not found soon! There is $45 in his grant fund and we pray it increases as it has been proven the more donated funds in a child's grant fund, the easier it is to find them a family.
Plus he's ticklish!!!!
This is an older picture of him hanging out in a high chair:
So who will be your chosen prayer warrior child?!?!
(Be sure to send me a message of which child you choose if you decide to join our militia of prayer warriors!)
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