Over the past 6 weeks, our family has been hosting a group of 4 brothers and sisters from an orphanage in Eastern Europe. These are the same children we hosted over Christmas and by now we’ve become a pretty tight-knit group. These are wonderful children! We love them, and they love us.
A big Thank You to Camary Miller Photography for taking some great pictures!
Saying Goodbye is Hard
After a summer of hugs and kisses and cuddles and swimming and running around playing in the sunshine, saying Goodbye is SO HARD! When they visited at Christmas, the day they left and the following days were difficult. The children cried when they left and I moped around the house eating comfort food and grieving their absence for at least a week. This time, even though they come from an extremely good orphanage, “Goodbye” started being hard weeks before they left. We keep a calendar on the fridge where they can clearly see when we go to church, to the eye doctor, to the dentist and to the airport. About two weeks into the 6 week trip my host daughter started pointing out departure day.
“Me go on airplane?” Yes, you’re going on an airplane.
“Mama miss me?” Yes, Mama will miss you very much.
“Mama cry?” Yes, Mama is going to cry when you leave.
“Me cry too. Me no go. Me stay right here with Mama.”
And this went on for weeks.
And then the crying started. Three days before they left, our oldest host daughter crawled on my lap and started to sob. She sat there crying for about 40 minutes. I was crying too. Her pain was so raw and there was nothing I could do about it. We finally stopped crying when my tears were landing on her arm and we started giggling about how I was giving her a shower in the living room!
And the next day there was more sitting on my lap and crying.
The night before they left, I tucked everyone into bed and shortly after I heard quiet sobbing. Then it turned into devastated wailing. And there was more quiet sobbing in the background. I walked into their bedroom and found 3 children sobbing quietly in their beds and 1 child curled up in a fetal position and dejectedly crying her little heart out. We had a group hug and I just let them cry. By midnight I had given up the idea that anyone would get any sleep and I let them get up and eat a snack. We prayed together and had a picnic on the bedroom floor. That settled 3 of the children, but the oldest host daughter (only 7 years old) would not be comforted.
I knew this little girl was going to need help leaving. She was going to need something to look forward to.
Postcards For Orphans
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So I promised her postcards. I had bought each child a photo album that holds 200 4×6 postcards and promised that every week or two I mail them postcards to collect in their album. The reality is that I don’t know how often we can Skype with them, so I can’t make any promises since that is partially dependent on the orphanage director’s schedule and is out of my control. I probably can’t even keep up (financially and energy-wise) with sending a package every month. But I can manage to send postcards every week or two. And the host children will think it’s fun to collect something!
I was right. They were so excited to pick out albums for themselves and are really looking forward to collecting postcards!
A Cheap and Simple Way to Help
Here’s where you come in. I can get postcards where I live, but I want to send them postcards from many places! I bought the host children a road map so they can see and mark where each postcard comes from. It will be fun AND educational!
Would you please send me 5 matching postcards from where you live? (Or from your next vacation!) Four will be sent to the host children for their albums and one will stay here with our family so that I can hold it up on Skype and we can talk about it. (Maybe write me a fun note on the back of the one for our family?) If I have a copy in my hand I can use the postcards as a fun way to continue teaching them English long-distance over Skype.
Send any kind of postcard. Funny, historical, pretty…. whatever strikes your fancy. The boys are 10 and 8 and the girls are 7 and 6. They will be excited to receive anything!
Where to Send the Postcards
You can mail your postcards to the GoodOldDaysFarm PO Box:
Good Old Days Farm
c/oAlina Joy Dubois
PO Box #435
Blue Ridge, TX
USA 75424
I’ll be posting updates about these children and our postcard project in our Dubois Adoption Prayer Warriors Facebook Group which you can find right here: www.Facebook.com/groups/DuboisAdoptionPrayerWarriors
Help Us Spread The Word!
Thank you so much for all the ways you have helped us bless these children! By sending us postcards you are helping us make this experience so much more interesting for them!
If you know someone who would be interested in helping us with this project or in following our hosting (and hopefully adoption) story, please share this post and invite them to join our Facebook Group! You can find other blog posts about our experiences hosting orphans at GoodOldDaysFarm.com/Adoption Thank you!
Are they not available for adoption? Is there any way you can become their forever Mama? We have 4 children adopted from an eastern European orphanage…it was the best thing we ever did.I will pray for an adoptive family for these kids ( either you or someone else).
We are not on facebook. Can I have your address so we can send postcards from NZ please?
We hosted them as part of a hosting program, so it’s a requirement to send them back at the end of hosting. We would be charged with kidnapping and child trafficking if we didn’t send them back and it would put the hosting program at risk, so other children might not be hosted in the future. Adoption is a separate process. I would love to just be able to keep them here, but unfortunately it doesn’t work that way. =(
Good Old Days Farm is the amazing author behind Will You Help Me Bless Orphans? (Cheap and Simple!)
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Children are our future. But for many, that future is uncertain. poverty, hunger, exploitation, abuse, natural disasters and lack of opportunity at a young age are indescribably distressing. Include the loss of love, support and comfort of family life and an orphaned child is the most tragic and poignant symbol of heartbreak imaginable.
Our Orphanage Home is specially called for the upkeep of orphans, abandoned babies, motherless, abused and less privileged children. All over the street, and society, we find these groups of helpless people who need care, support a sense of belonging and a home they can call theirs. Touched and moved by the plight and feelings of these our fellow human beings hence our vision is to provide them their peculiar needs in the area of shelter, health care, education, food and clothing. Our clear objective /goal is set at erasing completely street, psychological complex, low esteem, negative moral vices homeless children from our society. Beloved, sincerely speaking we cannot succeed in this divine course without your financial and material support. Please help us to put a smile on the faces of these Orphans, less privilege children. Every act of love, care and compassion to these orphans will be greatly rewarded, remember God loves a cheerful giver, nothing is to small join us this quest and help to build a life today.